| Jeff the Baptist, vol. 1, #12 He or She: What's in a Pronoun?
A number of readers were a bit surprised at my
nonchalant use of the term *She* to refer to God last column. One particularly thoughtful
response wondered if I limit the beauty and majesty of God by referring to Him as *She.*
Do I? I dare say there were probably other, unsaid, responses that were quite a bit
harsher...
At what point does language become a weapon? Should we draw borders between friend and foe
because of pronoun usage? How can one word touch off such a firestorm of sermons, articles
and columns these days? Why is *He* so comforting, and *She* so threatening, to so many?
It's confusing and threatening in two ways, I believe. Using *She* on the first level
instigates, quite simply, a power struggle. Using *She* also radically affects, on a
second and deeper level, our search for meaning. Both are, I believe, vitally important.
First the power struggle. There are those who see the nuclear family as a divine
institution. The arrangement of Father, mother, children (note the capitalization)
re-creates daily the act of Creation. We have a divine Father, created first, overseeing
and protecting his Kingdom. The mother and children, who come later, serve to glorify and
worship the Father for his trouble. Whether it's a divine Creator, Richard the
Lionhearted, or the Smiths next door, the pattern is basically the same. It's
hierarchical.
It's based on a perceived superiority of the man over everyone else. He provides security,
she and the children glorify Him in return. True, it's a rather transactional way of going
about things, but it works pretty well.
Unless you question the wisdom of such an arrangement. That's when the trouble begins.
Question its wisdom and you become a threat to its very raison d'etre. I know. I've been
there.
It's tough for the men who stake their manhood on such an illusion of superiority.
Questioning the superiority strikes at the very heart of who such men consider themselves
to be. That's why, I believe, men, and women, who build their self-identities on
patriarchy so vehemently oppose any
changes to that order. Questions only serve to remind that they just might be wrong.
That's why God cannot be *She.* Each use of the pronoun in reference to God questions the
divinely ordained superiority of men. Each use questions the male right to be the true
spiritual leader. Each use, as
some would have it, undermines the institutions of family and society. Each use seeks to
destroy all that is held dear in the hearts of - you guessed it - men everywhere.
Right.
It's not a question of pronouns; it's a question, for all too many, of who we are and how
we should interact with one another.
But let's return to that more thoughtful objection that whereas *He* doesn't solely
represent men but all humanity, *She* detracts from His divinity by trying to limit God to
an image that nowhere near captures His greatness. I disagree.
Which brings me to the, more fundamental, second level: how our search for meaning is
affected. If *She* communicates a number of images, I believe that *He* does even more.
The only thing is, *He* images have the stamp of approval because, so far anyway, they've
stood the test of time. On the
other hand, *She* points out ways in which our traditional views of God may very well be
incomplete. Take Moses' image of God as desert warrior, for example. Claiming the right to
slaughter scores, because of a special relationship with God, may have been justifiable in
BC Palestine, but in the
latter half of the twentieth century it smacks of just one more super-race theory.
Then, too, I find Anselm's image of God as lord of the manor, though yet very influential
with all too many, to be missing something vital. That it was considered very thoughtful
in a time when feudal relationships was the norm is true, but how much sense does it make
today to talk of repaying a
debt of honor to our King? How much sense does it make to reduce Jesus to a lamb that,
through a blood sacrifice, ends the dishonor of a feudal King and restores the balance of
a Kingdom?
Images matter. *She* doesn't limit us. If anything, *He* does. Can you imagine a man with
a womb? It's tough. How about a man with womb-like compassion? For some men I know, that's
even harder. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that the ancient Israelites had some
problems with that image, too. However, what they didn't have problems with is describing
God like that. Scholars such as Trible, in her landmark God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality,
are uncovering Hebrew images of God that tradition has always ignored. For example, the
Hebrew word *rehem* means "womb." The adjective *rahum,* derived from rehem,
means "compassionate" or "merciful." Trible points out that, of all
the characteristics of God in the Hebrew Scriptures, the one image that consistently pops
up through the epochs is "Yahweh merciful (i.e. rahum) and gracious." So, which
is the clearer image, after all: Angry King or Compassionate Lover?
Continued exegesis by scholars is posing many other thought-provoking questions about ways
to see God and ourselves {ref: http://www.womenpriests.org/scriptur/genesis.htm}. Was the first being Adam? Or was the first being the non-gender earth creature
(*ha adam*) formed from the earth (*ha adama*)?
Was Eve created as Adam's helpmate? Or was the second ha adam created so that we could
find partnership and intimacy and fulfillment in the arms of each other? The *ezer* or
"helpmate" of Genesis 2:18 {ref: http://www.khouse.org/blueletter/Gen/Gen002.html#18},
while traditionally thought to illustrate women's inferior status, is also used to refer
to God, who helps us, in Psalm 33:20 {ref: http://www.khouse.org/blueletter/Psa/Psa033.html#20}
Hosea 13:9 {http://www.khouse.org/blueletter/Hsa/Hsa013.html#9},
and other places.
How conveniently we forget. Are we saying, then, that God is man's inferior?
Lastly, does all this mean our leadership models should be based on a King/Kingdom pattern
with clear levels of hierarchy and superiority? Or should they be based on partnership
because a loving God, with womb-like compassion, saw that a ha adam needs a peer to truly
be fulfilled?
Images matter. How can we, in good conscience, continue to willfully mistranslate the
Creation stories when simple research shows that things may not be as clear as tradition
teaches? Somehow, all too many of us do. *She* shakes us up. Using it reminds us that God
is much larger than we make Him out to be. It reminds us to stop recasting God in our
image. It reminds us to direct our energy toward living up to Hers.
- Jeff the Baptist
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