Image of God: female?
I am wondering how confused I might be about being a woman and a Christian. It is quite possible that I am more confused than I know. It dawned on me today that we are to identify ourselves in God, and specifically in Jesus, but does that effect at all the fact of male and female? What does it mean, not just what do select fundamentalists and feminists want it to mean, to be a woman? Is there really a difference in how males and females identify themselves in Jesus? We are told that “There is neither … male nor female in Christ Jesus”… But what does that mean? I am really kinda tired of making my own identity, but I am also not wanting to wear head coverings and think that I can’t be as spiritual as a guy…
posted by Sasha @ 5:54 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Having been through the early feminist movement of the 1970's, and the inclusive language changes in the Episcopal church in the 80's, I can say I still don't know my own position on that one either.
Did God manifest as a male/father and Jesus as a male/son simply as a social construct or cultural convenience? No...I think we humans have authority issues, dating back from the garden of Eden.
But then, with a totally male godhead, we end up feeling unbalanced. We crave the sacred feminine so badly, we turn to mariology in place of direct contact with God the father;
or look for Godessness in paganism or dualism...
we even try to twist the OT wisdom writings to make "Virtues" (created enties) into a half baked collage of the Holy Spirit; leaving out the bothersome masculine images attributed to (him) as well.
I expect the reason we crave a goddess image has to do not only with wanting to create God in our image;
it has to do with a -right- desire that God put in our hearts. When we seek to know God--we want allll of him/her. There are very few mystics who are unmoved by the grandmother images in George MacDonalds tales, for example. There's got to be a way we can crave and express this, without running into heresy.
As for identifying with the feminine aspect of God- CS Lewis wrote about everyone being feminine in comparison to Jesus, as the groom, and we the church, the bride.
I suspect it's a case of
"both/and"; that God is both and neither - or rather not only. But we have such a human problem with his authority that he's chosen to emphasize the masculine picture of Father + son/heir. When we "get it", is when we'll probably be ready for the sacred feminine in the trinity, without creating a false God in our own image; or making oursleves little godlets either!
Thanks for opening this discussion and allowing comments. It's nice to ponder outloud like this.
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