I posted a comment over on the McCarty Blog about the gender of God. Not really about the gender of God, just the way we refer to God using pronouns. Here's my position: since the pronoun she already contains he, and since we believe—at least I hope we do—that God transcends gender or that God contains or is an expression of both genders, I move that we refer to God as she. It will be a new kind of she though. In reference to God it will be SHe or s(he). I know it's a pain in the ass to type, but I think the fundies and evangelicals are going to love this idea. It solves all those petty arguments. My next project is to invent a new second person plural for the English language.
Certainly God transcends gender, and is inadequately defined by the pronoun he, however there are certain male elements of God that the "he" connotes, and fundamentalists are not too happy about changing the original Hebrew to fit new understandings on gender. I would take exception that "God is an expression of both genders." You would do much better with "each gender is a different expression of God." Here I stop and consider how arbitrary this whole thing seems. So I'll just say that the only thing you're wrong about is that fundamentalists will be overjoyed about using ambiguous adjetives. The letter of the rule is the important thing for a fundamentalist. Interpretation is a separate procedure to be considered later. Now let us consider what the text actually denotes and later decide what it connotes. The interpretation phase ought not be accomodated by the observation phase.
Posted by: Applesauce | October 12, 2004 at 09:51 PM
My dearest applesauce, how wonderfully credulous you are. Thanks for stopping by. As I've said before, the danger of only reading a post here is that you'll miss the larger conversation. I'm fully aware of how fundies would feel about my little idea. I was just "funnin'."
Posted by: greg | October 12, 2004 at 11:06 PM
SHe sounds a little to like a "she-male". Then I start seeing God as a drag queen. Hugh, that's creepy. I think God should never be refered to as a pronoun. Something that great should only be refered to as God. So it would go like this...
Man 1: So where is God?
Man 2: God is over there.
Man 1:God is?
man 2: Yup, God sure is!
Man 1: You're right. There God is!
I think it works!!!
Posted by: eddie | October 12, 2004 at 11:21 PM
Uhm, who is Hugh? Second, what do you do with reflexives? I use Godself sometimes, but it gets a bit clunky.
Posted by: greg | October 12, 2004 at 11:28 PM
I like Eddie's idea a lot. Our clergy intern this past summer did something similar when reciting the Holy Eucharist liturgy (i.e., "it is right to give him thanks and praise" became "it is right to give God thanks and praise"). What a simple change, and yet how profound! Hearing this, and knowing her, makes me optimistic about the new generation of clergy. My wife regularly "feminizes" the Holy Spirit part of the Nicene Creed (i.e., "with the father and the son he is worshiped and glorified" becomes "with the father and the son she is worshiped and glorified") and occasionally gets a curious glance from an old-timer in the pew behind us. But it's all good. It's all God.
Posted by: Anglican | October 12, 2004 at 11:58 PM
Hugh, is my new word for God. No silly, Hugh is the sound that comes out of my mouth when something gives me the shivers from being so creepy or gross. DUH.
P.S. I don't know what reflexives are so let's do away with those as well!
Eddie
Posted by: eddie jones | October 13, 2004 at 08:47 AM
It is absolutley necessary that we refer to God as a man because God is a man. The Bible says so. And the Bible also says that the church is the bride and that Christ is the bride groom and they will get married one day at the great wedding feast, consumated, joined together, becoming one. It is very beautful and pretty.
Because of this I think that all church should tear down (deconstruct) their steeples. It doesn't jive with what the Bible says. Instead they should dig a hole around the base of their building and plant beautful bushes around it.
Eagerly awaiting the consumation.
Posted by: Bro. Tim | October 13, 2004 at 10:53 AM
I have to state, for the record, that I resent the title of this blog.
Posted by: Kristen M | October 13, 2004 at 08:01 PM
Does the idea of "divine consumation" bother anyone else? I wonder what "Holy Penetration" would feel like. I think gender becomes important here because I would like to know if I will be the giver or the submissive reciever!
Posted by: Adam | October 14, 2004 at 10:46 AM
Damn. It's like anything clever I would want to say has been said in a less-clever way. I need to get me some of that internet at my home so it's not just time at work I'm wasting reading these things AND I can get in early on the crack-making.
Also:
S/He is common in philosophical settings to refer to non-specific persons. Prehaps this is a good application of your idea, Greg. Or maybe we can just refer to God as a woman, since creating humans is way more womanly than manly, and it's the first thing we noticed She did.
And I think maybe Eddie means "eewww."
Posted by: marty | October 14, 2004 at 03:15 PM
"Submissive receiver"?
Posted by: Kristen M | October 15, 2004 at 07:53 AM
Kristen,
Yeah, "submissive receiver", I mean, if God is doing the giving then what choice do we have than to submissively recieve his "fullness".
Posted by: Addy Mac | October 15, 2004 at 08:32 AM