A Gendered God

As the world has changed, the idea of who God is and what God desires has shifted in many Christian denominations as well. New revolutions of gender and sexuality have arisen over the past fifty years, and on the heels of those revolutions has come a inter-denominational fight to redefine the gender of God Himself. Historically, the holy Trinity was known to be the Godhead three-in-one. One God, three individual persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. This was the Trinity that was established very early in the Church, and the Trinity consistently referred to throughout holy Scripture. Just as society has attempted to re-gender our entire existence, many modernist Christians are looking to re-gender the Trinity as well. The words "Father" and "Son" have become unacceptable as part of their doctrine of God, because they exclude women as part of the Godhead. So new definitions have started popping up. I have personally heard the feminist “Mother, Helper, and Friend” version as well as the declaration of a “gender-transcendent” God who is completely neutral in sex or gender in all persons.

There are things that we can admit happily concerning God’s “feminine” attributes—God is loving and kind, merciful and nurturing. God is understanding. On the other hand, we must stand firm in our belief that God is a gendered God (by His own self-definition), is gendered male, and is fully meant to be gendered male within Christianity. We know this in part because Christ, God the Son, constantly refers to God the Father as “my Father,” or “our Father,” a fully masculine pronoun. There is no dispute in the Greek nor Aramaic nor in any translation. We also know that Christ is a human male (Son of God and Son of man). He has a man’s body and is fully man! He fully shares in our humanity while maintaining His full divinity. There is no question from scripture, tradition, or any account that speaks otherwise. To say that Christ is a not a man is heresy. To say He is not God is heresy. This was not an invention of the Church Fathers, this is the one True faith that was formed by God has stood the test of time.

What devout Christians (who also call themselves feminists) need to ask themselves is this: Why would the trinitarian God reveal any new truth about Himself within a random tiny perspective group two thousand years after establishing the original Church? Why not reveal it from the beginning? There were plenty of Christians dying for their controversial views in the early Church, so why wasn’t a “female God” or “God the Mother” one of these things? Is it safe to make presumptions about the Creator of the universe with a mindset that is not fully invested in the faith? What does it mean to have the mind of Christ as opposed to the lens of feminism? Surely they cannot always be in alignment, so which one would you pick if you had to choose? If you hesitated to answer, I would encourage you to check your priorities. Remember who gives you your life, your worth, your ultimate value. Not men, nor women, but Christ our LORD.

I’m not trying to rain on anyone’s parade or disrespect anyone’s ideology. I only wish to prove a point: If you want to be a truly devout Christian, throw off everything else, and follow Christ with your whole life, even unto death. Love women as Christ loved women; treat women as Christ treated women; see women as people made in God’s image; see them as useful and important and equally loved by God. These are all parts of being a Christian. Do not, however, use an earthly ideology to warp what the author of our faith made known to us from the beginning of the Church, and which has been carried through the ages. To do so is to throw away what Christ made known and to become anathema. We must never abandon what He taught us for the sake of our political or ideological camps. Those who wish to reform the Church’s thinking must seriously decide whether or not they actually desire the Church, or if they desire an idol of their own making.

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“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” ~Matthew 28:19

“And behold, a voice out of the heavens said, ‘This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased’." ~Matthew 3:17