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TechnoratiMuch of the controversy that has been stirred up by William Paul Young’s bestselling novel The Shack relates to the depiction of God the Father as an African American woman and the Spirit as an Asian woman. With this daring innovation, Young introduced the evangelical church to a debate that has been going on for several decades in the mainline Christian churches: is it ever appropriate to think of God with female imagery and titles? Is it ever appropriate to call God Mother?
Whenever the question of calling God Mother has been broached in the church, the response has often been, to say the least, negative. Indeed, charges of idolatry and Goddess worship are quick to follow. According to many of the vocal critics, the incorporation of mother language into liturgy, hymnody and prayer constitutes a grievous error at best, and apostasy from Christian faith at worst. But is that charge warranted or is there something to be said for thinking of God as Mother?
Two views on mother language
Before we enter into the center of the debate over Mother-God language, we should note that one could argue for it in a strong way or a weak way. According to the strong case Mother language ought to be included in our liturgies, hymnody and prayers as a supplement to Father language. According to this argument, without female imagery and terms of address, our thought about and experience of God is impoverished.
The weak case makes no claims that Mother language is necessary for the fullest experience of God, but instead seeks only to argue that it offers an additional way to think of God available to those who cannot conceive of him as Father.
Of course this prompts the question of why anybody would have a problem with Father language. In my experience many evangelicals assume that any difficulty with thinking of God as Father comes from a rebellious feminist spirit that refuses to submit to male authority. The great thing about The Shack is that it blows the doors off that assumption. In the book we meet Mackenzie Phillips, a grown man who cannot relate to God as Father not because of any aversion to male headship, but rather because his human father was a vicious abuser.
This prompts yet another question: how many people – women and men – might there be who find it difficult to relate to God as Father? However many there may be, the weaker case asks us to consider opening up to them the possibility of thinking of God with maternal images and language.
The Transcendence of God
Any debate over language and God should begin with the recognition that God transcends our experience and language. The word “transcendence” comes from a Latin word meaning “to climb beyond”, and it is used by theologians as a way to emphasize that God exists beyond our experience and understanding. In Isaiah 61:1 the prophet describes God’s transcendence as follows: “This is what the LORD says: ‘Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Where is the house you will build for me? Where will my resting place be?’” (TNIV) In the same way that God exists beyond any place of worship that we would build for him, so he always exists beyond our concepts, ideas and experience.
In the present case this means that while we may think of God with male categories, God is no more limited by those categories than he is limited by the four walls of a house of worship. God transcends both male and female as surely as he transcends architecture.
Once we come to recognize the full extent of the divine transcendence we can recognize that it may in principle be possible to think of God with personal categories beyond the masculine. Continue »
Rhi Bran »
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