Divine Gender and Egalitarian Worship
Jeffrey Bricky
With history as it has unfolded, it comes as no surprise that our most commonly revered deity bears male traits. The countless volumes of metaphysical and pragmatic accounts have all for the most part been written by men, the religions that are prevalent in most societies are male-centric, and our culture to date follows this trend as well.This is an uninterrupted injustice founded on an unjustified principle. Women have been exempted from participating in the hierarchy of Abrahamic churches due to the commonly held misconception that God is male. In this essay, it will be argued that God transcends gender, and women should thus have equal opportunities within church hierarchies.
First and foremost, the notion that God has a gender sounds outright nonsensical. Though this notion dates to ancient religions and faiths, it is not applicable to the monotheistic traditions that hold up the notion of a transcendental divine being, especially with regards to Christianity. Adrian Thatcher, author of God, Sex, and Gender: An Introduction, states this point quite nicely: “…to think of God as a Person, male or female, is to ignore or to contradict the doctrine of the Trinity, and to make a huge theological mistake” (Thatcher 119). Logically speaking, God being a transcendental being means God also is not adherent to things like gender and sex, especially since both man and woman are created in God’s image, according to Abrahamic tradition. By reason alone, applying gender to God is a foolish notion.
It must also be said that God has been given remarkably feminine traits, as well as male. The passages of Isaiah describe God as ‘like a woman in childbirth’, and ‘as a mother’. These are just a few small examples, but the interesting point to reiterate is that both man and woman are made in God’s image. If women are also a part of God’s image, then God cannot exclusively be male or female.
Though it is illogical to ascribe to God a gender, it still commonly occurs amongst all the monotheistic traditions. There are several reasons why this could be, but there is an underlying fetishization of the divine that has not been properly addressed. Most people regard the divine as their heavenly father, and this could be due to a few underlying social issues. One must investigate within the context of how these churches developed from a psychological and historic standpoint to uncover these issues. Historically speaking, men have dominated religious movements and church work simply because it was another kind of work. In the early recorded histories, women cared for the young, and men went to toil in the fields, to defend the land, or to manage the country. So, God was made into a male being because men shaped the faith in their image. But from a psychological standpoint there has been some context left out. The world is not a nice or forgiving place, and especially not in the times before modern medical practices. Diseases could wipe out towns, feudalism crushed the spirits of those in the labor force, and fathers would be marched to wars over a noble’s dispute for land on a regular basis. This certainly led to some parental absence, and with modern psychology we know what kind of an effect this can have on children. So, seeing God as a man may have been ancient and medieval people’s coping mechanism to feel the presence of a caring male figure. This is of course only in speculation, but, nonetheless, is not too unreasonable to be discounted as a possibility.
So, after discussing why God should not be ascribed a gender, the task is now to discuss the injustice and inequity of not permitting women to lead within the church hierarchies. There are several reasons as to why this is a shameful practice, but for the sake of being concise, only three will be discussed: the role of women in shaping church traditions, the importance of equity within the church, and modern movements within the churches that align with this argument.
To begin with the most important of these topics, women have very literally shaped the course of monotheism. Aside from the countless nuns, laypeople, and other female worshippers of the divine, there are a few women who deserve to be pointed out for having direct influence over the monotheistic traditions as we know them.
The obvious starting point amongst them is the Virgin Mary, who is a quintessential figure within Christianity, for she was the one to bring Jesus into the world. According to the Bible, Mary was visited by an angel and given a child to bring into the world by the holy spirit. While there is no real explained answer in the bible as to why Mary was chosen to birth Jesus, she was the person to raise Jesus. From an understanding of history, this would imply that Mary raised Jesus and his brothers effectively alone while Joseph was working as a carpenter. As such, Mary would have had a larger influence on shaping Jesus’s philosophies and ideas about the world than most others in his life. Also, regarding Jesus, there were several disciples of his that were women. “What is not so often noted is that we also know women by name from among his circle of devoted disciples: Mary the mother, Mary Magdalene, the ‘other’ Mary, Mary of Bethany, Joanna, Susanna, and Salome” (Scholer). Jesus Christ was fully accepting of women to be leaders and devotees to the will of God, and it shows prevalently in documentation around the origins of Christianity.
Another shining example of a woman of extreme importance is Mohammad’s wife Aisha, who defined many traditions in Islam because of her wisdom and intellect. Not only did Aisha define these traditions but were it not for her Mohammad may have never become the prophet, for she was the primary money earner during their marriage. As such, it would imply that Mohammad would owe his education that allowed him to scribe out the word of God to Aisha. This would mean that Aisha is effectively the only reason Mohammad was able to become a prophet of God and is single handedly the most important figure to respect involving the beginnings of Islam. To say that women have not held an important position in defining the traditions as they are known today is a brazen falsehood.
One lesser known, but very powerful example of a woman is Deborah, the prophetess and judge of the Hebrews. Deborah is known for being
“the only female judge, and also the only judge to be called a prophet, Deborah is a decisive figure in the defeat of the Canaanites, a victory told in two accounts, a prose narrative in Judges 4 and an ancient song known as the Song of Deborah, probably composed not long after the original events, possibly by Deborah herself, and preserved in Judges 5” (Frymer-Kensky).
It is a lesser known trait that judges of the era she was alive for were granted the position for military successes. Though it is not known how she came to be a judge, it should be noted that she was not a person to be trifled with. As such a woman, she guided the Hebrew people to victory in times of war with such success that, as mentioned in the quote, there is a song devoted to her name. There is a woman, if not many women, of great resolve, respect, and great influence found in each of these traditions.
However, it should also be noted that the church has unjustly painted women in a negative light. In the Tanakh, the Hebrew holy text, there is the story of Lilith, the original woman, who God also molds out of clay. Specifically, from the Alphabet of Ben Sira, “…Adam’s first wife, Lilith, expected to share power equally with Adam since both were made of the same substance” (Murray 82). According to the myth, Lilith refused to be below Adam during sex, and because of their dispute, fled. God sent angels after her to attempt to have her return, and instead they cursed her into becoming the mother of demons. Now, in the modern era, this myth sounds more like the angels are the real monsters since they cursed her for eternity over a dispute of who should be on top during sex. However, this myth stood as a testament to why women should be subordinates to men, because the later claim is that Adam’s second wife Eve was made from his rib, and thus was a lesser part of him. The holy scriptures of these religions are littered with stories detailing women as possessions, subordinates, or deceitful succubae trying to lead men astray from the holy path.
There are some who would claim such stories exempt women from equal service in the church, but these statements are inane. To state it simply, if we are to exempt women from official leadership status in the churches based within biblical stories alone, then we should also outright ban men based upon the utterly ridiculous amounts of awful deeds committed by men in the holy texts. King David sends one of his most trusted generals to his death, so he can have his way with the man’s wife. Lot offers to allow a group of men to rape his virgin daughters to protect strangers visiting the city of Sodom. Noah puts a curse upon his youngest son’s entire ancestry for waking him up after a night of drunkenness. Men viewed women as nothing more than property during these eras, and this mentality can be seen throughout the holy books, but in the modern day and age we know better, and as such should update our beliefs to do better.
The second notion I’d like to address is how bringing equity into the church is not only good for the churches, but it is more pious toward the divine. From a religious standpoint, it is accepted within church doctrine that man and woman are both formed in God’s image. So, as such, to deny half of God’s image from being able to perform church duties sounds like an insult toward the divine’s visage. From a modern standpoint, we know that sexual orientation is not a limiting factor in capability. There are women taking charge in every industry, and they are doing it well, so why not allow women to also share responsibilities in the church? Carol Ochs American theologian, writer, theology studies educator, and PhD in philosophy speaks aptly about this matter with the statement “since spirituality, perhaps more than any other area of human endeavor, is the domain of freedom, creativity, and wholeness, it is where we should bring together our most basic commitments” (Ochs 27). Allowing for a feminine perspective within church practices may lead to new and interesting insights not previously allowed through a narrowed male-exclusive lens. Such insights could be beneficial to all people who desire to show reverence to the divine, since the divine transcends the limitations of a male or female perspective.
On the third topic to address, the list of supporters is growing and the movements currently taking place are spreading with quite a remarkable amount of backing. Within the modern era, more and more people who support egalitarian ideals are voicing support for women to share equal opportunities as communal leaders, and this notion is one that logically and morally stands its own grounds.
One such group is the Fuller seminary, who was used in the passage above about the importance of Mary. The thesis they’ve used as a basis was written in the 1980’s, but it has remained relevant and has grown in popularity with the times. Primarily the author of the essay, David Scholer, a professor of New Testament interpretation, uses biblically cited sources to show how women have been able to perform priestly roles within the Christian tradition since its foundation, and how women have been dramatically undercut from church doctrine. However, Dr. Scholer has a very analytical eye, and has caught many inconsistencies within these accepted censorships toward women. One such example is in his passage about Paul and the letter to the Corinthians. Most church officials attempt to use Corinthians to claim that women should not speak with authority, but from a critical evaluation of the text, Dr. Scholer would beg to differ. From his evaluation of the passage, he states that
“The view that seems best to me is to understand the speaking prohibited here to women to refer only to disruptive questions that wives (usually uneducated in the culture of Paul’s time) were asking their husbands. This corresponds precisely with the resolution Paul offers (1 Corinthians 14:35): ‘if they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home…’ Such disruptive questioning was also considered a disgrace in Paul’s day in which it was widely believed that it was morally indiscreet for any wife to say anything on any subject in public” (Scholer).
This is directly about the text used by many as a means to silence the voice of women in church leadership without regard for proper context, and as such, should be viewed as a disgraceful misguidance of holy scripture.
The churches of the Abrahamic faiths are single handedly the most influential religions upon western society. As such, they have a responsibility to preserve and honor the philosophies and guidance provided by their prophets. By interpretations of holy scripture provided by scholars and well read theologists, it is clear that God transcends gender for God is greater than human concepts, and because of this, it is unjust to prevent women from holding positions of authority within God’s temples.
Works Cited
Frymer-Kensky, Tikva. “Deborah: Bible.” Jewish Women’s Archive , 20 March 2009, jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/deborah-bible.
Murray, Michele. “Jewish Traditions .” World Religion: Western Traditions, edited by Amir Hussain et al., Fifth ed., Oxford University Press, 2018, pp. 74–147.
Ochs, Carol. Women and Spirituality. Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc, 1997.
Scholer, David M. “Women in Ministry.” Fuller Seminary, 1984, www.fuller.edu/womeninministry/.
Thatcher, Adrian. God, Sex, and Gender: an Introduction. Wiley-Blackwell, 2011.
Get new content delivered directly to your inbox.
Reflections 