by the Revd Dr Ellen Clark-King, Dean of King’s College London
Thirty years ago, when I was at theological college, it was considered radical to use anything other than male language for God in liturgy and preaching. The fact that it is still considered radical thirty years on is testament to how little value the church places on this form of inclusivity.
In a decade when gender is being questioned on so many sides we still obscure the reality of a non-gendered God behind our exclusive use of male names and imagery for the divine. There are three reasons I consider this a critical fault in the church’s worshiping life and which mean I will continue to use female language for God myself, not exclusively but frequently.
Firstly I use this language because it is the only way I know to be faithful to the God I experience as Creator, Beloved and Indwelling Spirit. It is the only way I know to be true to Jesus Christ as the one who reveals God as valuing and loving all people with indiscriminate passion. I cannot be a priest and not share the God I know as fierce mother as well as gentle father, as sister as well as brother, as indwelling all human beings regardless of gender.
The second reason I feel so strongly is because it is a social justice issue for all people. When we refuse to see the sacred in women’s bodies, whether cis or trans, we fail to truly value women’s bodies. When we deny the feminine in divinity we deny the divinity in the female – as theologian Mary Daly said decades ago ‘When God is male then male is God.’ The #Metoo movement shows us where that leads, as does the annual count of femicides in the UK, where a woman is killed by a man about once every three days.
And the third reason I do this is because I am a woman. I’m a privileged woman – white, educated, middle class, straight and cis gender. But I know what it’s like to grow up and never hear my God spoken of as she or her. I know what it’s like to never, ever see my body reflected in an image of the divine. I know what it’s like to have been told, by women as well as men, that you might as well ordain a dog as ordain a woman. And frankly, it sucks! Language matters. It’s not a triviality, it’s at the core of how we humans see ourselves and one another.
We live in a world where women continue to be the poorest of the poor. Where female foetuses continue to be aborted in far greater numbers than male foetuses. Where trans women of colour are killed in shocking numbers across the globe. This will not be miraculously put right if we start using female as well as – not instead of, as well as – male language for God. But it will never be put right if we don’t.
We should also remember that there is another form of gender that we need to include in our divine language. We need to make sure that our siblings who are trans, gender queer or non-conforming, and those who are intersex, can see themselves in the image of the God who includes, embraces and transcends all human definitions of gender. The same God who loves and treasures every human person regardless of their gender or sexual identity. God is they, as well as God is he and God is she.
And to those who counter that Jesus himself was content with male language for God, please remember that he lived as a man of first century Palestine as well as being God incarnate. He was a person of his time as well as of eternity. The language he used was the patriarchal language of his culture and age, even though in his life and actions he broke down social barriers to welcome, teach and learn from women. Jesus did manage to sneak in a few references to God in female terms – as the woman who finds her lost coin as well as the shepherd who finds his lost sheep, as the mother hen who broods lovingly over Jerusalem.
Jesus also called on us to be open to the Spirit leading us into all truth. And one of those truths is the strikingly recent recognition that women are of equal worth, value and ability to men. We’ve come a long way from the church in the 10th century that was still actively debating whether women had souls. We’ve even come a long way from the church of the 1980s when only men could represent Christ at the altar. But we still have a long way to go.
Where would we be as a church, where could we go, if we opened ourselves to the unsettling delight of the Spirit as she dances though each one of our bodies and finds in each of us an image of the most holy God? Let us refuse to impede this dance with language that distorts the divine dancer and belittles 50% of her human dance partners.
TL:DR God is not male so broaden your pronouns.
Any thoughts?