Ah! My Goddess
March 23, 2007
The idea of God having a gender is as much based on historical language semantics as it is patriarchal religious belief. It stands to reason that a being that transcends biological function would have no need for the mechanics of gender. By ascribing that God is only half of the gendered duality inherently limits him to being an imperfect being. It also directly implies that if there is a perfectly masculine God that there MUST be a perfectly feminine Goddess - something that Taoists and some Pagans would revel in, but which doesn't jive with Judeo-Christian tenets. Even though the bible writes that the manly-man Adam was created in God's image, it does not permit that Adam was created EQUAL to God; humanity's imperfection makes is mortal, fallible, and - perhaps - gendered. I like to imagine the birth of man like the scene from Rocky Horror where Furter raises Rocky from his artificial womb. God looks AWESOME in fishnets.

Some reformists in Judaism and Christianity refer to God using the pronoun "She", meaning this to be a bold stroke against the patriarchal traditions of their religions. But even this does little to address the problem, instead simply spinning the issue to an equally unbalanced opposite polarity. Using the neuter pronoun "It" might be most accurate, but is insulting and heretical in common usage. In the end, the solution may just be to realize that "He" in this case is masculine in the same way that gender is ascribed in Romantic languages - arbitrarily and usually meaningless. God is a "He" in the same way that the french call an airplane or an inkwell "he" - it's not to be taken as a sign of the implied divine rule of males any more than we are to believe that an airplane has a penis. They don't. I checked.

It should be noted that the Catholic Holy Trinity DOES use the literality of the masculine "Father" God, sitting up there on a shamrock with the masculine "Son" Jesus and the questionably gendered Holy Spirit. The masculine dominance of the triple-godhead is, most likely, a metaphor taken too far - but who can say? None of us will never truly know until we reach the afterlife, take God aside, and ask him to whip it out. And if he has one to whip out, you better put on your shades - because it's gonna be GLORIOUS.

Amen.