Forum Thread
Pentecost Prose Poem

Hello to everyone! May the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all! I'm new here. I would like to make a few  comments about the Holy Spirit on whether female or not. I agree with the person that stated that Wisdom in the Book of Proverbs chpt. 8:1-34 is talking about the Holy Spirit. In Hebrew(no I'm not Jewish and there is nothing wrong with being Jewish after allOur Lord Jesus was Jewish)the word Spirit is "Ruach" which is a feminine word. Also when we say the Lords Prayer: "The Our Father" it says "Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. I believe that the Earth is a shadow or representation of what it's like in Heaven. On Earth we have families, they were and are suppose to consist of One Father, One Mother, and children. I believe God in their Awesome Wisdom and Creativity made the family of the Earth like their image. It only seems right to look at it that way because in the Book of Genesis in Chpt.1 verse 26 says "Let us make man in our image, and also Genesis Chpt. 1 verse 27 "in the image of God he created them male and female. God the Father is male, God the Son is male, what else could the Holy Spirit be but female since God created them (people) in the image of God(male & female). When the Holy Bible was being translated  from Greek and Greek does not see the Holy Spirt as female, I believe it is neuter. The original was written in Hebrew and since the Hebrew word for Spirit is Ruach which has a feminine meaning. Ruach HaKodesh is the Holy Spirit. Thank you for letting me have time to share my thoughts. I'm pretty sure someone may see things different then this. But may The Peace of Our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.

Thanks for your reply, Roger. Re gender, David has put things very well. Re politics,  I can see the political implications of certain things Jesus Christ said and did but those implications wee just that....so, he healed on the Sabbath to teach something about God the Father and to show his identity -  the political implications are secondary.  (Similarly, if we speak the truth in love to each other and our societies, there are political implications and I do not believe Christians can avoid dealing with injustice in society by hiding in holy huddles....but the priority must always be speaking the truth in love about God, and the implications follow)

Hello Charles - I pray  to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, as he taught us and his apostles also prayed. I don't pray to "the Trinity", do you?  Jesus Christ spoke of his Father and the Holy Spirit - given who Jesus Christ was and is, I am very happy to stick to his descriptions of God and I do not see good authority for changing the gender of the Father. Calling God "Father", as Christ did, does not paint God as a human male, nor does it exclude women in any way,  nor does it negate feminine images  (including the Isaiah 49v15 image that God is not like a bad mother who might forget her child)..... I cannot see good  authority for adding to the descriptions of God given by Christ as "no one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known" and I do not think Christ was a constrained by his culture and times into patriachal thinking from which we need liberating to see God in new ways, do you?

Thank you Nersen for your response and for challenging my use of the adjective ‘literalist’.  I apologize for that, acknowledging that its implication is overstated in this discussion. Also you say in your previous post, ‘We also get into a pickle if we read into scripture political views (i.e. a desire to fight patriarchy in human history)’.  I wonder if you and I are using the word ‘political’ differently.  When I refer to Amos and Jesus and the prophetic voice generally, I am using the term as applying to attitudes, teaching and actions that influence ‘the body politic, public administration, policy-making, etc.’ (Collins’ Dictionary) rather than in the party-political sense.

And thank you David H for your comments.  I can accept that there is a danger of Nersen and myself talking past each other here. However, I’m not convinced by your insistence on the masculine bias of Scripture (or am I misreading you too?).  I don’t deny that bias is there but see it as descriptive rather than prescriptive.  Surely we fall into a gender-fuelled trap in simply declaring, ‘The dominant biblical images of God are masculine and we need to keep this balance’.  Or, to put it differently, even though the Bible uses terms like Father, Son, Lord and Master of God does that thus exclude the ‘feminine’ in the nature of God?  I feel that the Bible says ‘no’ to that.

David, you also write, ‘The divine feminine image is essentially pantheistic as in Gaia, Wicca fertility cults and nature worship.’  I do of course acknowledge with you the reality of these alternative views but I wonder whether your legitimate concern about such groups allows their beliefs to rob us of our own perspective on the importance of the feminine.  In contrast, the Bible’s wisdom literature seems at home here.  The personification of godly wisdom in Proverbs 8, for example, is feminine.  She cries, ‘…I was beside him, like a master worker; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race.’

Perhaps this discussion is being confused by a certain caution about the uses of the words ‘political’ and ‘the feminine’ in relation to Scripture and our understanding of God’s nature and ways with humankind?

If we stick literally to addressing God or Jesus  only in the terms explicitly used in scripture as addresses, then we will not be able to address God as Trinity, will we?

Nersen - do you agree that praying to God as Trinity is Ok and if so on what basis is that OK and seeing Jesus in maternal terms is not?

Thanks for your reply, Roger.  You ask, "Could you look the prophet Amos in the eye and tell him to stop being so political?"   I would not do that but that does not lead me to accept anyone calling God the Father or the Son "mother" without them showing strong biblical authority for doing so. 

It is hardly taking a "literalist" stance to be wary of titles for God which were never used by Jesus Christ....more being careful about ideas being read into scripture.

Perhaps the more "literalist" stance is one which reads the word "hen" and says that a hen is a mother so therefore we can call God the Father or Son  "mother"? 

Are you sure Jesus Christ was taking a subversive, political stance in his time (eg re the Sabbath) or was he teaching the truth about God to people who had added in many of their own ideas and deviated from the essence of what they were supposed to be following? He did refuse to be made a king. Sure, he was against worship of the Sabbath and showed his identity by healing even on the Sabbath..... I don't think he was making political statements, he refused to be made a king when the people wanted that,  but he was ushering in the Kingdom of God and announcing his arrival. 

Because of his identity, because Jesus Christ called God "Father" and called himself the "Son", I think we should stick with what he has taught us as his authority to give God names is clear.  If he had taught us to pray "Our Mother", I would have no problem with that at all.....

Yes, Nersen, we can agree that there is no evidence that Jesus was called ‘mother’ by the apostles but your literal handling of the text does seem to exclude the richness of metaphor, simile and symbol.  No, Jesus wasn’t a hen, just as he wasn’t a door, a vine or a literal shepherd.  But I feel you miss out, by your literalism, a treasury of analogy in which the innumerable facets of God’s reality and his relating to humanity and the created order are diminished.  In this way you sidestep, for example, the ‘maternal’ and ‘feminine’ imagery of God in the Scriptures (see my post of 19th June).

Similarly, you do the Bible an injustice when you preclude its political dimensions.  Could you look the prophet Amos in the eye and tell him to stop being so political?  Can you deny that the Scriptures, in being faithful to human sinfulness, include the portrayal of human behaviour and systems that are clearly, in today’s language, nationalist, sexist and racist?  Can you explain away Jesus’s political (after all, we’re talking of behaviour that shapes policies about our everyday lives) acts of civil disobedience in breaking the Sabbath and counter-intuitive actions in relating to  women, children, prostitutes, the disabled and Samaritans?  Can you refute the politically subversive challenge he made to the politico-religious leaders and systems of his day?

Sorry, I still do not see that it is likely that the apostles thought of Jesus Christ as "mother" and there is no evidence that he taught them to do so or to address God the Father as "mother".  We get into a pickle if we focus on pictures used to make a point (eg of hens) rather than the meaning of the pictures in the context used.  We also get into a pickle if we read into scripture political views (i.e. a desire to fight patriarchy in human history) and start adding to the text eg giving God names and a gender which his Son never taught us to use and even more strangely calling the Son "mother".  If we stick to the meaning of the pictures used in context in scripture, we ALL have much to celebrate as we learn about the character of God....who is for all of us and far above human politics and patriachal history.

Yes, thank you David for your encouragement and for the beautiful picture you shared with us.

"And you, Jesus, are you not also a mother? ... For, longing to bear sons into life, you tasted of death, and by dying you begot them. So you, Lord God, are the great mother." (St. Anselm of Canterbury)