Seeker

Is it OK for Christians to address God as 'Mother'? My short answer is 'yes' because the Bible uses many female metaphors for God. Similarly it is OK to address God as 'Father' because the Bible uses many male images for God. My longer answer is: it's complicated! It's complicated because God is neither woman nor man. God is Spirit. That is the witness of the Bible and of the tradition of the Church. We cannot know God except through revelation by God, who is neither male nor female (biological sex) and neither feminine nor masculine (gender - a cultural construct). It is further complicated by traditional expectations of how Christians should address God in worship. I am not saying we should stop praying to God as 'Our Father in heaven'. That is an important image of God as Father that Jesus gives us in his pattern prayer ('The Lord's Prayer). That 'father' image is also there in the Old Testament. It is memorably ampli...

How do you name God? If you pray, how do you address G - d?  Does it matter what language is used for God in public worship? Anyone who has struggled with   these questions has encountered the obvious pitfalls to be stumbled into by using: gendered language or non-gendered language names of power and authority or gentleness and humility Biblical metaphors or contemporary metaphors I could go on, but I won't, because the purpose of this post is to recommend an excellent short essay Naming God posted by Maggi Dawn. She writes about the importance of how language is used in theology and worship and how pastoral, theological and aesthetic concerns need to be interwoven in constructing liturgy. She highlights some of the problems posed by using 'inclusive language': replacing male pronouns and patriarchal language with female simply replaces one gendered power structure with another removing gendered language has theological limitations rewriting beautiful histor...