“Listen to me, house of Jacob and all the

A MALE remnant of the house of Israel who have been

borne by me from the belly, carried from the
womb, even until old age I am the one, and to

FEMINIST gray hairs am I carrying you. Since I have

made, I will bear, carry, and save.”
– Isaiah 46.3-4

THEOLOGY
Paul
a vision; a proposal Burkhart
Contents
Introduction | Fear & Loathing .............................................................................................. 3
Male and Female Feminists: Defining the Relationship......................................................................... 5
The God of Our Understanding ............................................................................................................. 8
Part I | Passion .................................................................................................................... 11
A Suffering & Reconciling God ............................................................................................................. 11
A Dying & Rising Christ ........................................................................................................................ 14
A Grieving & Comforting Spirit ............................................................................................................ 18
The Spirit-Breathed & Broken Scriptures ............................................................................................ 20
Part II | Peace...................................................................................................................... 25
A Groaning & New Creation ................................................................................................................ 25
A Broken & Freed Humanity ................................................................................................................ 27
Sin: The Fall & Winter of our Discontent ............................................................................................. 29
Atonement & The Salvation Community ............................................................................................. 31
Part III | Praxis .................................................................................................................... 35
Practice Makes Imperfect? .................................................................................................................. 38
Conclusion | Walking the Walk ........................................................................................................... 40
Appendix A | God & Her Glory ............................................................................................. 43
Our Theology of Language; Our Language of Theology ....................................................................... 44
How Our Words and History Affect Women ....................................................................................... 46
A Biblical & Social History of Gender-Speak ........................................................................................ 48
Linguistic Passion ................................................................................................................................. 50
Appendix B | Biblical & Historical Use of the Feminine Divine .............................................. 53

©2016 Paul Burkhart

Cover art: Meinrad Craighead, Vessel
All Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version

2
introduction | fear & loathing
I sat in my first ever counseling session, in an office connected to my first seminary—a

conservative Presbyterian institution in the Philadelphia suburbs. Not having met my assigned

counselor before, I now settled into the chair across from the center’s newest staff member: a

young, unmarried white male who had been in my Hebrew class. His only counseling training

was at John MacArthur’s incredibly conservative school in California. I walked him through my

chronic social anxiety issues. He asked about my family. I told him about my rough childhood

with parents always fighting, and my Southern Baptist Church’s offering no support. My mother

had eventually stopped going to church altogether (but maintained her faith) because of the

endless line of congregants and pastors giving empty platitudes, keeping distance, and telling

her things might change if she just “submitted” more and had more sex with my Dad. As I was

telling this story, the counselor stopped me mid-sentence: “Wow, I can totally see it. Your

anxieties and difficulties come from your childhood being raised in a household where there

was a loss of biblical authority and the destructive spirit of feminism.” He gave me a

“prescription” to pray every day over the next two weeks and journal about it before coming

back (yes, seriously).

A few months prior to this, I stood on the side patio of an administrative building

talking with a fellow student. I had started questioning my long-entrenched view of male-

dominated church leadership and complementarianism, and I didn’t know how to process it. I

asked my friend—himself going through changes and maturations more profound than my

own—his thoughts. He told me that he saw in Scripture a progression, a trajectory leading to

3
more and more inclusion of women into leadership. He said this was most evidenced by

Baptism. To read the Testaments together, one can see how, for thousands of years,

circumcision was the single biggest identity marker for the people of God. It was the sign that

you were a full, visible, participating member of God’s chosen people. It was also, perhaps, the

single most “male-exclusive” sign one could possibly have. We are so far removed from the

first century; we cannot have any grasp on just how dramatic it must have been for this sign of

God’s covenant to move from circumcision to baptism—as universally applicable of a sign as

you could get! In hindsight, I think it was this moment in which things really started shifting in

me; as I saw the movement in Scripture of a radical and total inclusion of women in light of

Jesus, where previously there was none. It was here that the battle line was drawn, and I have

not gone back since.

It probably goes without saying, but no, I did not go back to the counselor railing against

feminism and a “lack of biblical authority” being my “problem”. Unbeknownst to him, his words

contributed to a broader context of shifts and changes within myself that have led me much

further from the place to which he was surely hoping to guide me; to a place, God-willing, that

is rooted in a greater fidelity to the way Jesus modeled life for his people, and a greater

capacity for both love of my sisters and repentance for my faults toward them.

And yet the process is not done. One can change their mind on an issue, but true

progress is when we pull that one strand of yarn to see how it necessarily shapes and affects

the rest of the knot. When it comes to women in the church, if one’s consciousness has truly

been raised to the issue, they must see how far and deep and wide patriarchy’s reach goes—

4
even into our theology itself. As liberation and feminist theologians have reminded us time and

time again, there is no such thing as a “neutral” theology.1 All theology arises out of the

experience, personality, culture, and time of the theologian. There is no “objective” or

“standard” theology from which “feminist theology” is a departure or subset. When we talk like

that, what we likely have in mind is more akin to “white theology” or “male theology”.

Thus, what does a straight white cisgender male who wants to support the cause of

feminism and women do with his theology? What does feminism have to say when a man, like

myself, steeped in nothing but Western androcentric theological constructs wants to have a

theological method that is inclusive of the feminist experience and critique? What sort of

theology can a man do that does not simply appropriate the theology of women into his own,

as one more patriarchal act of theological colonialism? In the pages to follow, I want to try and

set forth a male feminist theological method.

Male and Female Feminists: Defining the Relationship

But first—why “male feminist” theology and not simply “feminist” theology articulated

by a male? I understand many males identify as “feminists” and I understand what they try and

mean by this; and largely, feminist thinkers and advocates celebrate this and offer appreciation

for men who want to come alongside women and fight for their equality and concerns.

However, in studying this and living with this label upon myself and my theology, I have found

some deficits in a male appropriating this label for himself.

1
Japinga, Lynn. Feminism and Christianity. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1999, 18.

5
 Inherent in most all realms of feminist thinking, scholarship, philosophy and theology is

a re-emphasis and reminder of the embodied experience of women in the world. Misogyny and

patriarchy is first and foremost a disrespect, diminishment, and disregard for the knowledge

and presence which being embodied as a woman brings to the human experience. As we shall

see, the fundamental posture of any non-female wanting to be sensitive to feminist concerns is

a prioritizing of women’s voices as both other and over-and-above their own, especially as it

pertains to women’s experiences of the world. For a man to apply the same label to himself

causes a disruption in this humble recognition of otherness and lack of authority that men bring

to the experience of women.

When this clear distinction between male and female experience and embodiment

collapses, men come dangerously close to the another pitfall: assuming they “get it” and ending

the process of rooting out their own vestigial misogyny. In a previous job, I worked with

chronically homeless individuals in helping sort out their legal issues so they could live

independently without open warrants threatening to derail them. This meant I spent many

mornings in courts in the Criminal Justice Center in Center City Philadelphia next door to City

Hall. One particular day (while I was taking—and loving—a feminist theology class in seminary) I

was standing before a woman judge and advocating for a client. As I was testifying and

answering her questions, I repeatedly found myself saying, “yes, ma’am. Yes, ma’am” to her

every inquiry. About halfway through my testimony I realized that, if she were a male judge, I

would have been answering, “yes, your honor. Yes, your honor.” I had been relating to her

primarily on the basis of her sex and not her place of authority in society and that interaction. I

quickly changed how I was addressing her, but this stuck with me as a clear indication that no

6
matter how “woke” I was, or how much I “got it” or wanted to advocate for women, I was not

immune from the patriarchy woven deep inside the rhythms and fabric of my social, communal,

and embodied life.

Men, however difficult their lives have been, have still benefited from a world created

by men, for men—and this is especially so in the realm of American Christianity. Men have

drunk the Kool-Aid and breathed the cultural air of patriarchy their entire lives. No matter the

work they do, and how much their consciousness has been raised, there will always be more

inside them to root out, expose, and confess. There is a power, identity, and even

marginalization in the label “feminist” which fosters a sense of community and a clear

delineation between groups. But this “us feminists versus the world” culture lends itself to a

belief among men who are “feminists” that their voice is equal to those women feminists

simply because they are all calling themselves the same thing. Too many “feminist” men end up

talking about “those” misogynists or “those” people outside the feminist identity group, and do

not spend enough time looking at their own lives and hearts through the lens of those feminist

convictions. Some do, to be sure, but many do not.

If my experience in court showed me anything, it was that my experience and living out

of my “feminism” is a difference in kind, and not simply degree, from the way women

experience it. Further, this difference is enough to warrant different terminology, especially as

we embark on applying these ideas to the greatest of realities—the Divine. It is my conviction

that to call oneself a feminist with any sort of real integrity, there is something essential in

having embodied the experience of being a woman in the world and bearing the scars and

7
weights and glories that accompany it. I can call myself a “feminist” no more accurately and no

more helpfully as I could call myself a “black activist”.

Thus you will find in the theological work that follows references to how a male feminist

specifically ought to use the implications of this work. This is not simply a recapitulation or re-

appropriation of feminist theology written by a male. It is a studied meditation and reflection

on how men in the Christian Church can receive the feminist critique and adjust how they think

and live within the world. There is also a great benefit in women reading this work. Not only

does this theological method need critique from women who read it and disagree, but I hope to

give words and articulations that women can then offer the men in their lives and communities

as a rubric for ongoing growth. Before we begin, however, there are a few more interpretive

bricks to lay in our foundation.

The God of Our Understanding

Our project must begin with an exploration of the theos of our theology: “God”, which is

the name that Christians give to the underlying mystery of the universe.2 Because this Divine

One is ultimately a profound mystery, our understanding of this God (even in spite divine

revelation) will necessarily be fragmented, partial, and paradoxical at times—and yet, it still

shapes and forms how we then live our lives. God's nature and character is so multifaceted that

as theological musings enter new cultures, times, and situations, we must use particular

language for where we are today. Biblical scholar Andrew Walls' remarkable essay, "The

Ephesian Moment", talks about how this worked in the early church.

2
Hill-Fletcher, Jeannine. "We Are All Hybrids." In Monopoly on Salvation?: A Feminist Approach to Religious
Pluralism, 82-137. New York: Continuum, 2005, 102.104

8
 The transposition of a message about the Messiah to a message about the “Lord Jesus”
must have seemed an impoverishment, perhaps a downright distortion. [But] Christian
theology moved on to a new plane when Greek questions were asked about Christ and
received Greek answers, using the Greek scriptures. It was a risky, often agonizing
business, but it led the church to rich discoveries about Christ that could never have been
made using only Jewish categories such as Messiah.... Crossing a cultural frontier led to a
creative movement in theology by which we discovered Christ was the eternally begotten
Son; but it did not require the old theology to be thrown away, for the eternally begotten
Son was also the Messiah of Israel.3

Today, we see similar shifts: issues of global injustice, the failure of 20th-century

Enlightenment idealism, and (for our purposes) the abuse and marginalization of women give a

new prism through which we ask questions about God—and what answers we preach.

Christians have long understood that there are times and seasons of one’s own life (and a

community’s life) where certain aspects of God’s nature and character require more focused

than others. For example, humans cannot at the same time hold in their minds the truths of

God’s immanence and transcendence. We oscillate between them. In times of suffering, we

may cling to the immanence of God as a source of strength, whereas in the face of global

injustice, God’s transcendent strength and providence can keep us from despair.

What’s more, the very same biblical texts can be read dramatically differently

depending on what truths are being emphasized, not as a denial of other truths about God or

within texts, but as a recognition of both human finitude and Divine fullness. We are not leaving

old creeds and confessions behind; we are turning the Divine diamond of God's nature and

character to see through additional facets. While attempting to stay true to the revelation we

3
Walls, Andrew F., “The Ephesian Moment,” The Cross-Cultural Process in Christian History (Maryknoll, New York:
Orbis Books, 2002), 72 – 81.

9
have been given, we should feel a radical freedom to cast and recast our theological

articulations in whatever terms best serve and speak to the realities of our current context.

So where might we be situated? What is the context of God’s Kingdom that demands a

particular perspective, emphasis, or accent? We find ourselves in a time and space globally and

historically in which God’s daughters have been oppressed, abused, marginalized, silenced, and

kept out of our traditions—both ecclesially and scripturally. Men who therefore desire to take

on a male feminist theological method should feel the freedom—indeed, the responsibility—to

employ what Cristina Traina calls the “preferential option for women”, wherein we prioritize

the voices and experiences of women within our ways of knowing, including in our theology.4

This means we will emphasize parts of the Divine nature and character that are often

neglected. We will be using language and imagery that is often neglected, including feminine

language for the Divine. 5 It means approaching texts and truths in ways that many Evangelicals

might find unfamiliar. But know that this is not presented as the way the Church at all times and

places ought to do theology. It is a Male Feminist Theology, and it is offered as a mode of being

and thinking that Christians can (for lack of a better term) “switch into” when engaging these

matters; again, not as a denial of the great theological traditions that have gone before (even as

it is a profound critique of them), but as a supplement to carry along the way. To do this, we

will go through the cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith, ending with a section on the ethical

implications of these theological articulations.

4
Traina, Cristina. "The Shape of Feminist Moral Discourse." In Feminist Ethics and Natural Law The End of
Anathemas, by Cristina Traina, 41.
5
If you feel this may be a distraction of hindrance to you reading this, it may help to first read Appendix A: “God and
Her Glory: Feminine Language and the Divine” for more on feminine pronouns for God.

10
part i | passion
A Theology of God & Scripture

A Suffering & Reconciling God

As a male feminist, I believe that God is a God that suffers in his Divine nature and

character from eternity past. This idea that God suffers in his very nature has been proposed

before by other theologians throughout the Church’s history, but mainstream theology before

the last century or so has largely rejected our ignored this. To be sure, the Christian tradition

has long affirmed that God in Jesus tasted and was acquainted with all human suffering, but the

popular belief is that this acquaintance is a function of Jesus’ human nature and it didn’t affect

his divine nature. In other words, human suffering is something that the otherwise free-from-

suffering Trinity only experienced after one of their members became human and experienced

it. God can then experience closeness and “familiarity” with someone in their suffering through

the “knowledge” of the human condition found in the mystery of the Incarnation, even while he

does not “experience” it. (The connections ought to be self-evident between this view of God

and the typical stoic, intellectual, “avoiding weakness” view of masculinity espoused by the

male theologians who established it.) My contention, however, is precisely the opposite: rather

than the painless God of eternity entering into humanity and “learning” human suffering at a

particular point in history, it is humanity experiencing in history God’s eternal suffering woven

into the world he created.

11
 The primary critique offered against this view is that it appears dangerously close to

what is called an “Open” or “Process” view of God in which the God who is biblically described

as “never changing” is subjected to the cataclysmic change of suffering6. And yet, firstly,

suffering need not be a change in nature but a change in state within the bounds of one’s

consistent nature. Further, the view offered here is not an Open one; God’s nature and work

(an expression of this nature) inherently has a fixed and unfailing telos—a goal towards which it

is moving. What here is called “movement” is such that it could be no other way. This

movement, shape, or “story” (if you prefer) of God’s nature and character is who God has been,

is, and forever will be. It is a fixed, definite, faithful, and sure rhythm—it could be no other way.

What is this “shape” of God’s nature? It is suffering unto life and shalom. Shalom is the

Hebrew word describing what it’s like for the world to be knit back together again. Therefore

God’s very nature is one that begins in suffering and leads to new life within itself–not unlike

the female process of childbirth. This Divine “shape” and “movement” is what brings about all

those beautiful words of theology used since the Church’s earliest days to describe what’s going

on in the Trinity: begetting, procession, perichoresis, and the like. This movement

from suffering to life is the source of God’s creative, “new life” impulses: Creation, election,

Incarnation, Resurrection, and New Creation. It is the shape of the initial creative act in

Scripture; indeed, it is the shape of Scripture itself, as well as the shape of Jesus’ life.

More to the point, this particular view of a God who suffers within the Divine Nature

(and not just Jesus’ “human” nature) is especially fruitful when discussing how God relates

towards a world that is broken in its treatment of women. Some critics say that if this is God’s

6
Brown, Joanna Carlson, Parker, Rebecca. "For God So Loved the World?" 1-30.

12
Nature, it doesn’t hold any resources for liberating women from their oppression. For example,

in their essay, “For God So Loved the World?” Joanne Carlson Brown and Rebecca Parker write:

The advent of the Suffering God changes the entire face of theology, but it does not
necessarily offer liberation for those who suffer. [This] image of God still produces the
same answers to the question, How shall I interpret and respond to the suffering that
occurs in my life? And the answer again is, Patiently endure; suffering will lead to greater
life.7

To be sure, the centrality of willing suffering in the Christian narrative has been a large and

consistent cudgel used against women in situations of abuse, trauma, and victimization for

millennia. Yet this is why we need to say that God’s suffering nature is not “simply” suffering—

it is “Suffering-Unto-Shalom”, or “Death-Unto-Life”. We must not say one without the other.

This God seeks to bring all things into Communion and solidarity with God’s own telos of life

and shalom. Later in the same essay, Brown and Parker say this:

It is not acceptance of suffering that gives life; it is commitment to life that gives life. The
question, moreover, is not, Am I willing to suffer? But Do I desire fully to live? This
distinction is subtle and, to some, specious, but in the end it makes a great difference in
how people interpret and respond to suffering. If you believe that acceptance of
suffering gives life, then your resources for confronting perpetrators of violence and
abuse will be numbed.8

This is precisely why, when thinking of God while considering our sisters in the world, we ought

to hold to a God that experiences suffering and death within himself but does not keep it there.

In the Divine alchemy, injustice is turned into justice; violence into peace; death into life. This

means that God’s own life is being experienced while women experience injustice and when

7
Ibid.
8
Ibid.

13
others fight against that injustice. Both of these experiences are God’s nature and life being

made manifest in the world. Suffering is seen and accepted as an earthly and divine reality, and

yet it is also only an earthly and divine starting place—a space from which to work and toil for

justice, life, and shalom. Perhaps this is what the Apostle Paul meant when he said, “I am now

rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in

Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church.”9 What was “lacking” was

completing the work of New Creation, justice, and Resurrection for the world.

For a male feminist, theology must start from this place where the suffering of women is

not something “foreign” to the otherwise distant, Kingly God. The conception of God

emphasized here cannot be identified with patriarchal identifications of power at the expense

and marginalization of others.10 A male feminist theology must begin with a God who—within

her very nature—experiences solidarity with women in their suffering and then moves it–both

within herself and in the world–towards life and wholeness. Further, this solidarity is not

“merely” or “incidentally” a result of other subsequent acts or sovereign decisions in

redemptive history, but an actual ontological divine reality unfolding in the world and history.

A Dying & Rising Christ

Just as the Trinitarian Godhead itself is Suffering-Unto-Life, so are each of its

members—most clearly in the person and work of Jesus Christ. More traditional views of God

(often having their historical source in Greek thought rather than Hebrew) make God into a

Transcendent Male, Kingly, Lording figure whose primary relation to us is as one to whom we

9
Colossians 1.24
10
Johnson, Elizabeth. "Naming God She." Princeton Seminary Bulletin 22, no. 2 (2001), 134-135.

14
are meant to submit. The problem with this is two-fold. Elizabeth Johnson, in her essay

"Naming God She" describes the first problem well:

[N]aming God almost exclusively in the image and likeness of a powerful ruling man has
had the effect of legitimizing male authority in social and political structures. In the name
of the male Lord, King, Father God who rules over all, men have the duty to command
and control: on earth as it is in heaven. In Mary Daly's succinct, inimitable phrase: if God
is male, then the male is God.11

The second, and more important problem with this is Jesus himself. The nature of God revealed

in Jesus’ life is not the distant "Super Male" of the Greeks, but rather a God who defers to the

marginalized and abused, not demands their obeisance and submission as the primary way he

relates to them. Yes, he is declared judge and king, but these are functions of his love and

stewardship of creation and serve as acts of service to the world and people he loves, in order

to create space of justice and freedom for those very marginalized peoples.

Though there are clear pictures in the Hebrew Scriptures of the Jewish God being one

who suffers with and for his Creation, this whole idea of God as Suffering-Unto-Life becomes

exceedingly clear in the historical event of the Crucifixion. This act, this moment in time, serves

as the climax of human history, the clearest point at which the nature of humanity and the

Divine meet and resolve. As the rest of the New Testament (and the earliest centuries of

subsequent theological reflection) make clear: The Cross of Jesus Christ must be the foundation

and starting place in all theology that claims to call itself distinctly Christian. Taking this truth

seriously, however, lends itself to profound implications.

11
Ibid.

15
 The Cross of Jesus is an expression of the eternal truth of the Suffering God breaking

into our world; it is not a worldly human experience “added to” the Divine Nature. Read that

sentence again. The Crucifixion is not an historical event that God “experiences” (indeed, this

would be a “change” to God’s nature), but is a reality that has been true of God since eternity

past and the Cross is the in-breaking of that truth into our world. The Son is the lamb that has

been slain since eternity.12 The Cross is not God experiencing something true about Creation,

but the Creation experiencing something true about God. Martin Luther said, "the cross was

the reflection (or say rather the historic pole) of an act within the Godhead. [Therefore,] the

gospel was proclaimed even before the foundation of the world, as far as God is concerned."13

In Christ and the Incarnation, God is shown as one who identifies with and sides with

the marginalized, and those that suffer under the powers and principalities of the world.14 In

one of the most profound books on this topic, Theology of the Pain of God, Japanese theologian

Kazoh Kitamori writes:

The Lord was unable to resolve our death without putting himself to death. God himself
was broken, was wounded, suffered, because he embraced those who should not be
embraced....The pain of God reflects his will to love the object of his wrath...God who
must sentence sinners to death fought with God who wishes to love them....The cross is
in no sense an external act of God, but an act within himself.15

12
1 Pet1:18-21; Rev13:8
13
Kitamori, Kazoh. Theology of the Pain of God. Richmond: John Knox, 1965, 22. Emphasis mine.
14
Kwok, Pui-Ian. "Engendering Christ: Who Do You Say that I Am?" In Postcolonial Imagination and Feminist
Theology. Louisville, Ky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005, 168-171.
15
Kitamori, Pain of God, 24.

16
This is the kind of thought about Jesus that can motivate us to solidarity and justice for

women. It shows how God in Jesus comprehensively embraces human weakness and fallenness

within history, and not just in a set of intentions or ideas.

Further, Scripture repeatedly says that this world was created “through” Jesus, this

dying and suffering (and rising) Child. Creation bears those very marks of suffering and death

(unto new life): it is woven into the fabric of the cosmos. Just as in childbirth, we suffer because

we have been created "through" the suffering of another, but this does not make our own

suffering any less particular and real. (Is it any wonder that this birthing image is used all over

the Christian Scriptures?) The marginalization and oppression of women are not anomalies but

are actually them partaking in the Divine's Suffering-Unto-Shalom echoing throughout creation.

But remember: partaking and communing in this Divine Nature does not end with suffering,

injustice, and oppression, but rather life, justice, and shalom.

Simply put: God's Suffering explains the existence of suffering in this world, but it does

not justify its persistence. Divine Suffering never "persists" and never simply "is". God's pain is

always in a movement towards life. It is a stream, a torrent, a waterfall from Suffering to Life

and Wholeness. Therefore, you are not participating in the Divine Life in suffering unless you

are swept into this current and are actively working for justice, shalom, and the undoing of the

suffering. To remain passive in the face of suffering is to work against the Life of God in you and

in the world.

Practically speaking, a male feminist sees in Christ a God who defers to the marginalized

and assumes that those peoples are the first and primary recipients of the effects of Christ’s

work, salvation, and ongoing ministry in the Church. They understand that all other places of

17
privilege and power enjoy the benefits of Christ’s work as it, so to speak, “flows upward” from

the work for those at the margins. The male feminist shows this same priority in ministry,

understanding that, as Jesus exemplified in his own existence, the good of all is most served

when those in suffering and injustice are served first and with priority.

A Grieving & Comforting Spirit

This Suffering-Unto-Shalom Nature is found even in the Spirit of God. The Spirit is found

wherever there is need for life, creative energy, or restoration16. She is the means by which God

brings the life of Creation and Humanity into Communion with the Suffering-unto-Life God in

Christ. What God the Parent ordained, the Child accomplished, the Spirit makes real within the

nitty-gritty of ongoing human life and suffering.

The Spirit is the Person of God most acquainted—most near—to the heart and depth of

human, societal, and creational pain, suffering, and injustice. Where there is pain and injustice,

this is where the life of the Spirit is most richly felt. This Spirit grieves, groans, and suffers along

with the world—especially women and other marginalized peoples. Indeed, throughout the

Scriptures and Christian tradition the Spirit has had more feminine language and imagery

applied to her than any other member of the Godhead. All of the words that the Scriptures use

to refer to the Spirit (both Old and New testaments) are grammatically feminine, and even the

functions/actions attributed to the Spirit are almost exclusively those things with “feminine”

associations: Giver of Life, Breath, Wind, Comforter, Presence, Woman in Child-Birth, Life

Principle, and Creator Spirit.

16
Johnson, Women, 41-45.

18
 But just as with the other members of the Godhead, the Spirit’s suffering is not the

whole of who the Spirit is. The Scriptural descriptions of the Spirit as both Creator and

Comforter show the all-encompassing communal and relational reality of the life of the Spirit in

the world. In the Spirit we see—yet again—the Divine alchemy in which Divine Suffering is unto

Life and Shalom. From eternity past, we see this Spirit has been fluttering over chaos itself. It is

striking that the first picture we get of the Spirit is as one who presides over primordial disorder

and brings life and order out of it. She is the breath of life into the lifeless body of both Adam

and Jesus. She moves towards brokenness and pain, embraces it into her own, and redeems it

unto life and shalom. Kazoh Kitamori writes, "The pain of God, while uniting God and man

mystically [by the Spirit], continues to forgive and embrace the sin which betrays and breaks

this union."17 By the Spirit, God's loving, Suffering-Unto-Life self enfolds the brokenness and sin

of this world and our hearts. Elizabeth A. Johnson in her incredibly powerful lecture Women,

Earth, and Creator Spirit movingly writes,

the love who is the Creator Spirit participates in the world's destiny. She can be grieved
(Eph 4:30); she can even be quenched (1 Thes 5:19). When creation groans in labor pains
and we do too (Rom 8:22-23), the Spirit is in the groaning and in the midwifing that
breathes rhythmically along and cooperates in the birth. In other words, in the midst of
the agony and delight of the world the Creator Spirit has the character of compassion. I
multifaceted relationships she resists, reconciles, accompanies, sympathizes, liberates,
comforts, plays, delights, befriends, strengthens, suffers with, vivifies, renews, endures,
challenges, participates, all while moving the world toward its destiny.18

By definition, then, the Spirit is most known and (in a sense) is most Herself in those places and

communities that need the most comfort and creative energy in the midst of chaos. Therefore,

17
Kitamori, Pain of God, 110
18
Johnson, Women, 25.

19
if we are to experience the Spirit and obediently join in her work in the world, we must follow

her to those places of brokenness and injustice in which she resides.

With all this being the case, a male feminist trying to do theology that seriously attends

to the realities of women in the world carries the assumption that the Spirit is most tangible,

most at work, and most deeply known in communities of suffering and marginalization, namely

women. He relates to the Spirit in her femininity and sees his sisters as one of the primary

places of the Spirit's work, dwelling, and presence in this world. He seeks to undo systems that

attempt to silence or marginalize them (especially the Church), in order to see the Spirit move,

speak, heal, and work all the more in our communities.

The Spirit-Breathed & Broken Scriptures

A male feminist ought to think through his doctrine of Scripture as part of his doctrine of

the Spirit, not of God the Father (or Mother). Typically, Systematic Theology starts by talking

about God and his “unknowability”, and then moves to his revealing acts in Creation, Scripture,

and Jesus. But a Male Feminist should start with the redeeming suffering of the Trinity, and

then his view of the Bible should flow out of the view of The Holy Spirit specifically. Though at

first blush this may seem as mere semantics, it does in fact have deep ramifications for how

women are viewed and treated in a faith built around a set of writings that have more often

served their oppression than liberation.

As mentioned above, not only are all the Scriptural words for the Holy Spirit

grammatically feminine, but the Spirit's functions are decidedly Feminine: life giver, Breath of

God, Comforter, Mediator of God’s Presence, means by which new life is birthed, the vivifying

energy of God’s people, etc.) And yet, reading that list once more, one cannot help but notice

20
how often the Christian Church (especially modern American Evangelicalism) has used the same

terminology to describe functions of Holy Scripture, and not the Holy Spirit. Too many Christians

through history have treated the Bible as the primary agent that gives life, comforts, brings

God’s presence, and is the primary means by which God creates and sustains. But it's not. The

Spirit is. “Divine inspiration means that God's Spirit has the power to make the story speak to us

from faith to faith. The Bible is accepted as the Word of God when communities of faith

understand God [by the Spirit] to be speaking to them and through its message.”19

Ironically, when we make the Bible into a pseudo-deity, we actually "disembody" the

way God is revealed in the world. The Bible should be a beautiful witness to the nitty-gritty and

messy way God works in the world through cultures and stories and poetry and history. As

Sandra Schneiders helpfully simplifies it: “The Bible is literally the word of human beings about

their experience of God".20 Yet Western Christianity his historically tended to abstract the Bible

as if it exists in a plane above real human life. This over-emphasizes an abstract, “other-

worldly” view of how God is known, over and above the embodied, grounded ways God speaks.

When Christianity over-emphasizes Scripture's "otherness" and "divinity" it keeps theology—as

well as other sources of Divine revelation and authority—disconnected from both Creation, and

women. And this is where it all comes together.

Elizabeth Johnson, again in women, Earth, and Creator Spirit, demonstrates how the

created, material world has always been associated and conceived in feminine concepts,

whereas the rational soul, and human spirit has been associated with the masculine. She shows

19
Russell, Letty M. "Hot-House Ecclesiology: A Feminist Interpretation of the Church." 2001.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1758-6623.2001.tb00072.x/pdf (accessed January 14, 2015)
20
Schneiders, Sandra. Beyond Patching: Faith and Feminism in the Catholic Church (Anthony Jordan Lectures)

21
how history, philosophy, theology, Scripture, and culture have not only divided the world into

these two spheres but have forced them into a hierarchical dualism that demeans, subjugates,

and minimizes the (feminine) material and exalts the (masculine) "rational". Therefore, if

our theology of the Bible is to speak to women, then our view of Scripture must be material,

earthly, and born of the real experiences of real embodied humanity. In other words, it must be

a bottom-up doctrine of Scripture, rather than top-down. To put it more bluntly, the idea that

God spoke from on high and people wrote down his words in the Bible, is actually a patriarchal

view that concentrates power and knowledge at the top and restricts it only to those with the

privilege of being "in the know".

Treating Divine revelation as part of our Holy Spirit theology acts to correct this by

emphasizing the “breathedness” of Scripture, and how humans (and their experiences) were

the primary agents in writing the Bible. We do this to focus in on the active role the Spirit plays

in using Scripture to reveal God, not purely in his unfiltered self, but by emerging through the

words of people responding to the Divine in real life and community.21 God never arrived in the

world in her full “God-ness”. Revelation is always mediated through material means, and the

Spirit is God’s breath within Divine revelation. Clothed in cultural forms, the Spirit uses

Scripture in various communities in various ways to show God differently.22

Our religious identities are not sui generis and unaffected by other dimensions of who we
are; rather, our very understanding of the religious dimension of our identity is
informed by the diverse features of our location and experience. There is no "Christian"

21
Plaskow, Judith. "Torah: Reshaping Jewish Memory." In Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist
Perspective. 1990, 36-52.
22
Kwok, Postcolonial, 74-82.

22
 identity, only Christian identities impacted by race, gender, class, ethnicity, profession,
and so on.23

Following this path divorces the Bible from philosophical ideas that have historically been used

to diminish the voice of women. Theology and Scripture have been treated as the realm of

rational, reasonable men; while the mundane, material aspects of life have been treated as the

domain of women. Placing Scripture in the context of this Suffering-Unto-Life Spirit turns that

upside-down. The Bible is not as a divine dispatch from the heavens, but rather emerged out of

the embodied, painful reality of human existence; the mundane, material parts of life are

precisely the place from which Scripture was borne and the primary place we meet God.

“Biblical Inspiration”, therefore, is the Spirit breathing through Scripture within

communities that are closest to the suffering and groaning of the earth--namely, women.

Taking this articulation of the (feminine) Spirit and Scripture as a guide, the male feminist sees

the oppression of women as an imperative for Spirit-filled biblical interpretation, creative

action, and comforting solidarity with our sisters in the world.

This also affects how we go about seeking to interpret the biblical text. Due to the

Bible’s history and the way that the Spirit has chosen to reveal God through human words—

even patriarchal ones—it is not a simple process to interpret and apply Scripture and classical

theology in today’s day and age. All those that seek to take feminist considerations in their

approach to the Bible ought to appreciate the complexity that women have in relating to it.

Scripture has too often been used to demean, silence, shame, and abuse women in

unspeakable ways. And yet, Christianity holds a central place of devotion and submission to the

23
Hill-Fletcher, Monopoly, 82-96.

23
words of this book. Feminist theologians have helped articulate approaches to Scripture and

have often advocated for dual impulses to employ when approaching Scripture: trust and

suspicion.24 Monica Schaap-Pierce offers a three-step methodology in putting these impulses

into practice.25 First, we must maintain a certain suspicion of the patriarchal nature of the text,

working to become conscious of the ways that women have been excluded from the textual

tradition. Second, we do acts of remembrance, in which we focus on and exalt those stories of

women that we do find in the Bible. Lastly, we work for acts of retrieval, where we look into

Christian history to find empowerment and voice for marginalized women.

24
Japinga, Feminism, 35-53.
25
Pierce, Monica. Feminism and the Bible. January 7, 2015. http://vimeo.com/115933633 (accessed January 7,
2015).

24
part ii | peace
A Theology of Creation, Sin, & Salvation

A Groaning & New Creation

We have so far articulated how each member of the Trinity partakes in this Suffering-

Unto-Life Divine Nature, and it is out of the overflow of this very Trinitarian Life that God

creates the world. Thus having been created by and through a suffering God, the cosmos itself

also participates in the life and structures of suffering, sin, and injustice. Theologian Karen

Baker-Fletcher talks about this in terms of a creation-centered Christology, where “Jesus is fully

spirit and fully dust”. Writing in her “ecotheological project”, she reinterprets the redemptive

work of Christ through the lens of creation: “God, embodied in Jesus, joined with the dust of

the earth, reconciling the broken relationship with God and creation that we humans have

involved ourselves in. Jesus realized harmony of creation and Spirit in the actions associated

with his life and work.”26

Within this Creation, there exists (in Paul’s words) “powers and principalities” that are

made evident in corporate entities (like societies, culture, and the Church) and institutions

within society that humans create to order their relations. Sin and injustice get expressed

through these powers and principalities when relations are not ordered “unto life and shalom”

and thereby move against the very rhythm and Nature of God. However originally well-

26
Baker-Fletcher, Karen. Sisters of Dust, Sisters of Spirit: Womanist Wordings on God and Creation. Minneapolis:
Fortress Press, 1998, 19.

25
intentioned, these structures formed from the created world by humans lead to the oppression

of the earth, marginalized communities, and women. God’s work in this world is intended to

bring it into a Newness of Life—even by way of and within these very structures and

institutions. Christians are meant to live as the “future” people of God in the present as they try

and thoughtfully deconstruct, reshape, and refashion social relations, institutions, and

structures to move them from chaos and destruction of human dignity to shalom and re-

ordered social and communal relationships.

Throughout history, those who know pain and oppression are also those closest to the

earth, so it is no coincidence that across cultures and both Christian Testaments, this groaning

natural world has been conceived as having a solidarity and identification with the feminine. 27

Creation is the meeting place of Divine Suffering and the feminine essence. The rocks cry out,

the trees clap their hands, and all creation knows its creator, and this Creator is a Spirit who is

woven into the depths of pain and oppression. There is a mutual solidarity that oppressed

peoples experience with this Creation, and that Creation itself expresses for those people.28

And yet, looking into the history promised for the cosmos, we see what the Christian Scriptures

call a “New Creation”. The labor pains will give way to birth (Romans 8), and as Creation is

ushered into New Life, it will bring those with whom it shares its deepest painful mutuality: the

sufferers and victims of the world, especially women.

Taking these things in mind, the male feminist refuses to create or work within the false

distinction or hierarchy between humanity and creation. He seeks a mutuality among all

27
Hinze, Christine Firer. "Dirt and Economic Inequality: A Christian-Ethical Peek Under the Rug." Annual of the
Society of Christian Ethics. 2001, 47-52
28
Johnson, Women, 29-40.

26
persons and the world. He actively works against the structures and systems that keep women

enslaved and seek to express his mutuality with them and the earth in his deference and

preference to their voice.

A Broken & Freed Humanity

Within a discussion of our male feminist theology of Creation, we necessarily must

articulate a theological anthropology of created persons and their relations. From the cosmic,

creational history outlined above, we can see how human relations became so dysfunctional.

Brought about by Evolution, a process driven by death and the will to power, we see very real

natural sex differences between biological men and women emerge early in hominid

development.29 These physical easily disparities led to violence against and silencing of women.

On this early and primal foundation sex relations, we have whole civilizations built by and for a

perpetuation of these male power structures. Political and religious texts end up being written,

edited, and transmitted by men, for men, in patriarchal cultures. This marginalized women

from much of human ordering, especially in those places of greatest societal concern, including

the Church.30 It is this history and context that has shaped how gender is expressed,

experienced, and treated in the world, and this should remain in our minds as a constant

touchpoint in all discussions concerning women and their place in society and the Church.

In general, a male feminist theology can have a range of opinions on whether gender

identity is essential or socially-constructed.31 Nevertheless, it is difficult to entirely deny that

29
Jones, Serene. "Women's Nature?" In Feminist Theory and Christian Theology. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress,
2000, 27-29.
30
Japinga, Feminism, 75-78.
31
Ibid. 84; Jones, Feminist, 22-23.

27
among humans there exists real natural and biological sex differences that are neither mere

accidents nor social constructs in their entirety. Regardless, at the very least these biological sex

differences have very real implications for how societies construct gender identities. For this

reason, among the options discussed in feminist anthropology and ethics, a “strategic

essentialist” view is most helpful.32 This view identifies how gender has been socially

constructed but does so in a way that pragmatically and constructively critiques and consciously

adjusts accordingly rather than simply deconstructs to the point of meaninglessness and

disempowerment. It offers critiques of societal gender assumptions while still acknowledging

that, to a large extent, they are all we have to go on and work with.33

Another feminist insight to remember is that whatever humans are in and of

themselves, our “selves” change over time and are formed and constituted in their relation to

one another—one’s very being is dependent on mutual social embodiment.34 Further, feminist

perspectives, having been denied the sort of power and privilege that can narrow and distort

one’s view of human life, actually give us what can be considered the fullest and truest account

of humanity as a whole—not just women.35 Patriarchy is a diminishing of human dignity and

identity, harming all people and not just women. Even subtle, unconscious, structural, and

unintended patriarchy and misogyny corrupt the humanity of the men who wield it. Thus to

attend to feminism is to attend to one’s own soul and being (indeed, the whole world’s), no

matter your gender identity.

32
Ibid., 42-48
33
Japinga, Feminism, 80-84.
34
Fletcher-Hill, Monopoly, 95-99.
35
Traina, Feminist Ethics, 40-41.

28
 In the context of this theological anthropology, a male feminist also participates in

personal and communal lament over the situation of women in history and Christian tradition.36

A male feminist assumes the validity and reality of female perspectives on their experience. He

understands that he is unable to know her experience fully and can only defer to it. He seeks

not to critique or assess feminism for any other reason than to embrace it all the more deeply,

to understand it all the more well, and enact it all the more comprehensively. Socially, a male

feminist seeks the full expression of women’s humanity in all places of society in which they

have been silenced or disempowered. He will create space for them but will not relate to them

on the basis of his power and privilege. He will attempt to become increasingly conscious of this

privilege and seek to move against it.

Sin: The Fall & Winter of our Discontent

Just as with one’s theology of God, there are a myriad of views on sin that are ultimately

faithful to Scripture. And yet, depending on one’s context and communal needs, different

emphases are more important at some times than others. Here we offer a theology of Sin that

tries to incorporate feminist critiques, empowers women, and guides men on how to respond:

God is the ground of all Being. He is not a separate, distant “Other”, but a profoundly imminent,

though distinct, principle out of which “emanates” all existence and being, including our own

human “being-ness”. Thinking in terms of a male feminist theological method, then, sin should

be defined as anything that goes against the ground of one’s being, which is the “Suffering-

Unto-Life-God”. When we act in a movement from Life to Death, from Shalom to Chaos, from

36
Plaskow, Sinai, 28-36.

29
Communion to alienation, or sitting static in Suffering with no movement towards Shalom, this

is sin.

Earlier, we tried to articulate a view of history and Creation that is faithful to Scripture

while still admitting the scientific consensus on biological evolution. If even the barest contours

of Darwinian Evolution are indeed the case, then on the topic of sin’s “origin”, one can say that

there was no “Fall”, no “historical Adam” in whom we all sinned, and no “fault” of Eve that has

carried through the generations (these are instead narrative-theological realities and not

historical-scientific ones). Rather, in line with the Suffering-Unto-Shalom God through whom

the world came to be, we can say that Creation was started in a state of “un-shalom” (this is not

a moral category: it is not that the world was created in sin, but that it began in a different state

than it will end), and “history” is the process by which God is guiding this world and humanity

into ever-increasing communion with him, which is New Life and Shalom. This view—that the

world was created “incomplete” and is moving on to maturity and fullness—is the same one

articulated by the earliest Christians. St. Irenaeus of Lyons wrote in Against Heresies:

If anyone says, “What then? Could not God have created man perfect from the
beginning?” let him know that…all things are possible to Him. But created things must be
inferior to Him who created them, from the very fact of their later origin… [therefore]
they are infants, and, in as much as they are infants, they are unaccustomed to and
unpracticed in perfect discipline. A mother can offer adult food to an infant, but the
infant cannot yet digest food suitable for someone older. Similarly God, for his part, could
have granted perfection to humankind from the beginning, but humankind, being in its
infancy, would not have been able to sustain it.37

37
Against Heresies, IV.38.1

30
 According to Irenaeus, we were created in a state of spiritual “immaturity”, and

redemptive history is our movement from spiritual infants to spiritual adults in full Communion

with our God. Therefore, “sin” is any personal, societal, creational, or even cosmic thing that

works against this telos—this end for which all things came to be. In this telling, humanity’s

“Fall” is not a one-time event in the past; rather, it is a constant existential reality—a reality

under which women have suffered for millennia. If history’s relationship to women is any

indication, humanity’s most “natural” existence, and the path most carved into our neural and

social pathways is indeed suffering, marginalization, and death.

As stated above, feminist accounts of human existence represent a fuller account of

humanity as a whole than narrower patriarchal views. They demonstrate that our individual

and communal identities arise from the midst of how we relate to one another; our souls are

shaped and revealed by how we move and relate to the world and others—especially women.

As better representatives of humanity when it is de-coupled from power and privilege, women

and femininity act as social and personal contexts for spiritual realities. A male feminist, then,

moves away from seeing and speaking of “sin” in simply a legal or moral sense and begins

identifying it among human relations, structures, and cultures.

Atonement & The Salvation Community

If sin is a movement towards primordial chaos and against God’s eternal future shalom,

then salvation is deliverance from eternal future chaos—a freedom from the ultimate

consequences of chaos and for communion with God (which is shalom). God responds to

human sin and depravity through the atoning work of Christ. This idea that theologians call

“Atonement” is like a multi-faceted mystery—a diamond through which we can view God’s

31
work.38 And yet, once more, individuals must at times and in certain modes consciously give

priority to certain views over others, no matter their preference, in order to serve the needs of

the Kingdom. A male feminist, in service to the needs of women in God’s world, must see the

atoning work of Jesus as a process by which he brings all suffering and brokenness into

communion with himself, but only so that in the mysterious alchemy of the Cross, it might be

changed into flourishing shalom and liberating life. In other words, the Cross translates the

painful life of the world into the very life of God, thereby making injustice, sin, death, pain,

marginalization, and oppression into the very places where (by the Spirit) liberating,

Resurrection Life can show through. Death and oppression do not have the last word.39

When thinking about sin and redemption, an additional implication of feminist thought

to which male feminists ought to attend is the deep association between the created world and

women. A male feminist ought not treat salvation and redemption as a divine act toward

disembodied individual souls. This atoning and redeeming work of Jesus isn’t just for humanity,

but for the entire created realm. Jesuit theologian and paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin

famously said, “Christ is realized in evolution”40. Christ is the height of human and cosmic

evolution, showing us the goal towards which God created all things and has moved all things in

his providence. In Jesus’ physical body on the Cross, he held the entire evolutionary history of

the cosmos and the social history of humanity. Therefore, in Christ, the entirety of Creation and

the history lived within its bounds experiences both death and Resurrection. God will not

abandon his Creation to the Chaos, but redeems it, along with his people. Male feminists see

38
Japinga, Feminism, 126.
39
Ibid.
40
Chardin, Pierre Teilhard De. The Phenomenon of Man. Trans. Bernard Wall. New York: Harper, 1959. Print.

32
the work of salvation not only in redemptive work among human social relations, but also in

the embodied, natural realm.

Lastly, the Doctrine of the Church can be placed under this heading as it is meant to

model the God who turns Suffering into Shalom. In this male feminist theological view, the

Church is the place on earth where a similar sort of alchemy occurs. Just as Suffering and Death

are turned to Life and Wholeness within God’s own life, so the Church ought to find itself as the

refining kiln of the world in which injustice, pain, marginalization, death, poverty, hopelessness,

and despair find their proper place and are turned into life, reconciliation, justice, community,

and hope. This is especially true for the women in their midst, who exist in systems and

structures of silencing and disempowerment. For the Church, bringing the pain and

marginalization of others into our very own life and heart is an ethic in and of itself that ought

to guide the whole of the Christian life and mission.

This Suffering dimension of the Christian community’s life is in many ways the primary

doorway through which God’s own Suffering-Unto-Life Nature breaks into the world. In this

way, then, a Church focused on attending to feminist concerns may find its efforts redounding

to the benefit of everyone, because of this redeeming alchemy being made known so viscerally

in the community’s midst. The Church’s missional vocation works itself out as participation in

God’s own Suffering made itself real in our lives and the lives of others.

The ethic of pain can be realized on through the pain of God. We can give to a suffering
neighbor our love with an intensity equal to what we feel in our own pain only when we
and that neighbor rest in the pain of God.... Love for our neighbor becomes real for the
first time when we walk in the way which God has shown us. Since we and our suffering

33
 neighbor are joined together when we are both embraced in the pain of God, we can feel
our neighbor's pain as intensely as our own.41

Constituting a church’s life in this way leads to security, comfort, and unconditional acceptance

within the community of faith.42 Atonement is moving pain onto the path to life. The Christian

Church does this through validation, empathy, and solidarity. It also does it by exalting women

to places of esteem in the community and consciously and prophetically moving against the

structures, systems, culture, and policies that perpetuate patriarchal injustice, the silencing and

shaming of women, and the destruction of families, children, and the environment in which

they live.

41
Kitamori, Pain of God, 98.
42
Russell, Hot-House, 48-55.

34
part iii | praxis
A Male Feminist Ethics of Liberation

For a male feminist, applying these theological principles in everyday life, means one

must navigate between two primary ethical concerns: autonomy and mutuality.43 A male

feminist ethical method has met the consideration for autonomy when it has created space for

women, deferred to their experience of reality and society, and given voice to their concerns

that have been silenced in all other places and times—all without judgment or critique.

Mutuality is accomplished when women’s voices are included in conversations that would

otherwise be male-dominated, when men actually embody solidarity with women, and when

feminist concerns are prioritized in a communal context.

In these principles, there is a validation of women’s experience of reality as at least

equal to one’s own. A male experiences reality in fundamentally different ways from women,

and the privilege that society gives to male voices can give the impression that a man’s intuitive

sense of reality is more clear or accurate than a woman’s. There can be many moments when a

women’s experience or perception seems at odds with every intuition and experience for the

man listening. A male feminist ethics can only be said to acknowledge and elevate women’s

autonomy when their perspective and voice is accepted for having the same authority and

43
Farley, Margaret. "Framework for a Sexual Ethic: Just Sex." In A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics. New York:
Continuum International Pub. Group, 2006, 211-215.

35
gravitas as a man’s—and not just in abstract or generally, but to the individual male receiving

their words, especially when they seem at odds with his own understanding.

Dividing the World Rightly

As for a way of discerning ethical issues that serve feminist ends, a helpful proposition is

the three-fold division of feminist ethical methods articulated by Cristina Traina: a Liberalist

telos and goals, a Naturalist grounding, and a Social Constructivist critique.44 Each of these

builds off one another. One initially starts with a Liberalist telos and goals: holding fast to the

idealistic, utopian, and (perhaps even) naïve belief there are higher principles by which to judge

“the good” and “the right”. All Christians must be ethical liberals to some extent, as they hold

to a transcendent moral imperative that exists in spite of the “facts on the ground”. The

imperative is bigger than history, situation, or culture.45

And yet, as experience and history have shown us, this absolute moral imperative upon

the universe is ultimately idealistic and unrealistic. This is why, even as we cling to that hopeful

zeal, we must have a Naturalist grounding. One’s philosophical Liberalism must be tempered by

hardened realism, by way of philosophical Naturalism: we can have many lofty assumptions

about The Good and The Right, but in the end, even those pursuits and definitions are limited

by Nature. We hit limits and realities even as we strive for more. What’s more, these limits of

embodiment and socio-cultural embeddedness offer insights into moral questions, especially in

relation to human bodies, sexuality, the allocation of finite resources, and political discourse.

44
Traina, Feminist Ethics, 24-48
45
Yes, these moral principles have often been abused; but through on-going good faith discussion, participation,
and engagement in interpersonal and communal contexts, they can be refined.

36
Other natural limits arise as well: varied cultural contexts, a confluence of poor options in a

given circumstance, situations in which all the choices before you have moral rot of some kind.

We must acknowledge we are limited and finite. No one exists as moral and ethical beings and

comes out unscathed. We cannot exceed the bounds within which we are set, so we ought to

be open to listening to natural contours of our lives, however messy, to find hints and whispers

as to their moral character and the direction of their own ethical flourishing.

Yet, and lastly, even as we do this dance between philosophical Liberalism and

Naturalism, we occasionally need to move over to a Social Constructivist critique in order to

keep our conclusions provisional and open to change. Employing this principle challenges our

notions of the utopian and the limitations. Strive for the ideal, accommodate for reality, but

then give pause and evaluate once more then ethical decision to which you’ve come before

enacting it. Traina summarizes the heart of this approach:

The great contribution of social constructionism is its incessant investigation of the

political and systematic interests behind statements of fact and value. Social
constructionism aims to criticize without creating a new orthodoxy. By shaking off
accustomed visions of ourselves and the world, it suggests, we may finally cease having
to confront the same old problems in the same old formulations. There can be no
transcendent sacred cows—no ideas exempt from investigation—because authority is
culturally and collectively bestowed, not inherent… Suspicious of all concentrations of
power, social constructionist feminism accommodates variation along infinite axes,
producing a loose, plural, critical anthropology.46

This deep critical eye is necessary to not give way to blinding structures of culture, power,

dogma, or preference. And yet, pure skepticism cannot be a positive basis on which to come to

46
Traina, Feminist Ethics, 33.

37
ethical conclusions, thus after critique and reassessment, we return back to our dance between

Liberal idealism and hard-edge Naturalism.

For male feminists specifically, the ethical method proposed here would look like this:

pursue the goals of Liberalism (complete women’s equality and liberation) within the bounds of

Naturalism (continued structures and scars of women’s historical oppression); and as we do so,

continually engage in Social Constructivism to critique our own conclusions (Is simple “equality”

enough to overcome generations of oppression? Must we work within certain political,

economic, or religious structures for liberation or must we cast them off altogether? Are some

of these systems and beliefs even salvageable if we are truly seeking justice? Etc.). The

Liberalism gives life and transcendence to a potentially deterministic and injustice-perpetuating

Naturalism, while the Social Constructivism keeps the entire enterprise humble and dynamic.

Practice Makes Imperfect?

Having articulated a male feminist theological vision and some ideas for applying it

philosophically, let us end with a prophetic call to men who desire to take on the cause of

women. The ethical Christian life is marked by justice, love, peace, and reconciliation. And these

are all things that can only be done only when engaging with the darkness in this world. It

means rejecting power and privilege as ways of getting things done. It means seeing material

resources as a means to the goals of God and his Kingdom, and not ends in and of themselves.

The Church must be a hospitable and welcoming place where people can bring darkness, sin,

suffering, and death, and find a home for them in union with God and his people. Offered here

are some practical, grounded suggestions to start the path forward.

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 As individuals, male feminists will actively seek spaces in which they act restoratively

and reparatively to bring healing in the places of injustice. They will participate in

consciousness-raising techniques for themselves and others in order to bring awareness of this

reality to those still seeped in their own power and privilege. Again, this will include continuing

to raise their own awareness. One of the largest critiques of male feminists today is the fact

that they become just as patriarchal and unjust in their confidence that they “get it” while

others do not. A “woke” misogynist can be more damaging to the cause of feminism than an

overt sexist. Male Christian feminists will engage in talking about the Divine in feminine terms.

They will do this neither ironically, nor with an implied wink-and-a-nod to their own

enlightenment, but as genuine worship to their God. To this end, and more importantly, they

will actually engage with the Divine Herself in feminine terms. Not only in their public speech,

but also their private prayers, journaling, devotionals, and religious thoughts and meditations

they will consciously engage God in feminine language, listening to and for the feminine voice

of God to them.

As male feminists live and move and work societally, they will work on multiple fronts

for the cause of women. Culturally, they will perform active and conscious resistance against

norms and mores that perpetuate patriarchy. Politically, they will do prophetic engagement

with feminist priorities. This may mean advocating or voting for political issues with which they

themselves disagree but respect the space of women to decide for themselves. Economically,

male feminists should use their money and social engagement toward supports for women and

families.

39
 Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, there is much work to do in the Church. Male

feminists leading in a church context should have conscious, overt, purposeful, and public

inclusion and priority of women in every single role in the church. If there are not qualified or

desiring women, then the openness to do so should be full-throated and well-known. There

should be explicit overturning of usual gender binaries by men in theology and ethos. For

example, “men’s retreats” might not have the usual “sports, drinking, smoking, etc.” that is

expected of masculine, patriarchal culture; when talking about theologically “masculine” topics

like judgment and sovereignty, perhaps using feminine names for God during discussion could

open up these theological ideas. Male Christian feminists should express corporate,

institutional solidarity with feminist concerns and issues, both local and global. There should be

inclusive language in both worship and theological articulation. The Bible translations used in

the Church’s life, the songs they sing, and the liturgies they use, should be self-consciously

inclusive and diverse in their language for the Divine and humanity. And lastly, male feminists in

a Christian context should be conscious of the terminology they use for speaking of their fellow

Christians who are women, considering the ethical foundations above. For example, “Co-Heirs”

or “God’s Daughters” would stress their autonomous reception of the full benefits of Christ and

his church, while “Sisters” would stress the mutuality and familial relationality and solidarity

that exists among male feminists and women.

Conclusion | Walking the Walk

In these pages, a male feminist theological method including ethical applications has

been articulated and discussed. The hope is that this would be the beginning of a robust

dialogue by women and men wanting to be in solidarity about how God might work in, for, and

40
through them all for the good of all humanity, ushering their suffering selves into the New Life

of shalom, justice and equality. And yet, with all the theology and ethics and such it can be easy

to lose sight of how fairly straightforward the call of the Christian in this world is. Micah 6.8

famously says, “what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and

to walk humbly with your God?” In the end, all these words and theology have been an attempt

to expound upon and energize that spirit within the reader. Some parts may have clarified,

others may have made this entire enterprise seem more daunting than it ought.

But many generations of mothers and fathers in Christianity have faced injustices and

questions and tensions, and have sought to be gentle and clear in how life is meant to be lived

in that tension between our utopian hope and dismal reality. In the Reformed tradition, one

can perhaps do no better than the Heidelberg Catechism’s closing words on Christian holy

living. After affirming both that God’s law demands total obedience and we cannot offer it, the

rhetorical questioner asks in Question 115, “Since no one in this life can obey the Ten

Commandments perfectly, why does God want them preached so pointedly?” The catechism

then offers this beautiful response:

First, so that the longer we live

the more we may come to know our sinfulness
and the more eagerly look to Christ
for forgiveness of sins and righteousness.

Second, so that we may never stop striving,

and never stop praying to God for the grace of the Holy Spirit,
to be renewed more and more after God’s image,
until after this life we reach our goal: perfection.

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Striving, praying, renewal. These are the tools of the Christian ethic and life here and now. They

are the weapons with which we fight and the balms with which we comfort. And it is all in the

pursuit of presenting ourselves, the world, and the cosmos before God to be fully embraced,

body and soul, into the love and life of the Divine. I simply pray that on that day we can stand

as a testament against all forms of injustice, especially that perpetuated against women,

recognizing all the ways we have been complicit and active in silencing, marginalizing, belittling,

and shaming them. I hope especially that men like myself may take the time between that day

and now to humbly root out our privilege and how it’s blinded us; to listen to all those people

who have not been heard; to recognize the dignity, strength, and authority of women rather

than think we bestow it. So let us pray to God our Mother, God our Midwife, God our Sister.

Even if we get it “wrong”, there is mercy and grace. May we pray this ancient prayer; and may it

strengthen us all as we press forward to our God and His Glory–and Her’s.

Faithful Midwife, as you delivered the Hebrews safely out of the long labor of slavery,
so, morning by morning, you draw us forth into the new day. Surround us with a cloud
of witnesses, and sustain us by your powerful word, that, in the night of loneliness and
fear, we, being weary, may not lost heart but push toward the joy that is to come,
laboring with Christ to give birth to your promised kingdom. Amen.

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appendix a | God & Her Glory
Feminine Language & The Divine

Our Mother Who Art in Heaven

Well, they warned me.

It was my first year at my first seminary. I had the honor of being chosen for an “Inter-

Seminary Seminar” course in which people from five very different seminaries got together,

were given a topic about which they all disagreed, and who then spent a semester writings

papers to and debating with one another. One of those seminaries was a more “liberal”

Lutheran one. I was told ahead of time that the students (usually women) from this

school, every year, always made a big, emotional deal about masculine language being used in

the papers. And indeed, at the beginning of every single paper discussion, the first comment

was always a tear-filled lament over the use of masculine pronouns throughout the paper.

And so, when it was my turn to write a paper, I tried to be sensitive to this. I changed

“mankind” to “humanity”, “brothers” to “brothers and sisters”, etc. And yet, when my paper

came up for discussion, they opened up once more with an impassioned complaint against the

male-centered language. I told them that I had tried to be sensitive to that. They said, “no, the

problem was in your use of the masculine pronouns for God!“ I was stunned. I didn’t think they

were serious. On the drive home, I myself went on an impassioned lament to my professor over

this. I had come around on the issue regarding “mankind” vs. “humanity”, but didn’t we have a

responsibility to talk about God the way that God talks God? After all, when God’s Image was

43
revealed to the world it did so as a male. We should not presume the right to exceed the

boundaries that Scripture has laid for us, right? Even when my mind changed on women’s full

participation in the church and its leadership, the idea that my language about God should

change was far from me. A little later, I tried to use as few pronouns for God as possible, but

the idea of using feminine pronouns for God still felt a bit much.

For many, this can feel like a step too far; it belongs in the category of “wacko”

liberalism, that doesn’t simply want to reclaim truths lost to the Church’s institutional history

but redefine it in the image of their own preferences and cultural standards. I get that. I do. I

understand that those that feel this way do not hate women. There are many egalitarians and

women pastors that still use masculine pronouns for God. And yet, especially recently, I have

seen the power, importance, and (most importantly) faithfulness of using the fullest range of

images and pronouns for God–male and female–in our devotional, interpersonal, and

institutional life. Further, I think this is especially true for those men that want to embrace the

increased place of women in the church and stand in solidarity with them. In the pages that

follow, allow me to make my case.

Our Theology of Language; Our Language of Theology

Most would agree that God does not have sexual “parts” that define him as male or

female. They simply think we should use the language provided by the Bible to talk about God

(though the Scriptures do have an abundance of feminine imagery for God—more on that

later). They might further think that it’s not that big of a deal as to what words we use to

describe God: it’s all a human approximation after all. No one bases their own gender identity

on divine pronoun usage. Yet, as Elizabeth Johnson says in her remarkable article “Naming God

44
She”: “The symbol of God functions. It is never neutral in its effects but expresses and molds a

community’s bedrock convictions and actions…. Names are limited, metaphorical, and only

grasp after God. Therefore, we need an abundance of names for God.”47

The language we use for God inevitably shapes us and forms us. How we talk about God

will–in a million ways, both conscious and unconscious–shape how we think about God. How

many of us imagine God more as a man than a woman, even while we say he is technically

neither? The language we use for God is inevitably an approximation. Most of us, if

we really thought about it, would admit that our language does not actually express the fullness

of who God is. Therefore, our main stress needs to be what we’re trying to communicate about

God, more than fighting for the specific words we use. We need to be flexible and extremely

diverse in our language in order to really capture the communicable parts of who God is, while

still holding onto the mystery that our language cannot contain God. Johnson again:

Using male images of God to the exclusion of female and cosmic ones almost inevitably
makes God-talk become rigid and indeed literal. The result in theological terms is nothing
short of an idol, a graven image. Indeed, the conflicts that break out over female naming
indicate that, however subliminally, maleness is intended when we say God.
Consequently, the absolute mystery of the infinitely loving God is reduced to the fantasy
of an infinitely ruling man…. If women are created in the image of God, without
qualification, then their human reality offers suitable, even excellent metaphors for
speaking about the divine mystery who remains always ever greater.48

To be clear, this desire to use diverse, even feminine language for God is not because anyone is

trying to demean language or say it doesn’t matter—it’s precisely because of the power of

words to shape us and communicate something. It’s a desire to be more faithful to the Divine in

47
Johnson, Naming God She, 134.
48
Ibid., 135.

45
our language–not less so. It’s wanting to add facets to the diamond of our God-talk through

which to see God, so his glory, nature, and character can be that much more adored. This is not

a matter of being faithful versus being loose in how we view and talk about God. It’s about our

worship of God and conceiving him in the fullness of her complexity, mystery, and glory (see

what I did there?).

How Our Words and History Affect Women

For the longest time, the way I would have defended masculine language for God would

be with an appeal to the idea of representational “headship”. This is the idea that different

systems and ways of human relating have people that “head” them–like a “head” of State, for

example. And as the “head”, this leader stands as the representative for everyone they lead

and care for. Traditionalists on this issue (as I used to be) believe that husbands act as the

“head” of their family unit, including their wives. Most of these conservatives would be the first

to tell you that this does not mean that women in general should see men in general as their

“heads”. And yet, there is still a sense in these theologies that “maleness” serves as the “head”

of “femaleness”. In other words, “maleness” can and does serve as the representation

of all humanity, whereas “femaleness” cannot nor does not.

Therefore (so the thinking goes), if we want to talk of God in a way that represents the

fullness of his relational personality, we should speak in masculine terms, not feminine. We can

still talk of God “Him”-self having some “feminine” traits (tenderness, mercy, desire), but we

can’t speak of God “Her”-self having “masculine” traits (justice, wrath, protection). That simply

does not compute in this view. This can have deep unintended effects.

46
 This state of affairs has a profound impact on women’s religious identity. It does not
point to the equal participation of women and men in the divine ground. Rather, women
can participate in likeness to God only by abstracting themselves from their concrete,
bodily reality. This sets up a largely unconscious dynamic that alienates women from
their own goodness and power at the same time that it reinforces dependency upon men
and male authority…. Caught in this dualistic way of thinking that results in real
differences in power, women have unequal say in shaping a community’s cultural
institutions, laws, and symbols.49

Throughout history, we see the negative effects of a Church whose practices, theology,

symbols, emphases, and cultural engagement are dominated by the views of men exclusively.

The way we talk about God may not be the source of this problem, but it certainly plays a role

in justifying and perpetuating it. If we conceive of a God who is more-or-less a male who may

have “some feminine traits”, then we ultimately leave women out of the equation. Women can

only participate in the Divine by going “through” maleness. They can only mirror part of who

God is, and a “lesser” part at that. Men, though, are told they reflect a full divine Image. A

pastor once told me with a straight face and without a single note of irony that women

experience redemption by Jesus precisely because he is a male acting as the rescuer of women.

Just think of how this view, over millennia can shape and form how women see themselves in

the Church! “A female Messiah would have been insufficient to redeem us.” “Femininity is

lacking in some way. It needs masculinity to know and be saved by God.”

In discussing this with a female friend of mine, she said she didn’t see a problem with

masculine language for God. If someone walked into a mixed-gender group and said, “Hey

guys!”, she would know she was included. But if they walked in and said, “Hey ladies!”, the men

49
Ibid., 136

47
would feel left out. She was arguing that feminine language is more exclusive than male. I have

two thoughts on that. First, women are certainly able to go through the extra mental step of

“translating” masculine language to include them. This is not to discount the countless ways

women have learned to thrive and flourish in male-dominated worlds, both in and outside the

Church. It simply means that they shouldn’t have to, and that this constant vigilance on

women’s part does subtly–unconsciously, even–affect women’s theological self-image over

time. Secondly, men must do that same “translation” process when they are referred to as the

Bride of Christ. I am fine with both genders having to do that “translating” work as we engage

with God. In fact, I think it’s healthy. The attempt here is not to try and de-gender God-

language or imagery. Masculine divine language is neither “wrong” nor needs to go away; we

simply need to expand our language so that both genders experience the full range of gendered

language. Just because men are less used to experiencing feminine Divine language doesn’t

mean they shouldn’t have to learn. “If women are created in the image of God, without

qualification, then their human reality offers a suitable, even excellent metaphor for speaking

about the divine mystery who remains always ever greater.”50

A Biblical & Social History of Gender-Speak

Outside of theology and the Bible, there is a whole world of history and experience that

shows how our language works itself out in the real world over time. We even see it within the

Biblical tradition. Just look at the Gospels. According to the order in which most scholars think

they were written, Mark refers to God as “Father” only 4 times. Luke does so 15. Matthew 49,

50
Ibid., 135

48
and John 109 times. As time went on, the “Father” tradition in Christianity got bigger and bigger

and bigger, and increasingly more entrenched.

For example, in Luke 15 Jesus tells a few parables that depict God as a Redeemer

looking for her lost ones. He first tells a parable about a Good Shepherd who leaves 99 of his

sheep to look for the lost one. After that, he tells a story of a woman who spends all day

cleaning her house looking for one lost coin. Two stories. Back to back. One depicts our

redeeming God as a man doing “man’s work”. The other depicts God as a woman cleaning her

house. And yet, how many churches, sermons, pieces of art, etc. celebrate God as “the Good

Shepherd” while ignoring “the Good Homemaker”? Why don’t we feel free to speak as

Augustine did in one his sermons on this text: “Holy Divinity has lost her money, and it is us!”

Consider how we culturally treat gendered images:

A master is skillful or in charge; a mistress is an illicit sexual partner. A lord manages

property; a lady has perfect manners and breeding, but does little more than drink tea.
Sir is a term of respect; madam runs a brothel. Christians throughout history have
considered the female and the feminine at best subordinate, and at worst,
dangerous. They did not think they honored God by calling God Mother or Midwife.51

Even when the Scripture uses feminine language, like describing God as a mother hen, the

male-dominated church has twisted it into a masculine picture, like one famous hymn does:

“Under his wings, I am safely abiding, there shall I hide till life’s trials are o-er.”

The point in all of this, is that maybe–just maybe–our preference for masculine images

when speaking about God is more because of deeply entrenched cultural developments,

assumptions, and biases–not because of a sober reflection on the Scriptures from within the

51
Japinga, Feminism, 33

49
context in which they were written. It seems to me that Christians have too often taken their

masculine assumptions and then looked in Scripture to justify the views and intuitions they

already have.

[This use of feminine divine language] allows women’s reality to point toward divine

mystery in as adequate and inadequate a way as male metaphors do. Women are

capable as women of symbolizing the whole of the mystery of God, not merely an aspect

or dimension. We reflect God not only as nurturing–although certainly that–but as

powerful, taking initiative, creating-redeeming-saving, angry against injustice, and

struggling with and victorious over the powers of this world. The full and still-developing

historical reality of women is a source for female icons of the living God in all her fullness

and strength. And women are blessed in the naming. 52

Linguistic Passion

In Postmodern thought, language always encodes how we see reality. One can only

perceive reality with words because people always think in words. This is probably a big reason

why the fight over gendered pronouns is so fierce. Mess with the language and you mess with

people’s narrative-making apparatus. It’s true: language is reality. I don’t want to imply that

language doesn’t matter, that people are making too big of a deal about it and should just

lighten up, or that there should be a free-for-all in our language about God. Rather, my desire

to broaden our words for God is precisely because I see the power of our language to shape

how we see reality.

52
Johnson, Naming

50
 But I understand that people aren’t simply bothered because this “challenges their view

of reality”. More conservative or traditionalist Christians have valid concerns that feminine

divine language comes more from using culture to dictate how we talk about God; that it’s

simply accommodating to selfish contemporary preferences and being willing to toss out or

twist the Bible to fit “the world”. However, with as much good faith as possible, I want to say

this need not be the case. This here is an attempt to be more faithful to the Scriptures and the

Church–not less. The Bible is our rule of faith. It is what shapes us and forms us as a people who

then go out on mission into the world. I am simply offering some thoughts as someone trying to

recapture and re-emphasize the very things as Scripture (and its earliest readers).

Women are created in God’s image, and women’s experience can be used to speak of
God. God is not offended or degraded by being described in feminine imagery. Feminist
theologians are not creating God in their own image, but recovering feminine images of
God from Scripture and tradition and developing new images. Discovering the feminine
face of God has empowered women to discover their own value and strength and the
worth of female experience.53

Smashing Idols

So let’s use gendered, personal words for God, because he is a personal God and

genders give us insight into his nature and character. But let’s not forget what Augustine was

getting at when commenting on John 1: “Perhaps not even John spoke the reality as it was, but

as he could; for he, a human being, was speaking of God.” We can never forget that our

language is always an approximation and grasping after that which we’ll never know

completely. To those women that flourish as things are now: Great! Keep doing it. I don’t think

53
Japinga, Feminism

51
it is a “sin” to only use masculine language for God. My hope, though, is that it wouldn’t be

seen as “sacrilegious”, “offensive”, or “idolatrous” for others to employ other, less-common

images and language in order to connect to our God. We should allow our brothers and sisters

this freedom, lest we fall into our own errors. “The proscription of idolatry must also be

extended to verbal pictures. When the word Father is taken literally to mean that God is male

and not female, represented by males and not females, then this word becomes idolatrous.”54

Even if you feel terrified at getting your language about God “wrong”, know that our

Lord is gracious and knows when you simply want to commune with the Spirit. Theologian T.F.

Torrance says it well: “The basic problem … is that language about God has become detached

from the Reality of God, and a conceptuality arising out of our own consciousness has been

substituted for a conceptuality forced upon us from the side of God Himself.”55 These battles

are not over what kind of God we will take hold of through our language, but the kind of God

that we will let, through language, take hold of us. The fight is not for how we will think of God,

but how we will let God meet us. And hopefully, we can see that God meets us and seizes us in

far more ways than simply masculine ones.

54
Ruether, Rosemary. Sexism and God Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1993), 15.
55
Torrance, Thomas. The Ground and Grammar of Theology. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1980), 167.

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appendix b | Biblical & Historical Use of
the Feminine Divine
Here I offer Biblical and historical references to the Feminine Divine. The Biblical texts are
mostly in order that they appear in the Bible, the historical quotes are roughly chronological.
Some pieces may seem stronger than others. I offer them with little or no commentary.

The Bible

Old Testament

Many people know that the most common name for God in the Old Testament is Elohim, and
many know that this is a plural word. What a lot of people don’t realize, though, is that this
same plural ending can be either male or female. This is probably why Elohim, says,
“Let us make humanity in our image and likeness”, and then it goes on to say, “So God created
humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created
them” (Gen 1.27). God, from the very beginning is kept ambiguous in terms of gender, and says
explicitly that both male and female make up his image.

“And God’s Spirit fluttered [like a mother bird] over the face of the deep” (Gen 1.2)

Throughout the Scriptures (both Old and New Testaments), the words used for the Spirit of God
are all feminine. Their accompanying verbs and adjectives are as well.

“God also spoke to Moses and said to him: “I am the LORD. I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob as El Shaddai, but by my name ‘The LORD’ I did not make myself known to them.” (Ex 6.2-
3, the name “El Shaddai” in ancient Hebrew colloquially means “Breastfeeding/Birthing God”–
expectedly, a translation like this is disputed by some).

“You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought
you to myself.” (Ex 19.4)

“Did I conceive all this people? Did I give birth to them, that you should say to me, ‘Carry them
in your bosom, as a nurse carries a sucking child, to the land that you promised on oath to their
ancestors’?” (Num 11.12)

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“As an eagle stirs up its nest, and hovers over its young; as it spreads its wings, takes them up,
and bears them aloft on its pinions, the Lord alone guided him; no foreign god was with him.”
(Deut 32.11-12)

“You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you; you forgot the God who gave you birth.” (Deut
32.18)

“[T]he root of the Hebrew word for God’s mercy, rhm, also means a woman’s uterus, so that
when scripture calls upon God for mercy, it is actually asking God to forgive with the kind of
love a mother has for the child of her womb.” (Johnson)

“Has the rain a father, or who has begotten the drops of dew? From whose womb did the ice
come forth, and who has given birth to the hoarfrost of heaven?” (Job 38.28-29)

“Yet it was you who took me from the womb; you kept me safe on my mother’s breast.” (Ps
22.9, God as Midwife)

“Let me abide in your tent forever, find refuge under the shelter of your wings. Selah” (Ps 61.4)

“Upon you I have leaned from my birth; it was you who took me from my mother’s womb. My
praise is continually of you.” (Ps 71:6, God as Midwife)

“As the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our God, until
he has mercy upon us.” (Ps 123:2, God as Mistress)

“My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the
depths of the earth.” (Ps 139.15, God as Weaver)

“For a long time I have held my peace, I have kept still and restrained myself; now I will cry out
like a woman in labor, I will gasp and pant.” (Isa 42.14)

“Listen to me, house of Jacob and all the remnant of the house of Israel who have been borne
by me from the belly, carried from the womb, even until old age I am the one, and to gray hairs
am I carrying you. Since I have made, I will bear, carry, and save.” (Isa 46.3-4)

“Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should have no compassion on the child of her
womb? Yet even if these may forget, I will not forget you” (Isa 49.15)

“As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.”
(Isa 66.13)

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“‘Is Ephraim my dear son? My darling child? For the more I speak of him, the more do I
remember him. Therefore my womb trembles for him; I will truly show motherly-compassion
upon him.’, says the Lord” (Jer 31.20, literal translation by Phyllis Trible)

“The above passage is a key one in a larger poetic structure where the very form expresses a
superiority of the female over the male in that the male came forth from the female’s womb, is
“surrounded by” the female, therefore. The passage Jer 31:15-22 reaches its climax with the
statement: ‘For Yahweh has created a new thing in the land: female surrounds [tesobeb] man.’
(v.22) This ‘female surrounding man’ has manifold referent: Rachel the mother embracing her
sons (v.15), Yahweh consoling Rachel about Ephraim (vs.16-17), Yahweh proclaiming motherly
compassion for Ephraim (v.20), the daughter Israel superseding the son Ephraim (v.21).”
(Leonard Swidler, Biblical Affirmations of Woman)

“When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.
The more I called them, the more they went from me…
Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk,
I took them up in my arms; but they did not know that I healed them.
I led them with cords of human kindness, with bands of love.
I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks.
I bent down to them and fed them.” (Hos 11.1-4)

“I will fall upon them like a bear robbed of her cubs, and will tear open the covering of their
heart; there I will devour them like a lion, as a wild animal would mangle them.” (Hos 13.8,
interesting because it’s a feminine image coupled with wrath and justice, not stereotypically
“feminine”)

New Testament

“[Jesus said,] ‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are
sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood
under her wings, and you were not willing!'” (Mt 23.37)

“And again he said, `To what shall I liken the reign of God? It is like leaven, which a woman,
having taken, did hide in three measures of meal, till that all was leavened.'” (Luke 13.20-21)

In my research, I noticed something. Many times that Jesus tells a parable or gives some image
about God or God’s work in the world, he will tell a few in a row and will often retell the same
story or image using women instead. He seems to be at pains to show that women and their

55
experience is perfectly capable of being used to express who God is and how he works in the
world.

“Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep
the house, and search carefully until she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together her
friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ Just
so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
(Luke 15.8-10)

“[Jesus] cried out, ‘If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me! Let him come and drink who
believes in me! As scripture says, ‘From his breast shall flow fountains of living water.’” (John
7.37-38, the word translated “heart” in many translations is most commonly translated
elsewhere as “womb”, though in Greek, in the context of feeding or drinking, it can refer to the
breasts)

It has often been pointed out that Jesus uses a unique word for God. By adopting the
word Abba for God, he affirms a primary relationship to God based on love and trust….[I]s it
enough to conclude from this use of Abbathat Jesus transforms the patriarchal concept of
divine fatherhood into what might be called a maternal or nurturing concept of God as loving,
trustworthy parent? (Rosemary Ruether, Sexism and God-Talk)

Look at this historical progression of the Hebrew idea of “Lady Wisdom” and how it gets
identified with Jesus. These quotes are in chronological order:

 “I, wisdom, live with prudence, and I attain knowledge and discretion…. For whoever
finds me finds life and obtains favor from the Lord” (Prov 8.12,35)
 “For she [Wisdom] is the breath of the power of God and pure emanation of the glory of
the Almighty….For she is the reflection of the eternal light, and a spotless mirror of the
working of God and an image of his goodness.” (Wis 7.25-26, a Jewish apocryphal text
between the testaments, showing the mindset of Jews around the time of Jesus)
 “The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a
drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.”
(Matt 11.19)
 “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” (John 10.10)
 “[We proclaim] Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” (1Cor 1.24)
 “He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he
sustains all things by his powerful word.” (Heb 1.3)

The History of God’s People

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The Mishnah, the written down accounts of the oral tradition of the rabbis from the Exile to the
destruction of Jerusalem in 70CE, has over ninety names for God that are not in the Jewish
Scriptures. Faithful people of God that are in love with the word of God can faithfully build on
Scripture to use new names and images for God. This isn’t wrong.

The root for the word “Tabernacle” is the word Shekiniah, which becomes one of the most
common names for God’s presence used by Rabbis–and it’s feminine. There is even a liturgy for
Sabbath, which celebrates God’s people becoming one with this settling of God in their midst. It
casts God, through his Shekinah, as a Bride for his people to “comingle” with.

“Even so my mother, the Holy Spirit, take me by one of my hairs and carry me away onto the
great mountain.” (The Gospel of Hebrews, Christian writing, early 100sCE)

“For what is more essential to God than the mystery of love? Look then into the womb of the
Father, which alone has brought forth the only-begotten Son of God. God is love, and for love
of us has become woman. The ineffable being of the Father has out of compassion with us
become Mother. By loving the Father has become Woman.” (Clement of Alexandria, “Quis
Dives Salvetur”, mid-2nd-century)

“O Jesus Christ, heavenly milk from the sweet breasts of the bride, expressed from the favors of
your wisdom, the infants, reared with tender lips, are filled with the tender spirit from the
nipple of the Word.” (Clement again, Christ the Educator)

“Bread of Life…we name over thee the name of Mother of the ineffable mystery of the hidden
dominions and powers.” (Acts of Thomas, early 200sCE)

“And the deaconesses shall be honored by you as a type of the Holy Spirit.” (Didascalia
Apostolorum, circa 230CE)

“The soul is handmaiden to her mistress, the Holy Spirit.” (Origen, early 3rd-century)

“A man who is yet unmarried loves and honors God his father and the Holy Spirit his mother.”
(Aphraates, Homily XVIII.10, early 4th-century Orthodox father)

“[Jesus] is the Breast of Life and the Breath of Life; the dead suck from His life and live.”
(Ephrem the Syrian, 4th-century)

“[The Psalmist] made himself a child of God; to him God was Father, and God was Mother. God
is Father because he calls, orders, and rules; God is Mother because he caresses, nourishes,

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gives milk, and embraces.” (Augustine of Hippo, Enarratio on Ps. 26.2.18 [Psalm 27.10], 4th-
century)

“Then my mother the Holy Spirit took me in one of my hairs.” (Jerome, the same quote from
the Gospel of the Hebrews above, but he quotes it approvingly in a few commentaries, late 4th-
century)

“But thou also Jesus, good Lord, art thou not also Mother? Art thou not Mother who art like a
hen which gathers her chicks under her wings? Truly, Lord, thou art also Mother…. Thou,
therefore, soul, dead of thyself, run under the wings of Jesus thy Mother and bewail under her
feathers thy afflictions. Beg that she heal thy wounds, and that healed, she may restore thee to
life. Mother Christ, who gatherest thy chicks under thy wings, this dead chick of thine puts
himself under thy wing.” (Anselm of Canterbury, “Oratio ad sanctum Paulum”, 11th-century)

“What does God do all day long? God gives birth. From all eternity God lies on a maternity bed
giving birth.” (Meister Eckhart, 13th-century German theologian)

“Christ…nurses us from his own breast, as a mother, filled with tenderness, does with her
babies.” (Gregory Palamas, early 14th-century Greek Orthodox theologian)

“As truly as God is our Father, so truly is God our Mother… I understand three ways of
contemplating motherhood in God. The first is the foundation of our nature’s creation; the
second is Christ’s taking of our nature, where the motherhood of grace begins; the third is
the motherhood at work in the Spirit. And by the same grace everything is penetrated, in length
and in breadth, in height and in depth without end; and it is all one love.” (Julian of
Norwich, Showings, 14th-century)

“And thus is Jesus our true Mother in nature of our first making; and he is our true Mother in
grace by his taking of our made nature. All the fair working and all the sweet kindly offices of
most dear Motherhood are appropriated to the second Person [of the Trinity]...[Like a pregnant
mother,] he carries us within him in love and travail, until the full time when he wanted to
suffer the sharpest thorns and cruel pains that ever were or will be, and at the last he
died….The mother can give her child suck of her milk, but our precious Mother Jesus can feed
us with himself, and does, most courteously and tenderly, with the blessed sacrament, which is
the precious food of true life …. The mother can lay her child tenderly to her breast, but our
tender Mother Jesus can lead us easily into his blessed breast through his sweet open side…. So
he wants us to act as a meek child, saying: My kind Mother, my gracious Mother, my beloved
Mother, have mercy on me. I have made myself filthy and unlike you, and I may not and cannot
make it right except with your help and grace.” (Julian again, The Revelations of Divine Love)

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“Our Lord for his part becomes more familiar with us than anything else. He is like a nurse, like
a mother. He does not just compare himself with fathers, who are kind and good-natured to
their children. He says he is more than a mother, or a nurse. He uses such familiarity so that we
shall not be like savage beasts anymore.” (John Calvin, “Sermon on Job 22:1-22”, 16th-century)

“God is our father; even more God is our Mother. God does not want to hurt us, but only do
good for us, all of us. If children are ill, they have additional claim to be loved by their mother.
And we too, if by chance we are sick with badness and are on the wrong track, have yet another
claim to be loved by the Lord” (Pope John Paul I, Osservatore Romano, 9/21/78)

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