A spoonful of fudging helps the heresies go down

OK, I admit straight away, this isn’t really about ‘heresy’ in the full-on sense of ‘damnable religious errors’. Nor can I think of a word-play on ‘supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’. But in the old sense of haeresis, meaning wrongful divisions in the body of Christ, I do think that we are currently facing ‘heresies’ caused by fudging the issues, and we will soon be facing more.

Let us go back, for a moment, to the decision to ordain women into the priesthood of the Church of England, taken in 1992 — or rather, let us go back to the ‘indecision’, for that is unarguably what it was.

When the Church of England put to Parliament (as it had to) the necessary legislation to allow women to be ordained as priests, it included in that legislation the option for parishes to reject their priestly ministry. Looking back on it, that was an extraordinary thing to do. Is there any other example of a law where people can choose not to have that law apply to them?

Moreover, the Church itself spoke about the introduction of women priests as being a ‘process of reception’. That is to say, it was not prepared to commit itself to saying that this was exactly right —rather the approach would be ‘suck it and see’.

Then, on top of all this, Synod introduced its own legislation, an ‘Act of Synod’, to provide episcopal ministry for those who would be discomfited by the association of their existing bishop with the theology and action of ordaining women.

Thus, from its inception, the ordination of women was a fudge: systematically, deliberately — and inevitably, for without such a fudge it would not have taken place when it did. If the General Synod had been told, “You must decided now, one way or the other”, it is certain that it would have decided to wait.

However, the fudge was in place. And what happened next was equally inevitable, but unforseen by many. First, the assurances contained in the legislation where deliberately, but covertly, disregarded. The Act of Synod had declared that a person’s views on women’s ordination would not count against them when it came to selection for the higher offices in the Church. Yet extraordinarily, after 1993 almost no opponent of women’s ordination was found to have the qualities necessary to become a bishop. Indeed, there were unsubstantiated rumours of potential candidates being given a ‘fireside chat’ to inform them that on this issue there was only one option —you were for, or you were out.

Secondly, however, it may be argued that the basis of the Synod’s decision affected the quality of the candidates for ministry. Specifically, (and unsurprisingly, given the nature of its debates) the Synod had not decided that ‘this was what the Bible said ought to happen’. Rather, it had fudged the theological basis by failing to settle the biblical issue. Unsurprisingly, those women drawn to ordination to the priesthood tended to be those less committed to biblical precision, whilst those women drawn to full-time ministry, but of precise views, tended to avoid ordination to the priesthood.

What followed was inevitably an influx of women priests with generally ‘liberal’ theological views. And this had a further effect, for gradually the voting constituency for elections to Synods also shifted. The more that liberal women came in, the harder it was for conservatives to get elected. So, just as the Bench of Bishops was gradually being gerrymandered away from traditionalism, so the Houses of Clergy were being voted in the same direction.

Thus, contrary to the (palpably ludicrous) statement made in the 1970s, the theological objections to the ordination of women did not go away, but the objectors were increasingly marginalised. The Church was unequally divided, but the divisions would rapidly become more imbalanced.

Yet the objectors found it difficult to object! On paper, they were to be given equal treatment. Outwardly, the ‘period of reception’ would continue for as long as necessary. They had not been told they were wrong, only that they were a minority — but they were an honoured and welcome group, who would continue to be a valued ‘integrity’ within the Church of England. And most of them believed it. The Anglo-Catholics accepted the very considerable ‘bone’ of ‘Flying Bishops’. The Evangelicals were happy so long as they could get men ordained and accepted into parishes, and for the most part they thought the bishops were pretty laughable anyway. The Catholics fudged their attitude to Rome, the Evangelicals fudged their attitude to Anglicanism, the Liberals fudged their attitude to the Bible. Everyone was happy!

Now let us turn our attention to homosexuality, for back in the 1990s, the Church of England was also tackling this challenge. The definitive solution, however, was reached in 1991, when the House of Bishops produced a short statement titled Issues in Human Sexuality. With typical Anglican deftness, this managed to endorse the prevailing orthodoxy without actually insisting on it. The classic instance of this was the acceptance that the laity could engage in homosexual acts (since they were not bound to exemplify the church’s teaching) and that the clergy could argue for homosexual acts, but not engage in them (since the church’s teaching was binding on their behaviour but not their personal doctrine).

It was a small chunk of fudge, but enough to do the job.

Now let us fast-forward to 2005 and the introduction in the UK of civil partnerships. This was itself a classic fudge, being basically a government ‘cover’ for gay marriages in all but name. However, there was enough compromise involved in the legislation to allow Anglican bishops in the House of Lords to speak in favour of the development on the basis of ‘justice’ (but against broadening their provisions to include siblings or lifelong, opposite-sex, friends).

But what were the bishops to do about partnered clergy? The answer, given in another statement, was to allow for them, on the basis that, according to Issues in Human Sexuality, such relationships need not breach the church’s teaching on sex outside marriage:

The House of Bishops does not regard entering into a civil partnership as intrinsically incompatible with holy orders, provided the person concerned is willing to give assurances to his or her bishop that the relationship is consistent with the standards for the clergy set out in Issues in Human Sexuality. The wording of the Act means that civil partnerships will be likely to include some whose relationships are faithful to the declared position of the Church on sexual relationships (see paragraphs 2-7). [Civil Partnerships- A pastoral statement from the House of Bishops of the Church of England, para 19]

Notice, however, the caution in the first sentence of the above paragraph, that clergy in such partnerships should be “willing to give assurances” about their behaviour to their bishop. This was emphasised two paragraphs later:

... Partnerships will be widely seen as being predominantly between gay and lesbian people in sexually active relationships. Members of the clergy and candidates for ordination who decide to enter into partnerships must therefore expect to be asked for assurances that their relationship will be consistent with the teaching set out in Issues in Human Sexuality. [Ibid, para 21]

Notice, again, what is said: civil partnered clergy or ordination candidates “must ... expect to be asked for assurances” about the sexual nature of their relationship.

Notice also, however, what is not said. It does not say that the responsible bishop must actually seek such assurances, only that partnered clergy should “expect to be asked” for them. In fact, such assurances are certainly not sought by bishops in every case. Yet taken with paragraph 19, the implication is that it is the bishop, and not other potentially interested parties, such as churchwardens, parish representatives or neighbouring clergy, who is entitled to these assurances. Hence, although bishops are not always seeking these assurances themselves, they are unwilling to allow others to seek them, even though, as paragraph 21 says, the public perception of such relationships is that they will be sexually active.

Hence we have more fudge, and its divisive effects continue to spread. Thus the General Synod of the Church of England recently voted to approve pension rights to the civil partners of clergy, though not to their other dependents or supporters. The ‘marital’ status of civil partnerships thus seems to be reaffirmed. But on the basis of justice and morality it is hard to deny at least what was granted (even though one may have reservations about what was not), since all clergy in civil partnerships are supposed to be celibate and to be ready and willing to assure their bishops that this is the case, should they be asked. The assumption is breathtaking, though be careful you don’t choke on your fudge!

Meanwhile, on the ground the facts will establish themselves. Civil partnered clergy will become accepted, and the failure of bishops to establish, clearly and publicly, the nature of their relationships will pass unchallenged. But at the same time, the discomfort of those who hold to the traditional view will increase, for there will be no assurance, and no way of being assured, that the morality which the bishops have declared to be biblical (see their further and much larger document confusingly titled Some Issues in Human Sexuality, issued in 2003) is actually being maintained by those they see in civil partnerships.

The Church of England has, in the past, acted as if compromise were the ‘genius’ of Anglicanism. History, I suspect, will show the opposite — that far from being its genius, it was the agent of its downfall. And why should we be surprised? If the devil is the Father of Lies, then the half truth is surely his own offspring.

Revd John P Richardson
17 February 2010

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FCA unity and Anglican 'communion'

Just a thought, but one of the objections being levelled against the FCA is that it is an ‘unholy alliance’ of Catholics and Evangelicals, sharing a widespread opposition to ordained women and homosexual practice, but divided on almost everything else that matters, such as ecclesiology, theology of priesthood and ministry, doctrine and use of scripture, sacrifice of the mass, praying to the saints and for the dead, lay presidency at the eucharist, episcopal authority, Mary, etc (I quote from elsewhere).

Now maybe I’m missing something here, but isn’t this almost exactly what the opponents of the FCA think the Anglican Communion ought to be —a church which unites people who can disagree completely about absolutely all the above, but who are united in their commitment to the purposes of the Church?

So what is the difference? Isn’t unity in disagreement just what they want from the Anglican Communion? Why does FCA attract the ire of Anglican ‘inclusivists’ for forming an alliance which embraces exactly the kind of breadth they think Anglicanism should include?

My guess is because they can see that FCA types are different from themselves, in that in the different ‘wings’ present at the FCA launch, these things have been seen as issues of what Francis Schaeffer used to call ‘true truth’ —issues on which there is a right or a wrong —whereas for themselves they are a matter, ultimately, of ‘opinion’, where I am entitled to mine and you are entitled to yours.

What annoys them is what they (rightly) see as a possible inconsistency —people who ought to disagree acting as if they agree. And as I have said already, there are deep and serious issues here.

But what they fail to see is their own ‘beam’, that this is just the kind of Church they want: one where we can all ‘disagree in unity’ —with maybe a bit more prominence for women priests and a bit more acceptance of homosexuality, but without even (in some cases) insisting on these. That, after all, would be the Open Evangelical position, would it not?

Perhaps the real difference then is the understanding of truth —that, and the view of what are the purposes of the Church. The real problem is surely that the unity of the FCA is seen as a threat to the unity of those who dislike the FCA. Both want unity, but it is the kind of unity, and the issues of unity, which are creating the hostility.

Revd John P Richardson
11 July 2009

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It’s female, Jim but not as we know it! (A third reflection on God and gender)

In setting out these thoughts on God and gender, I feel it is a good moment to consider where this has got to and the questions it poses.

This started with the declaration by the Bishop-elect of Sherborne that “the Holy Spirit may appropriately be called ‘He’ or ‘She’”, matched (as I was reminded) by the Bishop of Durham’s similar willingness to refer to the Spirit as ‘She’. Even Rowan Williams, at one point in The Body’s Grace, puts the word ‘his’ used in relation to God within inverted commas.

I have long felt that changing our gendered use of language with regard to God would be no trivial matter. Indeed, I rather agree with CS Lewis when he wrote that,

... a child who had been taught to pray to a Mother in Heaven would have a religious life radically different from that of a Christian child. (‘Priestesses in the Church’ in God in the Dock)

For myself, as for Lewis, I am persuaded that this would not be a variation on Christian tradition but a departure from it.

The reasons for this in what has been written so far derive from the fact that we are limited in the options of what we might be doing when we use gendered language.

The first option is that we are following an essentially grammatical convention, such as is found in many languages today as well as the biblical languages of Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic. We may say that a thing is ‘feminine’, ‘masculine’ or even ‘neuter’, but we mean by this that the words used for them are declined according to the grammatical rules for feminine, masculine or neuter words.

Between the objects themselves, however, there is neither difference nor interdependency in gender terms. If the word for shoe is ‘feminine’, it does not require or follow that the word for foot will be ‘masculine’. Nor does any quality in the thing itself determine the grammatical ‘gender’. A battleship may be a ‘she’, and bunch of flowers could, in principle, be a ‘he’. It matters not at all.

Thus, in the case of the Holy Spirit, we know that the Hebrew for spirit is feminine and the Greek neuter (whilst the term Jesus used on one occasion, paraklētos, is masculine). In none of these instances does the declension of the word establish the gender of the object to which it refers. Indeed, it clearly could not, under ordinary conventions, be all three.

The first question we must put to our theologians and bishops (actual and potential) who advocate using ‘She’ for the Divinity is whether this is purely meant as a linguistic convention. Do they, to put it another way, intend that this means nothing different from what we have hitherto conveyed by using ‘He’?

My suspicion, however, is that this is not what they mean. Indeed, my suspicion is that when they advocate this usage they have half an eye on that section of their audience which is specifically female in the second sense we have established. For the second option is that we identify things as ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ because they actually are male and female, objectively demanding the terms ‘he’ or ‘she’ which, if they are exchanged, simply denote the same qualities and differences by another term.

However, when asking in what sense things are objectively ‘male’ or ‘female’, the answer is not in terms of shared qualities or physical characteristics. Rather, a thing is, in this sense, male or female in relation to a complementary object. ‘Males’ may be big or small, strong or weak, passive or aggressive. ‘Females’ may be colourful or dull, dominant or submissive, loud or quiet. But what they all have in common is that for each male there is a complementary female, and vice versa.

That being the case, however, we must again ask our theologians and bishops whether this is what they have in mind when they suggest using ‘She’ for God or the Spirit. Do they mean that there is a complementary ‘He’? If not, then it would seem we are back to Option 1, that ‘She’ is not being used as distinct from ‘He’, except in a strictly grammatical-conventional sense. Yet, as I have suggested, I doubt that this is what they intend. We must then ask what exactly do they mean by ‘She’? And until we get an answer, we may say, with all due respect, that they are talking non-sense. That is to say, there is no sense that the rest of us can attach to their words, whatever they themselves may mean by them.

There are, I think, three difficulties that face those who are proposing this change and yet who want to argue that it makes no difference.

One is that it goes against the convention of millennia. As is clear from the move to do the opposite, the use of gendered language for God is well-established and hitherto almost unchallenged.

Secondly, it requires us to use language in ways that we simply have not done until now. Specifically, we have not used terms like ‘he’ or ‘she’ for persons as if they conveyed nothing about gender. This is not just a ‘theological’ problem —it is an issue of conceptualizing something for which we have no real concepts.

Thirdly, Scripture itself presents us with a dilemma. In Genesis 1:27 we are told that when God made man in his image he created ‘male and female’. And these are clearly ‘male and female’ in the objective sense of our Option 2, not the grammatical sense of Option 1.

In reality, the suggestion that we use ‘She’ for the Divinity seems to fall between the two. It is neither simply a grammatical proposal, yet nor is it clear what we are actually meant to understand by the term. It is meant, apparently, to refer to something ‘female’, but, it would seem, ‘not as we know it’.

John Richardson
22 June 2009

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So what do we mean by ‘He’? (A second reflection on God and gender)

It was the philosopher CEM Joad on the radio programme The Brains Trust who became famous for responding to almost every topic with “It all depends what you mean by ...”

People made gentle fun of it, but Joad was entirely right. If we do not know what we mean by the words we are using, then further discussion is futile.

In considering the language we should use for God, which began from the question of using ‘He’ or ‘She’ for the Holy Spirit, it is thus time to ask not just whether we should call God ‘He’ but what exactly we mean by ‘He’ in the first place.

The answer might appear to be simple. Indeed, much of the discussion suggests we assume that it is. By ‘he’ we generally think we mean something, or someone, male or of masculine gender. But this apparently straightforward response simply invites another question: what do we mean by ‘male’ or ‘masculine gender’?

What we do not mean is something or someone strong, or brave, or macho, and so on. We have not, in these discussions, been concerned with what qualities a male might have, or be expected to have. And in any case, there are plenty of males who do not possess these features.

Rather, we need a definition which applies to all that is ‘male’ —a definition which unarguably fits every masculine person or thing and which justifies us using the term.

But here we hit an immediate problem, for as far as many languages are concerned the assignment of gender seems to be entirely arbitrary. There is no apparent quality which determines that a table should be feminine in French or that a bowl should be masculine in Hebrew. Linguistic gender is simply a matter of grammatical rules. To say a thing is ‘masculine’, ‘feminine’ or ‘neuter’ means only that the words used for it follow a particular declension.

If that were the end of the matter, we would say that by ‘he’ we mean we are simply referring to something for which the noun follows the rules of masculine declensions for a particular language. It would thus technically be entirely up to us, and it would make only a formal difference, if we invented for it a new noun of feminine declension and called the same thing ‘she’.

However, a little thought shows that this is only true for inanimate objects. When we refer to animate things, ‘he’ or ‘she’ take on fixed meanings (and the neuter ‘it’ is used only as a matter of expedience, not definition). We may note also that it is in this context that we think of things as ‘male’ or ‘female’, rather than simply ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’.

Yet here again, what defines a thing as ‘male’ or ‘female’ is not immediately straightforward. When we consider plant life, the notion of masculine and feminine ‘characteristics’ is largely a matter for specialists to decide and discern. Even amongst animals, what we might easily think of as ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’ traits turn out to be found in both males and females of different species. The male is not necessarily always the bigger or the stronger, the female is not always the most nurturing or the least aggressive.

Nevertheless, by comparison with inanimate objects, the notion of male and female in the animate world is not merely a matter of vocabulary and grammar. Living things actually are male and female in a way that nonliving things are not.

Yet still we may ask, what makes one thing ‘male’ and another ‘female’. What is it that distinguishes them from one another and defines them in themselves?

There is, I would suggest, one thing (and one thing only) that effectively distinguishes and defines male and female in this context, and that is that they have a complementary opposite to which they may relate, primarily for the purpose of producing offspring.

At the linguistic level, gender is an arbitrary but absolute quality. That is to say, there is no particular reason in the thing itself why it should be assigned a particular gender. But whatever gender it is given, it possesses that gender irregardless of anything else. The French cup is neither more nor less ‘feminine’ because the saucer is also ‘la soucoupe’. It does not need a correspondingly ‘male’ item of crockery for us to be able to tell that it is ‘female’. Its gender, such as it is, stands ‘alone’.

In the world of animate things, however, it is a different matter. A thing may be large or small, passive or aggressive, rough or smooth, but if it has a corresponding female opposite, then it is male, and vice versa. Gender, in this context, is both fixed and relational. A thing is either male or female. We cannot simply decide, arbitrarily, that it is one or the other. Nor can we change its gender by calling it by another name or using a different language. Yet the gender it has, it possesses because of its relationship to something else.

Now it might be objected that there is both a more fixed aspect to gender and a more arbitrary quality than we have admitted. On the one hand, the biological male is usually defined as the sex which can fertilize the female gamete with sperm-cells, whilst the female is usually defined as the egg-producer. This would appear to provide a more fixed definition of male and female, and certainly in animals makes it easier to decide which is which. However, on the other hand, there is obviously no reason why we should call the egg-producer the ‘female’ and not the ‘male’. In this sense, the linguistic terms are just as arbitrary as for objects in the inanimate world.

Both these points are broadly true. However, it remains the case that gender in the animate world is both relational and is fixed relationally. If we decided, arbitrarily, that all ‘males’ were henceforth to be called ‘females’, then all females would, if language distinctions were to be maintained, most naturally switch to being ‘male’. (Or, if we chose some other term, it would effectively mean the same as ‘male’.)

We thus have two possible meanings of the term ‘he’. One is as a purely arbitrary label —a linguistic convention imposing grammatical rules, but bound by nothing else. And if this is how we use the term when applied to the Holy Spirit or to God then we may, indeed, just as readily call either or both ‘She’. This would sound odd to English-speakers, because we are less accustomed to the wider application of gender-rules in our language, but it need not be of any theological significance.

Two things, however, must be said if this is the route we adopt. First, there ought to be some consistency. In those languages which do assign gender to certain objects, they do not habitually and regularly switch genders. ‘Le livre’ does not become ‘la livre’ simply because the speaker feels like it or wants to make a point about the prevalence of women authors or the paucity of boys’ reading habits. Secondly, and following from this, it should be made clear that such a change has no relevance whatsoever to debates about human gender or social roles. To call God ‘She’ on these grounds would no more acknowledge the significance of ‘half the human race’ than it would the significance of the whole world of French tables.

Within our present use of language, however, the alternative is to accept that when and if we call the Holy Spirit or God ‘He’ —or even ‘She’— it must be in relation to something.

If this is the right course, to adopt (and I suggest that it is) then our next big question must be, “In relation to what?”

John P Richardson
21 June 2009

As a PS, though I have worked hard on this point, I am not claiming to have taken all the ‘bones’ out of the argument. I would welcome comments to challenge or clarify what has been said.

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In what sense is God ‘He’? (A first reflection on God and gender)

In what sense ought we to think of God as ‘He’?

The question is posed by divine revelation and by nature itself.

In the living world we find the two states of male and female. And although some organisms are capable of serving both functions, or alternating between both states, most species are exclusively either one or the other. Even in the plant world, where the characteristics of male and female are less easily recognized by most of us, the two conditions exist.

Within divine revelation, the God of Israel was worshipped within in a context where female deities were widely known, yet Yahweh was never regarded as one of them. The ‘generic’ term for ‘god’ in Hebrew, the language of the earliest Scriptures, is plural: ‘elohim’. Yet from the outset, Israel’s God is referred to by masculine singular verbs: “In the beginning created-he Elohim the heavens and the earth” (Gen 1:1).

Nor can we attribute this to Israel being a ‘patriarchal’ society, as if that determined the choice of deity. As far as we are aware, those societies which worshipped female deities were equally patriarchal. What is remarkable about Israel is not that they referred to their God as ‘He’, but that they only had one god to which they referred.

Circumstances thus force us into the kind of choice (if we may call it that) faced by Israel. If God is to be spoken of (not just grammatically, but conceptually), the way in which we speak tends towards one or other of the ways in which we speak of other ‘animate’ objects of our perception —to the male or the female. And since we worship only one God, it would appear we can make only one choice.

But whichever choice we make, what does it mean? Clearly, in Ancient Near Eastern culture, the ‘maleness’ and ‘femaleness’ of the gods was conceived of in terms analogous to that of men and women. The gods had relationships, including sexual relationships with one another and with human beings. Equally clearly, the God of Israel was not like these gods, and that in one very important respect, namely that no form could be ascribed to Israel’s God.

The God of Israel was only to be directly encountered ultimately through hearing him:

Therefore watch yourselves very carefully. Since you saw no form on the day that the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves, in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth. (Dt 4:15ff)

The list of exclusions clearly reflects the categories of the Creation narrative in Genesis 1, and thus “the likeness of male of female” is surely a reference to humanity itself (cf Gen 1:27). God is not to be imaged as a man or a woman. Yet within the unfolding revelation of Scripture, there is something enigmatic about this prohibition.

First, when God relates to Israel in ‘gendered’ terms it is as ‘male’. We have noted the use of grammar, but this is more particularly expressed in the interrelationship between God and his people as a (faithful) husband and (unfaithful) wife. Indeed, the eschatological hope is that Israel will know her God as a Bride knows her Beloved:

“In that day,” declares the Lord, “you will call me ‘my husband’ [ishi]; you will no longer call me ‘my master [baali].’” (Hosea 2:16; MT 2:18)

Thus although Israel is prohibited from making images of God as ‘male’, Israel is nevertheless directed by God to think of God in terms of His ‘He’ to her own ‘she’.

Secondly, we read in Genesis 1:27 that God has already done what God has subsequently prohibited:

So God created man in his own image [tselem], in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

By contrast, in Numbers 33:51-52, we read these words of God to Moses,

Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you pass over the Jordan into the land of Canaan, then you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you and destroy all their figured stones and destroy all their metal images and demolish all their high places.

The presuppositions behind Genesis 1:27 would have been very familiar to Ancient Near Eastern cultures. The ‘god’ (or the king) is ‘imaged’ so as to be present where the image is. The God who prohibits images, whether male or female, has thus already made of himself an adequate image, both male and female, in the form of the human race.

It is surely, however, the height of folly to say at this point that God is therefore neither male nor female. The two things we are specifically told about this image is that man (Heb: adam) is it, and it is male and female. Yet when God speaks of God to Israel, it is as ‘male’. As it stands, it is a conundrum, but we cannot cut this particular Gordian Knot by denying one of the two things the text explicitly draws to our attention.

At the same time, however, it is clear that God is not ‘a man’. Man (Heb adam) is God’s image, and is no more, therefore, ‘god’ in actuality than an idol was ‘the god’ or a statue was the king himself. An image, as Genesis 1:26 points out, is a ‘likeness’. But it is a likeness made in something other than the ‘substance’ of the thing being imaged. A photo may give me an image and likeness of my late great aunt, but I would never suppose that she herself was made of silver halides and paper, or sat forever in the same seat with the same clothes, hairstyle and expression.

The very notion of ‘image’ implies both congruity and dissonance —the image is both ‘like’ and completely ‘other than’ the thing being imaged.

Thus the ‘man’ of Genesis 1:26-27 images God in the stuff of this world. But that ‘stuff’ is as unlike the substance of God as dead paper is unlike living flesh —only, of course, more so. Similarly, ‘male and female’ images God, but God is not, thereby, ‘a male’ or ‘a female’ or (God indeed forbid) some androgynous hybrid of the two. We are confronted by an image which we cannot dismiss, but which equally, by virtue of being an image, conceals as well as reveals.

Thus we are forced by nature and Scripture to consider God in relation to our experience, and specifically our human experience, of male and female. This is the medium in which God has imaged God. But we are also forced to consider ourselves in relation to a God who adopts the position of ‘He’. We cannot evade these ‘givens’. Nor can we impose on them some other framework more conducive to our sensibilities. Israel of old was prohibited other gods, whether male or female. We today must similarly resist the temptation to fashion God in our image.

More work remains to be done.

John Richardson
20 June 2009

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So what, if we call the Spirit 'She'?

What does it mean if we call the Spirit ‘She’, as some are now suggesting?

One argument seems to be that it doesn’t mean anything —that since God is ‘beyond gender’ we might as well call the Spirit ‘She’ as ‘He’, so long as we don’t call the Spirit ‘It’ because this sounds ‘impersonal’.

There are, however, problems with this. Specifically, if God is beyond gender, then it does not matter, either, if we call God ‘She’. Similarly, within the godhead, although we may traditionally refer to the First Person of the Trinity as ‘the Father’, and the Second as ‘the Son’, it would not matter if we used the more neutral ‘Parent’ and ‘Child’, and, given the theological understanding we are expressing by calling the Spirit ‘She’, it would be entirely appropriate to call them, at least on occasion ‘Mother’ and ‘Daughter’.

Some would dismiss this suggestion as mischievous. However, we must ask ourselves on what grounds we might resist it if God is truly ‘beyond gender’ and our language for God must avoid mis-statements about God’s nature.

It might be argued that the language for the First and Second persons of the Trinity is ‘fixed’ by the biblical use of ‘Father’ and ‘Son’. But if we can remain with this terminology without distorting our understanding of the godhead, why can we not similarly remain with the Scriptural (Jn 16:13) and traditional (credal) use of ‘He’ for the Spirit?

If the response is that we must, somehow, ‘balance’ our language by the use of ‘She’, however, we are back to our first objection, namely that at least with regard to God considered per se, we can (and perhaps must) use ‘She’ of God as well as God’s Spirit.

If, on the other hand, the response is that the language we use for the Third Person of the Trinity can differ from that which we use for the First and Second Persons, we must ask whether we are expressing thereby a difference in the being of the Spirit. Is the Spirit ‘She’ in a way that the Son is not ‘She’ and the Father is not ‘She’? If the answer is ‘no’, then we are back to the second objection, that we can just as appropriately call Father and Son ‘Mother’ and ‘Daughter’ without doing an injustice to the qualities of God. If the answer is ‘yes’, however, then we have to consider in what sense is the Spirit ‘She’ in a way that differs from Father and Son.

My own suggestion is that the whole use of ‘She’, as currently proposed and loosely practised is incoherent, dangerous and potentially heretical.

The test must be in our liturgy. Can we (and should we, as some are advocating) call on God as our Mother? More specifically in this instance, could we, without qualms, change the Nicene Creed to say of the Spirit, “She has spoken through the prophets”? Is the only resistance to this our prejudice and inconsistency? Would this be liberating, or would it be disastrous?

If, however, we should not do this, then we should not suggest that is does not matter whether we call the Spirit, or the godhead ‘He’ or ‘She’. If it matters, it truly matters.

Revd John P Richardson
18 June 2009

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"Let's call the Spirit she for a change": Bishop of Sherborne (elect)

Er, we'll get back to you on this, bishop.

Personally, if he did this in a service while I was there, I'd walk out.

John Richardson
16 June 2009

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