stjamesroad's posterous

The King is dead – long live the monarch!           

In Unit 6 of Faith & Worship, I am invited to consider “how do [I] picture God?”  This question comes in the context of a taped reflection that, in turn, uses a poem by “M Rienstra” titled, “To Weavers Everywhere”.  The poem starts with this verse:

The poem uses exclusively feminine imagery and “genderisation” of God to express some of the female characteristics of God.

It made me quite uncomfortable as I read it.  But, what is it that troubles me so much about the projection of God as “she”?

Am I simply bigoted and intolerant?  Am I somehow threatened – is my masculine “authority” somehow diminished by this?  Is this deep discomfort I feel a reflection of the unspoken uncertainties that lie within me (and probably all of is) because I cannot know and experience a full picture of God?  Am I simply a chauvenist that doesn’t want to face up to that?

These are not all intended as simply rhetorical questions – me smugly sat here, knowing how right I am about the unspoken answers.  BUT, I can say this much:

I AM concerned about the idea that just replacing one image of God with another will somehow ‘put things right’.

If God cannot be ‘He’ then why is it any more right to describe God as ‘She’.

The Rabbit

Imagine, for a moment, that you have never seen a rabbit.  (Perhaps you are from another world!)  Rather than describe it, I might try to draw one for you. 

It has to be said that I am particularly poor at drawing anything straight from my imagination.  If I draw a rabbit, it is just as likely to end up looking like a dog!  So, my helpful friend might say, “that’s nothing like a rabbit”, and proceed to draw her own rabbit; and in the event it looks more like a cat.  How is the viewer, who has never seen a rabbit, to know which of these images is correct, or that neither of them is correct?

Does it matter?

It is tempting, perhaps, to say that it doesn’t really matter whether our God looks like a dog or a cat.  And, to a degree, this is true.  But dogs and cats have very different characteristics.  For some people, dogs are big, scary, potentially vicious carnivores, capable of turning on you at any moment.  For others, they are cute cuddly puppies cavorting about on the lawn on a beautiful summer’s day.

One person’s liberating female or gender0-free image of God may be someone else’s confusion and worry.

One person’s traditional, masculine image of God may be another’s terrifying, angry, intolerant abuser.  And one person’s feminine image of God may be another’s terrifying, angry and intolerant abuser.

I do have another concern, though. It is this…

We appear to be extending the view that it is fie for us each to have whatever image of God suits us best.

There is even a phrase used in the tape that accompanies F&W Unit 6 that states:

‘The important thing is – never to deny other people their picture of God’.

For me, this goes too far.  It says, inasmuch, that God can be whoever or whatever we want.

This is a slippery road to walk down.  This is the road to the multi-identity God.  The God with so many faces, that we can no longer identify God at all.  A God with so many conflicting characteristics that there is nothing left to identify with.

This is one of the great paradoxes that the Church faces.  It seems to lie at the very heart of the liberal/conservative theological debate. 

It matters because we can each end up worshipping and believing in a very different kind of God.  That in allowing such a multi-faceted range of images of God (perhaps holding to any image at all), in allowing such theological freedoms, we risk creating a faith that ceases to be mono-theistic at all.

We create a whole now multi-mono-theistic faith; where we all believe in one God, but everyone’s God is different… and “that’s OK”.

If you are reading this and thinking that Nigel Bailey is therefore “outing himself” as an anti-feminist, you’d be wrong.  I absolutely approve of and encourage female leadership within the Church. Jesus himself was a great defender of and supporter of women.  Women were the first to witness the risen Christ, and the first to believe His resurrection.  There were clearly, strong women leaders in the early church.

I also have no problem in accepting “feminine characteristics” of God.

What I believe we must be careful of, however, is allowing more liberal expressions of how we organise, practice and apply or “religion” to lead to the creation of new versions of ‘God’; images of God that we cannot recognise in scripture.

We should also be careful not to presume that one person’s ‘masculine’ view of God is the same as every other person’s ‘masculine’ view of God.

We should equally not assume the same of the ‘feminine’ image of God.  Not everyone has exclusively positive and benign experiences of their mother, sister or daughter or wife, female colleague etc..

Ultimately, our faith is based on scripture as the revelation of God’s Word and of God as revealed in the person of Jesus Christ.  If we want a good picture of God to relate to – we need only read and reflect on our Bibles!  If our “picture’ of God is not deeply rooted in scripture, then we risk creating new ‘Gods’ simply to suit our religious or secular preferences.