Born Again...Does God have a Womb?

Well, my journey continues: trying to understand how we as women uniquely reflect the image of God. Yesterday, as I was praying and reading, the thought came to me, The phrase "born again" is a reference to a feminine experience!This hit me like a ton of bricks! Having grown up as a conservative Evangelical, the term "born again" was used constantly (almost to the point of losing meaning) as a description of having had an "experience" of becoming aware of relating to God in a new and close way. BUT IT NEVER DAWNED ON ME that only WOMEN GIVE BIRTH so that this phrase is pregnant with meaning (sorry, couldn't resist!) for women.

So, what do we do? If we are "born of God" and "born again" and "born of the Spirit...." these are feminine references about God's action, addressing the fundamental process of being initiated into the family of God. How can there not be a feminine dimension to God? How I never made this connection until I was 45 years old is beyond me...how did THAT happen??? I will have to get back to you on that...but it continues to reinforce in my mind, the fact that NOT using all the images for God provided in Scripture is actually a HUGE issue.

Dr. Kristina Lacelle-Peterson (Chair of the Department of Religion at Houghton College) writes:

Since God is, in fact, referred to with female imagery in various biblical texts, the question is not whether using female images for God will draw us away from orthodox Christianity, but whether using exclusively male metaphors will so distort our view of God as to render our concept of God unbiblical. Put simply: If we reject an entire class of biblical metaphors do we still have a biblical [orthodox] understanding of God?

Why is this all coming up now? Not fully sure. But psychologists know (yeah, I'm one of them) that when we hit midlife, we often reevaluate the first half of life, take stock, and determine what was missing and what we want to make sure we address in the second half of life. Well--what has been missing for me is how I opened this brief post: I am wanting to gain a fuller understanding of what it means for myself as a woman to reflect the image of God.

Woo Hoo! What a ride this second half is going to be!!!!!!

Prayer

Gracious Heavenly Father,
How thankful we are to not be "left as orphans.”

We acknowledge with grateful hearts that we are not “Fatherless”

But hear our cry, O Father,
Are we in this day, nonetheless, left to be “Motherless?”

Hear us, in your Mercy, O God:
We have voiced our plight to our brothers,
       Courageous among them have responded and affirmed,
       And some of them have also been ridiculed.
       Yet unlike Zelophedad's daughters
       Many continue to deny us our inheritance in Your Kingdom.

To whom now shall we turn?
There is no where else to go but to You,
    Creator of our own souls, made also in Your image.
    When justice is denied,
     And the oppressed are powerless in their plight,
We turn to You.
We cast ourselves on Your mercy,
Seek you with ashes on our hearts,
And rend our souls.
Fasting from seeking power and positions,
We seek You, God of all,
And long to hear You speak.

What have we lost,
By not knowing all of who You are?
We would never want to presume,
But seek the Truth of all Your Fullness.

We seek not only for ourselves,
But for the sake of Your Church.
She is often powerless in our day,
     Defrocked due to disobedience and abuses.
Hear us O God,
Not only for ourselves,
But for a world that needs You desperately,
And as Women,
We wonder if our time in You is now.     -Pamela Trice  7/25/2013

Body Language

Oh boy. I could go several places with this one. (On a previous post I had fun looking at somatic idioms)...In this post I want to consider how we use language. Does it really matter? OH YES!!!! (I can hear my sister who has a PhD in linguistics practically standing up on her desk and shouting at the top of her lungs---"AMEN SISTER!!!!" (She has never really done that--but I bet she would on this one! :) Anyway, English is one of the few languages that does not assign gender to nouns. But this is not the case in other languages. 
    
According to researcher Lera Boroditsky, grammatical genders can shape how people think (a hypothesis called "linguistic relativity"). For example, when speakers of German and Spanish were asked to describe everyday objects in English, she found that they were more likely to use attributes conventionally associated with the genders of the objects in their native languages. German-speakers more often described "bridge" (in German, Brücke,  a feminine noun) with words like 'beautiful', 'elegant', 'fragile', 'peaceful', 'pretty', and 'slender', whereas Spanish-speakers more often described "bridge" (in Spanish, puente (masculine noun)  with terms like 'big', 'dangerous', 'long', 'strong', 'sturdy', and 'towering'. Art is impacted by linguistic relativity as well. In Boroditsy's research, in 85% of all cases, the grammatical gender of the concept in the artist's language impacts its portrayal. Therefore, in German art, "death" ( Tod (masculine) is generally portrayed as male, but in Russian, "death"  (Смерть (feminine) is generally portrayed as a female.(see the link: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_gender) for MUCH more detail :)

So, of course, my burning question is...how does our use of language impact our concepts of ourselves, and our concept of God? Most depictions of God in the Western World are male. God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit (usually considered male in our minds, an "it" at worst). So, as I made a comment before (See Body Theology), the the Hebrew language (in which the OT of the Bible was written), the word for "spirit/Spirit" is "ruach"(feminine). In the Greek (in which the NT of the Bible was written) the word for "spirit/Spirit" is "pneuma"(neuter). Hmmm. Worth noting?

When people say, it's not a big deal, all you have to do is imagine that if the members of the Trinity were all 'female' and we used "She" instead of "He" it would make a HUGE impact on how we would all experience God. For example, if this was the case, how would MEN view themselves? They would experience what women have for centuries--what it is like to not have any "representation"...or a concrete example of what it means to be made in the image of God. Let me tell you...that effects your self-concept and sense of having value as a woman. God help us.

Body Theology

What does it mean for women to be "made in the image of God"? This question was first raised in my mind about 2 years ago when the pastor of my church did a sermon series on "The Theology of the Body" gleaned from Pope John Paul IIs works by the same name. I don't agree with all the points made (I rarely do any more--grad school ruined me from ever agreeing with anything in toto) but it got the wheels in my brain turning. (Always a dangerous thing). Do our bodies actually reflect Truth...and if they do...what Truth do women's bodies tell?

It  boils down to this...The Bible clearly teaches that man and woman were both created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). Having grown up in Evangelical Christian circles--I have heard quite a bit about God--God the Father, and God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. By default--not on purpose, these teachings have been primarily about God as masculine given the pronouns we use (Father, Son....Spirit...not sure what category to place that one.) How do we know pronouns make a difference? Just start calling God "Mother" and see what happens in an evangelical group! :)  I don't have a problem with understanding the "masculine" aspects of God....except that it doesn't help me understand myself and how I as a woman am also created in the image of God. What does THAT mean?

It was about 2 months ago that I was thinking about the above, and I realized that the "fruits of the Spirit" (i.e. the results of being transformed by the presence of God working within a person) mentioned in Galations 5:22-23 are primarily feminine characteristics: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control." WHAT? How come I never heard a sermon on THAT? And speaking of the Spirit of God....isn't the Spirit also refered to as the Helper, Comforter, Advocate....need I go on? Where do children go to for comfort, help and advocacy when they are young...their MOTHER! Hmmmmmm. To be continued......