It begins in Scripture – which, as you know, I love very much – when we are taught that God is male. That maleness is repeated over and over through history. God is Father, painted on the walls and ceilings of churches and chapels and reproduced in art and poetry. God’s maleness is bolstered by God’s aggressive actions reported by the writers of Holy Writ and expounded on as the way the natural order is lived out. God comes to earth, for Christians, as male; Jesus, son of Joseph and Mary – and God. Then, the Holy Spirit, which in the Greek is neutral and in the Hebrew female, is written as “He” in the Gospels and the Creeds. That manly God is then used by later writers to justify male dominance over female submissiveness, created cultures that persist today.
In our time, that misogyny is being played out in politics tainted by false religious beliefs. Women can’t do what men can, we are taught, but they can do one thing men can’t – give birth. So, men take women’s bodily autonomy away and make rules to “protect them” from the dangerous world we live in – ironically, a dangerous world created largely by men. Men are called up to carry the burdens of decision making and fighting wars and making money, while women are told to stay home and raise the children. And that calling is a worthy one, if it is a choice. It is abusive if it isn’t. When your God is only male, being anything other than male is either a sign of inferiority or subservience. Or danger.
Jesus wasn’t a misogynist, which occasionally got Him in trouble with the men who were. He emboldened women, and they got written out of history. One woman anointed Him shortly before He died, and He told those around that her story would be told forever; but her name was left out of the story, her identity forever a secret. Jesus included Mary Magdalene, among other women, in His inner circle – the women were the only ones brave enough to wait out His death so they could take care of His burial. The men, we are told, ignored the story of His resurrection, believing it to be an idle tale. But God is not male, Jesus said – God is a Spirit. God is love. God is about equality and diversity and equity. Misogyny doesn’t care about those things. But God does. More tomorrow…
Prayer – Holy God – Mother, Father, Friend – open us up to the possibilities You offer. Amen.
Today’s art is a painting of the Trinity from a church in Bucharest.