God (Christian)

we have not assigned God an ethnic origin or an age but have thought nothing of assigning a gender and a religion (God always belongs to the same faith we do). Too often, the default "God" is assumed to be Christian, whereas African religions, Brahminism, Chinese religions, Egyptian religions, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Sikhism, and many other religions also have a God/god. In addition, theology has never ruled that God is male. In the fourth century, St. Gregory of Nazianzus summed up traditional thought writing that "Father" and "Son" as applied to the Trinity did not name their essences but rather were metaphors for their relationship to each other. John 4:24 says that God is pure Spirit (and thus is genderless) and the words for God in both Greek and Hebrew are sex-neutral. Sandra M. Schneiders (Women and the Word ) lists some of the many metaphors we have for God (sun, rock, wind, spring, fire, lion, leopard, she-bear, mother eagle, dove, potter, builder, shepherd, hero, warrior, physician, midwife, homemaker, bread, judge, king, mother, husband, father) and says, "We create the metaphor to say something about God; but then God seems to be saying something about the vehicle of the metaphor. Thus, if God is a king, there is a tendency to see kings as divine." Theologian Mary Daly says simply, "If God is male, then male is God." God's presumed masculinity has provided a religious legitimization of the attitudes that treat women as derivative human beings. The key to inclusive God-language is to be conscious that we are using metaphors ("God is like a ..." but not "God is a ...") to make a pure Spirit more accessible to us. Therefore, use a variety of metaphors and use sex-specific pronouns only for specific metaphorical uses—avoid them by (1) replacing "he" or "him" with "God" or another name for God; (2) recasting the sentence; (3) replacing the pronouns with "you/yours" or "who/whom/that." Some of the texts that the oldest books of the Bible are based on call God the Elohim, a name that signifies masculinity, femininity, singularity, and plurality. Some Orthodox Jews use "G-d" instead of "God"; in their tradition, anything with "God" written on it must be respectfully buried. See also Allah, Father (God), Father, Son, and Holy Spirit/Ghost, God/he, God/himself, God/his, God of our Fathers, Holy Spirit, Jehovah, Lord, Son of Man, Yahweh.