Why do we so tend to view God from only a masculine perspective? I was reminded of this again in a sermon I heard that spoke of the feminine aspects of God but was referred to only in the masculine. It seems that in traditional realms it would be almost heretical to speak of God in the feminine. Of course, God is not a specific gender. The creation story says that WE were created with gender, male and female, in the image of God. It doesn’t say that God is male and female. God is neither male nor female but both masculine and feminine.
The Godhead serves different functions utilizing the masculine and feminine qualities. Gender gives us such a great three-dimensional illustration of this, but we have over-generalized to picture God with the same physical make-up that men and women have. God is Spirit. Christ came and took on a human form. God manifests both the feminine and the masculine qualities that we understand mainly as gender issues. These are our issues, not God’s.
In traditional religion we have stuck with the patriarchal systems that we understand. Anything outside of that sounds heretical. Why would it be heretical to refer to God as God referred to Himself/Herself in the creation account? This shows that part of our wound from sin is to deny certain feminine aspects within creation. We see this not only played out in our treatment of the female gender, but also within the feminine qualities of introspection, receptivity, conception, and creativity. These qualities can be seen as weak and vulnerable and therefore to be avoided.
In the United States women are fortunate to enjoy more equality of opportunity than women in other countries although the number of abused women and the vulnerable is astonishingly high. In some countries the treatment of women crosses the border of abuse and women are mere property. This reveals a terrible error in our thinking about the feminine. Women merely represent feminine qualities more than men, but men possess them also, just as women possess masculine qualities. You can see our wounding by looking at how we treat the feminine and more specifically how we treat women.
How do you insult a young boy in sports? Foul, derogatory remarks about feminine qualities, that’s how. How do you insult someone’s driving—refer to the feminine and call them a woman. We clearly have wounding and issues in this area. They need to be healed at a spiritual level and that begins by our understanding of how God honors the qualities of masculine and feminine equally because they are equally represented in the character of God.
We are to grow symmetrically. That means that a person functions best when they have access to both the left and the right sides of the brain. It also means that they have a balance within themselves of masculine and feminine qualities.
There is a story in the Gospel of Luke (20) that explains what our future bodies will be like and addresses the gender issue. It tells of the Sadducees coming to Jesus with the question of a widow who married seven different brothers. They had each one died (poor lady) and she consecutively marries the next brother in line. So the question was posed to Jesus about whose wife she would be in the resurrection.
Now this is an interesting question because the Sadducees didn’t believe in the resurrection and they were trying to trick Jesus. Christ replied to them that they had clearly not studied the scriptures or they would not have made this error. He reminds them that in the world to come, men and women would be like the angels (spiritual beings) and that they would not be marrying. It seems that we have so misused and misunderstood the gender issue that it will someday be removed.
The whole concept of Spirit and having spiritual bodies is foreign to us three-dimensional creatures. We really believe we are all there is. We have transferred this misconception to our concept of God even though there is ample evidence to help us understand differently. Understanding that God honors all of the qualities of the masculine and feminine is an important first step in our learning to honor them in ourselves and in others.
Out treatment of “Mother Earth” indicates our disregard of the very things we require to even exist—clean air, water, and fertile soil. The other thing we need to survive spiritually is an in-dwelling Spirit that will sustain, heal, and re-create us. It is the feminine, creative, nurturing aspect of God that we desperately need to lend balance to our very CEO picture of God. If we are to ever become anything other than a dysfunctional, single-parent family here on earth, we need to honor the feminine of God.
When we do this it will be reflected in our treatment of earth and in our treatment of women and the feminine in All That Is. I so want that to happen. My picture of God expands and grows when I include all of the feminine qualities that I can think of. It is healing to me and from what I can see it is healing to others also.
The Godhead serves different functions utilizing the masculine and feminine qualities. Gender gives us such a great three-dimensional illustration of this, but we have over-generalized to picture God with the same physical make-up that men and women have. God is Spirit. Christ came and took on a human form. God manifests both the feminine and the masculine qualities that we understand mainly as gender issues. These are our issues, not God’s.
In traditional religion we have stuck with the patriarchal systems that we understand. Anything outside of that sounds heretical. Why would it be heretical to refer to God as God referred to Himself/Herself in the creation account? This shows that part of our wound from sin is to deny certain feminine aspects within creation. We see this not only played out in our treatment of the female gender, but also within the feminine qualities of introspection, receptivity, conception, and creativity. These qualities can be seen as weak and vulnerable and therefore to be avoided.
In the United States women are fortunate to enjoy more equality of opportunity than women in other countries although the number of abused women and the vulnerable is astonishingly high. In some countries the treatment of women crosses the border of abuse and women are mere property. This reveals a terrible error in our thinking about the feminine. Women merely represent feminine qualities more than men, but men possess them also, just as women possess masculine qualities. You can see our wounding by looking at how we treat the feminine and more specifically how we treat women.
How do you insult a young boy in sports? Foul, derogatory remarks about feminine qualities, that’s how. How do you insult someone’s driving—refer to the feminine and call them a woman. We clearly have wounding and issues in this area. They need to be healed at a spiritual level and that begins by our understanding of how God honors the qualities of masculine and feminine equally because they are equally represented in the character of God.
We are to grow symmetrically. That means that a person functions best when they have access to both the left and the right sides of the brain. It also means that they have a balance within themselves of masculine and feminine qualities.
There is a story in the Gospel of Luke (20) that explains what our future bodies will be like and addresses the gender issue. It tells of the Sadducees coming to Jesus with the question of a widow who married seven different brothers. They had each one died (poor lady) and she consecutively marries the next brother in line. So the question was posed to Jesus about whose wife she would be in the resurrection.
Now this is an interesting question because the Sadducees didn’t believe in the resurrection and they were trying to trick Jesus. Christ replied to them that they had clearly not studied the scriptures or they would not have made this error. He reminds them that in the world to come, men and women would be like the angels (spiritual beings) and that they would not be marrying. It seems that we have so misused and misunderstood the gender issue that it will someday be removed.
The whole concept of Spirit and having spiritual bodies is foreign to us three-dimensional creatures. We really believe we are all there is. We have transferred this misconception to our concept of God even though there is ample evidence to help us understand differently. Understanding that God honors all of the qualities of the masculine and feminine is an important first step in our learning to honor them in ourselves and in others.
Out treatment of “Mother Earth” indicates our disregard of the very things we require to even exist—clean air, water, and fertile soil. The other thing we need to survive spiritually is an in-dwelling Spirit that will sustain, heal, and re-create us. It is the feminine, creative, nurturing aspect of God that we desperately need to lend balance to our very CEO picture of God. If we are to ever become anything other than a dysfunctional, single-parent family here on earth, we need to honor the feminine of God.
When we do this it will be reflected in our treatment of earth and in our treatment of women and the feminine in All That Is. I so want that to happen. My picture of God expands and grows when I include all of the feminine qualities that I can think of. It is healing to me and from what I can see it is healing to others also.