God in the Age of Pronouns: Father, Mother, or Neither? – The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
To call God “He” is not mere habit but inheritance. From Genesis to Gethsemane, Scripture speaks of the Father, the Son, the King, the Lord. The masculine language of faith is ontological, not ornamental. It tells us something of God’s self-disclosure, of how He chose to reveal Himself — not how we choose to describe Him.
Yet in our modern mania to neuter everything from language to liturgy, the question resurfaces: is God male? Or female? Or, as some academic alchemists prefer, an ineffable blend of cosmic energy in desperate need of pronouns?
It would be funny if it weren’t so sincere — a culture so desperate to deconstruct authority that it feels compelled to give the Almighty a makeover.
Today, the campaign to rewrite God comes not only from pulpits and lecture halls but from pop culture itself. Pop stars purr about the “goddess within,” fashion brands sell “divine feminine energy,” and theologians try to keep up, insisting that God might be “She” after all. From Ariana Grande’s “God Is a Woman” to church services that swap the Lord’s Prayer for gender-neutral “Parent in Heaven,” the movement is as absurd as it is ambitious. We have reached a point where divinity must pass a diversity audit. It would be funny if it weren’t so sincere — a culture so desperate to deconstruct authority that it feels compelled to give the Almighty a makeover.
The answer is neither, of course — but that does not make the masculine imagery meaningless. Scripture and tradition are clear: God is spirit, beyond biological sex. But to drain the Bible of its masculine vocabulary is to silence its story. God revealed Himself as Father not because He has a Y chromosome, but because the father’s role — protector, provider, judge, and lover of his children — embodies the divine relation to creation in a way the mother cannot fully capture. To make God genderless is not to make Him larger. It is to make Him vague, incomprehensible, a sort of heavenly abstraction, as shapeless as our age. (RELATED: David Brooks Still Can’t Say the Word ‘God’)
The prophets, poets, and psalmists all speak of Him in masculine terms: a warrior who defeats the enemy, a shepherd who guards the flock, a king enthroned above the nations. These are not metaphors chosen by accident. They speak to order, authority, and sacrifice — virtues that, in every era, grow unfashionable but never obsolete. When Christ came into the world, He came not as a concept but as a man who wept, bled, and broke bread with sinners. To call the Incarnation incidental, to say Christ’s maleness is meaningless, is to imply that His humanity itself was optional. (RELATED: Why Are So Many Young Americans Killing Themselves?)
There is, of course, maternal imagery in Scripture — Isaiah’s God who comforts like a mother, the hen gathering her chicks. But these are similes, not identities. God is not literally a bird, nor is He literally a woman. These images soften His might, but they don’t redefine His being. To elevate the few feminine metaphors above the ocean of masculine revelation is not equality — it is revisionism with a pink highlighter.
The push to feminize or de-gender God often springs less from theology than from therapy. A generation scarred by absent fathers seeks a gentler deity, a cosmic caretaker rather than a righteous judge. But sentiment is not Scripture. The God of Abraham does not apologize. He commands. He blesses and curses. He parts seas and hardens hearts. He does not ask for consent before creating the world. Such a God frightens modern minds conditioned to confuse authority with abuse. Yet without that authority, love itself loses meaning — because mercy presupposes justice, and forgiveness assumes fault.
Modern theologians like Phyllis Trible, brilliant though she was, mistook the cultural frame for the canvas itself. Patriarchy may have colored ancient society, but the image of God preceded the pigments. “Let us make man in our image, male and female He created them.” Both sexes bear His likeness, but the act of creating — calling something out of nothing — is expressed through the masculine. The womb receives; the word initiates. Creation begins with speech: “Let there be light.” It is command, not consensus. (RELATED: Why Conservatives Need Traditional Gender Roles)
There is dark comedy in watching seminar rooms twist themselves into knots trying to make God “inclusive.” A deity who changes gender to soothe modern sensibilities is not God but a focus-grouped idol. One might as well worship a mirror. The irony is delicious: in rebelling against patriarchy, they’ve replaced the Father with a reflection — a god who looks, thinks, and votes exactly like them. (RELATED: How to Write About Christianity While Knowing Nothing About It)
The early Church, surrounded by shrines to fertility and earth, recognized the danger of confusing mercy with maternity, divinity with desire. The symbols shift, but the sin remains. Today’s altars are seminar tables; today’s golden calves are gender pronouns.
To insist that God is not “unequivocally male” is technically true, yet the truth hides a deeper deception. God is not male as a creature is male, but He reveals Himself through the masculine because it conveys His transcendence and initiative. He acts; the world responds. He speaks; the void listens. That rhythm — the sacred call and the created echo — is the heartbeat of revelation itself.
We lose something profound when we sand down that difference. A father’s love is not a mother’s love. Both are holy, but they are not identical. The father gives authority, law, and legacy; the mother nurtures, shelters, and sustains. Scripture sanctifies both, but only one defines God’s relation to man. He is the Father who runs to meet the prodigal son, not the mother who waits at the window wringing her hands.
It isn’t our job to rewrite God’s revelation until it resembles our reflection. It is our duty to receive it with reverence — and remember who is speaking.
God may not be a “man” in the biological sense. But He is no androgynous abstraction either. He is who He says He is: “I AM.” That should be enough for us — and humbling enough to keep us honest.
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