Liberal Christianity

Lesson 4: Spiritual Constructs of Reality and Society

The Patriarchal God

Elizabeth Johnson makes the following statement repeatedly in her book, SHE WHO IS : “The name of God functions.” How true that statement is! The imagery that comes with any name we hear is something to be pondered.

If we see an older man in a white robe and white beard when the name “God” is mentioned, we have been given something incomplete in forming our inner self-story. It is even possible that our incomplete inner self-story was taught us by our mother who herself was subject to the distilled patriarchal version from the original polluted well.

But even in that regard and speaking stereotypically, our parenting was usually a microcosm of the macrocosmic reality of Godhead. As men are taught to be men and women to be women according to their natural “nature and role”, children will ask their father what to do and expect to be "commanded" by the "patriarch" exactly what to do. However, often children will ask their mother what to do with the anticipation of being told both what to do and why. Is it no wonder that the Holy Spirit, which is supposed to be the prompter, the confirmer and the enlightener, the Paraclete promised by Jesus, would be feminine?

So long as we remain unable to view the object of our worship as the very essence of both masculinity and femininity we will remain part of a diminishing Christian influence in all aspects of modern life.

Exercises:

1. Research indicates that the earliest pre-Catholic Christians practiced sexual equality to an extraordinary degree for the time and place of patriarchal Judea and overall Middle Eastern custom.

Taking that cultural custom into account also impacts somewhat the passages in the New Testament attributed to Paul (but written by someone else after Paul’s death) severely restricting female participation in Christian worship and the woman’s role in her marriage and community.

Nevertheless, Christian tradition has included a secondary role for women for the most part and some of this has to do with Biblical traditions that begin in the Genesis story.

a. The Genesis story suggests that women hold a secondary status to men throughout history because of Eve’s actions in the Garden of Eden. Do you agree? Why or why not?

b. Women today are thought of as more intuitive and in tune with their feelings while men are less so. Why then would God not want to communicate more with women who would be more sensitive prophetically for the good of the church and humanity in general?

c. Based on patriarchal concepts, were I to tell my four daughters that my son was more qualified and worthy to receive my family counsel would I be practicing a superlative form of parenting? Would God approve? Please elaborate.

d. Why do you think that most conservative politicians in the U.S. have tended to criticize and blame single mothers while responding mildly to the absent fathers who sired their children?

2. In the 8th chapter of Proverbs, Wisdom is referred to in the feminine gender. In the Apocryphal book The Wisdom of Solomon, Chapters 6-11 are a mighty homage by Solomon to Wisdom – again referred to entirely as feminine.

Furthermore, a reading of those chapters clearly describes how traditional Christianity has portrayed the Holy Spirit.

a. Find a copy of the Wisdom of Solomon (traditionally found in the Apocrypha in Catholic Bibles or on the Internet) and read chapters 6-11.

b. Present to me a rebuttal of my proposition that the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost is in fact female.

c. Regarding the above, how would you respond to the notion that the feminine Holy Spirit truly completes the Trinity by adding God the Mother?

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