One thing that has plagued me about Western religion in its traditional firms is the overwhelmingly male conception of God.
Genesis 1:27 wrote: And Elohim created Adam in His Image, in the Image of God He created him; male and female He created them...
(Anecdotally: this caused great confusion for me as a toddler being taught the Lord's Prayer by my parents. After repeating the words, "Our Father, who art in heaven," I stopped to ask my parents, "Why are we praying to Dad and not Mom? And how come he's in heaven, when he's also right here?")
Although I have since figured out that the three major monotheistic religions of the world are not, in fact, praying to my father, a hint of that question still remains in my thoughts today. If we are "made in God's image", something that refers to male and female alike, then why does Western society conceive of God as predominantly or solely male in its thoughts and words?
OK, full stop. Do me a favor. Pause right now, make one statement you consider to be true about God, whether from a religious, agnostic, or atheist perspective. But, refer to God as She, rather than He. We're still talking about the same God in every other respect: Western, monotheist, Judeo-Christian, whatever. Does using "She" not instantly modulate your conception of God to some degree? Perhaps I am alone, but it very much does for me.
This is not some sort of feminist advocacy that we start praying to a "female God". Such a conception would, in my view, be no more accurate than a "male God". I have always thought that if there is a single God who created us in God's image, then, using our human senses, the most complete conception of God that we could develop would account for this one God as both male and female. After all, if we are all children created in God's image, then *who* God is must reflect all of us, regardless of our gender or gender identity, right?
Forgive me, but I must again point to Judaism. In Judaism, the Shekinah, the Divine Presence, is female, which goes some distance towards representing the male and the female expressions of the Divine. However, traditional forms of Judaism retain a primary focus on Divinity as male.
I'd be interested to hear everyone's thoughts, of course.
- TP