The God Pronoun

This summer, as I study the Psalms and then, as part of my study, I attempt to write about them, I am routinely faced with the question, "What pronoun does one use for God?"

This is not a simple question.  In current US culture, the question carries a lot of baggage. Some see the use of pronouns as a litmus test for one's beliefs about the role of women, feminism, and one's support for women in general.  Others see, in the use of various pronouns, a statement about "conservative tradition" versus "progressive liberalism."  

If I use a male pronoun ("he", "him") for God, I am presumably supporting a patriarchal religious view that is inherently sexist.  If I use a female pronoun ("she", "her") for God, I am promoting a Mother Earth/Gaia view of creation and abandoning orthodox Christianity altogether.  And if I use a neuter pronoun ("it"), I am suggesting that God is an impersonal force, presumably similar to the divine Force of the Star Wars universe.

Let me seek to ignore all this baggage and address the gender of God.  In the Jewish and Christian scriptures, God is clearly neither male nor female.   Gender is a creation of God's in His/Her creation of human beings.  Genesis 1:27 makes this clear:

So God created mankind in his own image,
    in the image of God he created them;
    male and female he created them.

Note that this translation, from Hebrew into English, translates the Hebrew male pronoun into an English one ("he", "his".)  But the Hebrew writer of this passage is faced with the same problem I have, since this passage clearly state that male and female are both created in God's image and so both men and women reflect attributes of God.

There are other places where one might be tempted to view God as female.  The mother bird metaphor is common in Scripture for God.  It appears in Psalm 17 and other psalms. Boaz uses the metaphor in Ruth 2:12 in his first meeting with Ruth.  Psalm 123 has a different metaphor:

As the eyes of slaves look to the hand of their master,
    as the eyes of a female slave look to the hand of her mistress,
so our eyes look to the Lord our God,
    till she shows us her mercy.
Have mercy on us, Lord, have mercy on us,
    for we have endured no end of contempt.

In the New Testament, Jesus calls himself a mother hen, desiring to gather Israel under his wing, in Luke 13:34.  (A parallel passage occurs in Matthew 23:37.)

Again in the New Testament, as Paul elaborates on the unity of the church, as he invites Gentiles too to follow Jesus, he writes (Galatians 3:28):

There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

There is NO good pronoun for God. God is neither male nor female.  But the neuter "it" carries an obvious implication that God is impersonal (since most neuter objects, in English, are indeed impersonal.)  As I read the Psalms, which emphasis the personal aspect of God, I can't see referring to God as "It".

So, I've given up on trying to have a consistent pronoun.  Sometimes I use "He", sometimes "She", sometimes "He/She".  In other cases I try to avoid pronouns all together and just keep saying "God."

Maybe "God" is the best pronoun?

Radical

A small group at my church has been working through the book Radical: Taking Back Your Faith From the American Dream, by David Platt.  It seems pretty obvious (isn't it?) that the American dream is not Christian.  But we in American churches need to be reminded of this.  (It has nothing to do with politics!)

The American culture borrows heavily from ideas of Greek elites two thousand years ago.  We are Epicureans.  We learn how to carefully cultivate pleasure.  Most Americans, like Epicurus, look down on a wild chaotic uncontrolled life, trapped in addictions.  We believe in living modestly, but living well.  We have nice homes and nice cars.  We taste good wine (but not expensive wine) and we eat at nice restaurants (but not too fancy!)  We move from one modest subtle pleasure to another.

Well, at least I do.  I know that the $200 bottle of wine is a waste, but that there are good bottles to be had for $10.  I drive a Honda Civic with 135,000 miles (but it is in good running condition!)  The three adults in my home (yes, we own our own home) all have their own cars.  I have a Mac laptop, an iPhone, iPad and mini iPad.

We live modest lives of pleasure.  This is classic, orthodox Epicureanism.

It is not Christianity.

Good Epicureans learn to have modest desires and modest pleasures.  So (unless they are true philosophers) they will have modest religious beliefs.  They will enjoy a religion that supports their life of steady, subtle pleasure.

If one wants to see a practiced practical application of Epicureanism, look to the middle class white Christian church in America.

When Jan and I married (in the 1970s) we wanted to live a radical, missional life.  We would resist American materialism.  We lived in a mobile home.  We had one car, a VW diesel Rabbit, which got 50 miles to the gallon.  (It was a nice car.)  We worked with a singles group in our church, enjoyed hikes in the mountains.  We agonized as to whether we were letting down our guard when we started going to Colorado ski resorts and buying ski equipment.  (My first skis, K2s, were purchased for $2 in a Colorado ski swap.)  We owned one TV, a small black and white with an antenna.  We watched the Broncos play on Sunday afternoons, but on our small screen we couldn't always see the ball Craig Morton threw. (This was before Elway.)  We promised to raise our children (Alex arrived in 1983) on love and the teachings of Jesus, with simplicity, without giving in to American materialism.

But American materialism is pervasive.  Good things, by themselves, are not bad.  I like Starbucks coffee.   Gnarly Head red zinfadel is less than $9 a bottle.  Buying things is not, of itself, wrong, but somehow I have bought into the teaching of Epicurus.  I'm not sure how to go back.

Following Jesus has been a significant value in my life.  It has helped me focus on my wife and children, on friends and church and ministry.  For many years, Jan and I gave 25% (or more) of our income to ministries and charities and we matured in our involvement with (for example) the women in crisis pregnancy centers and organizations like Good Shepherd Ministry in Huntsville, Texas, organizations which work with those struggling with abuse, addictions and poverty.  We have supported ministries across Asia, Africa and Europe.

At times, under family stress or job pressures, we began to take shortcuts, moving away from focus on that invisible Kingdom of God.  And, of course, this added confusion and struggle.

But as I get older, I am tired and sensitive to pain.  I want to relax and drink a glass of wine and enjoy the pleasures that have come with the practices we developed over the years.  I'm not sure how to go back to the missional life.  I am afraid that I have become an Epicurean, not a Christ-follower!

Brother Jed and the Gospel of Grace

Friday afternoon I was catching up on grading, working in my office with the north window open.  As I graded, I could occasionally hear a loud voice, shouting at students from the mall in front of the student center (at Sam Houston State University.)

"Brother Jed" Smock is preaching.  (So says the student newspaper.  I did not go out to check that it was Smock.)

Jed Smock would preach from the quadrangle at the University of Illinois when I was a graduate student in the 70s.  (Yes, 70s!  Forty years ago!)  Brother Jed has followed me to every campus I've been on since then.  And less I think it has anything to do with me, he has been on hundreds (thousands?) of other campuses across fifty states over 40 years.  His mission, as he sees it, is to visit campuses and tell students that "hell is hot" and that they are headed there.  (See this Wikipedia article.)

When I was at the University of Illinois, in the 70s, he was not well received.  Students yelled back at him.  (He likes to be heckled.)  Others use his preaching as a chance to preach their opposition to his beliefs.  An agnostic or atheist could point to Smock as an example of the problems of religion.  (Sadly, there is some legitimacy to that argument.)  More constructively, a few Christian groups tried to gently say, "That is not the Good News of Jesus Christ.  If you are interested, can we talk over here more quietly?"

He has been to Sam Houston many times in the past.  He always gets everyone angry before he leaves and seems to be motivated by that.  (Here is an older campus story on Smock.)

Many see his appearance as a threat and so there have been attempts to crack down on his right to speak.  At Central Michigan University there were faculty who attempted to get him banned from campus.  Here at Sam Houston, the SGA passed a resolution calling his comments sexually harassing and opposing his speech.  Smock has a first amendment right to be obnoxious -- and he takes full advantage of that.

What does this mean to the gospel (Good News) of Christ?

Christian love requires caring for the individual person, for their distinctive aspects and characteristics.  It requires time.  Surely it hard to really care for individual students if one circulates rapidly from college to college, yelling at students and then moving on.  It is now February and "Brother Jed" is in the south, moving between Sam Houston, Stephen F. Austin, Texas A & M and other Texas campuses.  In the spring he will slowly migrate north.  Does he stay anywhere long enough to see the effects of his visit?  From the perspective of those who do stay on campus, he merely gives an opportunity for people to mock Christianity.

To see what Brother Jed thinks of his visit, check out his webpage.  (Yes, I was a little surprised to see he had one!)

What motivates Jed?  His preaching is motivated by Old Testament images of prophets speaking out against the hypocrisy and idolatry of Israel and Judah.  The closest New Testament example might be John, the Baptizer, who called the Jewish leaders, "brood of vipers."  (And Jesus had similar language for the religious leaders of his day.)  But it is a serious theological mistake to equate ancient Israel with modern society.  Whether it was Old Testament or New Testament prophets, the sharpest criticism was always against those who hypocritically claimed religious authority.  Jesus could accuse the Pharisees of hypocrisy but spoke gently with the adulteress that the leaders dragged before him.  Jesus cleared the moneychangers out of the temple but invited the despised tax collector to eat with him.

I am saddened by Smock's appearance.  His appearances have always been a bit depressing to me.

The gospel is "Good News."  It is not "hell is hot" and "you are a whore."  It is that there is grace and hope for each of us as broken people.

This morning in church I heard a different message from Jed's.  A local pastor described the life of Barnabus, as a steady encourager of others.  ("Bar-nabus" or "Son of Encouragement.")  The Encourager assisted the young church in Jerusalem in the first century and took Saul under his wing, after Saul's conversion.  After traveling with Saul across Cyprus and Asia Minor, he insisted on encouraging young John Mark and so had a falling out with the stubborn Saul/Paul who did not want John Mark to travel with them.  A question was asked towards the end of the sermon, "Where would the church be without the influence of Barnabas on Paul and Mark?" Paul wrote numerous New Testament letters ("epistles") and John Mark wrote the gospel of Mark, probably used as a guide for the gospels of Matthew and Luke.

When Jed leaves campus, people breathe a sigh of relief.
When Barnabas visited cities and towns, people grew in joy and faith.

I'd like to be a Barnabas.

Longing for a Better Country

All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth.  People who say [admit] such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return.  Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.  (Hebrews 11:13-16, NIV)

Longing for a better country

As Christians in the USA listen to political rhetoric prior to national elections, it is amazing to many of us that the "religious right" is viewed as somehow representing Christianity.  That followers of Jesus might have a genuine say in politics is a concept foreign to the New Testament and, in many ways, contradictory to the New Testament teachings.  

The New Testament attitude about politics is not surprising.  The New Testament was written during the powerful days of the Roman Empire.  There is no hint that that empire might someday call itself "Christian" and that, indeed, some nations might someday use the paradoxical term "Christian nation."  If there is any overriding New Testament view of the thrust of world politics, it shows up in apocalyptic view of Revelations, in which that nations of the earth all rise against the Creator of the Universe, who then sets up a new nation, a new heaven and a new earth, with a new Jerusalem at its center.  In that vision, no good attribute is given to any nation state; all nations are oppressive and in opposition to God's universal kingdom.

Without getting bogged down in the US politics of the 21st century, it would be beneficial for Christians in this country (my home, the USA) to step back and stay an objective look at the Christian view of politics and statehood as described in the New Testament.  In addition to the wild book of Revelations, there are a number of other places where "citizenship status" is discussed.  The Hebrews 11 chapter on faith (a portion give above) is permeated by the claim that followers of God are "strangers and aliens" on earth.  But the clearest political description of Christians, those who are followers of the Kingdom of God, is given by Paul in his second letter to the Corinthian church.  There (in II Cor 5:16-21) the metaphor for Christian action is as a foreign ambassador, visiting one kingdom from another.

From now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!  All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.  

We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Ambassador to an alien country

I find the ambassador metaphor the most useful and practical. Imagine that you are assigned by your government to be an ambassador to a foreign country.  Maybe you are an American assigned to be ambassador to Russia.  How would you behave in Moscow?  In many ways you might seek to integrate with and join in the local culture.  You would learn Russian. You might attend parties and receptions, make friends.  (There is even a "trick" to drinking vodka at Russian parties, so that you appear to be an enthusiastic member of the crowd while not drinking too much.  See this StackExchange discussion.)  But still, as ambassador from the USA to Russia, you would remember your roots and your loyalties.  You would always be seeking to promote the interests of your home country among the foreign host.  You might play soccer or ice hockey with locals.  Watch movies in Russian and shop at the local market.  But your heart is still back in your home country.  You would not serve in the Russian military or salute the Russian flag or betray the interests of your home country.  In all these ways you would hope to be a contagious influence, never threatening, never bullying, but also never forgetting your mission.

In the same way, the follower of Jesus seeks to be an ambassador for the "kingdom of God" (to use a term Jesus himself used.)  As an ambassador from that kingdom to the strange alien kingdom of earth (and yes, the very foreign kingdom of the USA), I should try to speak the local language, care for neighbors, make friends. (I have many good friends!)  But all along I am aware that this USA is a strange country and I shouldn't forget my allegiance. 

In that sense, as a Christian, I am no more American than the American ambassador to Moscow is Russian.  

The Robe and a Cosmic Cowboy

Sometime ago, after deciding I wanted to be a Christ-follower, I read The Robe by Lloyd C. Douglas.  That novel is an exploration of what might have happened to the Roman centurion who crucified Jesus.  The main character, the centurion, Marcellus, traces Jesus's life story and so eventually become a follower of Jesus.  In that journey, he learns to deal with the tension between his new kingdom (one of love, compassion and peace) and the old kingdom, the Roman empire.  At the end, he and his young bride, Diana, refuse to worship Caligula and are sent off to execution.  Yes, it is a work of fiction -- but it captures (in my mind) the transcendence of culture, race and national boundaries, that is embedded in the teachings of Jesus.  (I've not seen the movie, starring Richard Burton.  The movie must lose a bit of the power of the original novel....)

Later in my journey as a Christ-follower, I had a casette tape with a Barry McGuire song about a cosmic cowboy.  It is a fitting place to end this post, quoting Barry McGuire:

"I met a Cosmic Cowboy, riding a starry range.

He's a supernatural plowboy.  He's dressed up kinda strange."

The narrator eventually gets to see all creation laid out before him.  In typical "cowboy" imagery,

"I was looking through his eyes, right into another land.

He said, 'This is my Father's ranch as far as you can see.

He made it out of nothing, every branch, every tree.

The stars, all the mountains, the rivers, the streams,

the oceans, the valley of your dreams.  

I know that place you're looking for, that place you long to be

Truth is, I'm the only door.  You're gonna have to pass through me.' "

Yes, I live in a beautiful country. I have many wonderful American friends.  
I hope, as an ambassador, I can help out a little in my neighborhood.
But American is not the place I'm longing for.  That is a different country.