The Church of Sweden (AKA: The Evangelical Lutheran Church) voted on November 23rd, 2017 to use gender neutral pronouns to refer to God. On May 20th, 2018, the church’s decision will come into force during Pentecost. The goal here is to modernize “its 31-year-old handbook setting out how services should be conducted.” Essentially, this will mean that priests will use, for example, the term God instead of he, choosing gender-neutral terms when possible.
Practically, the church’s decision means that priests will be allowed to say, “in the name of God and the Holy Trinity” instead of “in the name of the Father, son and Holy Spirit.” No longer is it neccesary to call God Father, Son, or Holy Ghost.
Is This a Problem?
Sweden’s first female archbishop, Jackelen, “defended the decision, telling Sweden’s TT news agency: “‘Theologically, for instance, we know that God is beyond our gender determinations, God is not human.'”
Certainly, God is not human. He is invisible, immortal, all-powerful. He all spirit and no stuff. But he has revealed himself in various ways, accommodating himself to our finite, mortal, and weak constitutions.
The clearest way that God has revealed himself is in his Son, Jesus Christ. And Son calls the one who sent him, Father. This Son – Father dynamic becomes the clearest way to understand godhead’s greatest mystery—its unity in three persons. The Bible, in consequence of God’s identity, calls the Father “he” and the Son “he,” using gendered pronouns.
Liturgically speaking, then, archbishop Jackelen’s statement is disastrous.
God has revealed himself in Christ by using masculine terms. In so far as we diverge from this masculinity, then we diverge from knowing God.
But God Is Sometimes Described with Feminine Qualities
But let’s be sure we don’t go overboard. God also has feminine qualities. God is likened to a mother eagle in Deuteronomy 32:11 and the wisdom of God is associated with lady wisdom (Proverbs 1:20–22; 8:1–9:6).[1]
And since God is likened to a feminine creature and wisdom, it’s appropriate to conceive of God as a mother eagle or his wisdom as lady wisdom.
So What’s Really the Problem Here?
Few would claim that gender-inclusive language is wrong when writing books or speaking with others today. It has become something of a normal phenomenon.
Here’s the real problem. God has chosen specific analogies to reveal himself, and these analogies primarily include masculine features (e.g., Paternity and Sonship). If we avoid these revelatory signs, we begin to lose our apprehension of who God is.
So, let’s continue to call the Father “Father” and the Son “Son” while affirming that God is also like a mother-eagle hovering over its nest. In all things, we ought to follow the biblical analogies for the sake of our worship. It’s liturgically disastrous to not call the Father “he.”
[1] Joan Schaupp cites these passages but argues differently than I do.
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