Women and the Gender of God

Book Review (Amy Peeler)

Sometimes I pick up books that I know are going to be a slow read, and this was one of them. But I'd heard enough good things about it that I figured it was worth it.

This book starts with the axiom that God values women, and then goes on to consider why it is that there is a pervasive belief that God is male or at the very least masculine. Peeler's project is to engage in a close reading of Scripture to affirm that God is not male, nor masculine, and to consider more clearly the dynamics of gender that are attendant and revealed in the Incarnation. Here is Peeler's core claim:

the God revealed there [ in the Incarnation] harbors no preference for males because God the Father is not male and God the Son is male like no other.

I realise that such claims may be novel or surprising for some readers here. So let me make a few preliminary points before we tackle some of Peeler's argument. Traditionally Christian theologians have held that God is not a gendered being. Having no body, and not engaging in reproduction, God is a category of being beyond gender. So, no serious theologian thinks that God is "male". However, God is very often and pervasively referred to with masculine language, and so a significant body of tradition considers that God is 'masculine', i.e. has traits that align more with male humans than with female humans, and that feminine language is less appropriate to God. It should be non-controversial to say that God is not male. It should be a topic of hesitancy to claim that God is masculine though.

Peeler proceeds through six chapters, which I will attempt to briefly summarise here. In her first chapter she considers what it means for God the Father to not be male. A seemingly contradictory statement, but one upheld by the interpretive tradition. She does so by attentive reading of the Scriptures. For example, while paternal language is infrequent in the Old Testament, Peeler notes that where "procreation is the focus, the Hebrew text explicitly depersonalizes God so as to avoid a sexualized association". Paternal language focuses on care, discipline, relationship, not on sexuality and reproduction. The language used resists a sexualised male deity.

The New Testament courts disaster - the story of the virginal conception runs the very risk of understanding God the Father as the sexual agent in the conception of Jesus. Peeler's approach is nuanced to say the least. The "denial of God the Father's maleness comes via the most sexualized of all events: pregnancy". That is, Peeler's exegesis of the birth narratives in the New Testament highlights the way the writers recount that (1) God does not act in a way similar to other gods who have intercourse, but (2) in ways that echo other divine births in which pregnancy is caused without intercourse, and (3) in a pattern that denies the normal "triad of female, female, and child" by the agency of the Holy Spirit.

Chapter two investigates "holiness and the female body", and makes an argument that things such as the purity laws around menstruation and childbirth are not part of a system that sets women up as second-class humans, while the very fact that God is born of a woman deeply honours women and the female body.

In the incarnation, God has deemed the female body - the impure, bleeding female body - worthy to handle the most sacred of all things, the very body of God.

Chapter three considers how Mary is portrayed, especially in Luke, as an agent with integrity and honour, and that God honours her agency and her acceptance.

Chapter four goes beyond the claim that God the Father is not male, to consider the more prevalent claim that he is 'masculine', and the "insidious corollary", "that males are more like God". Such a claim, Peeler argues, often arises from three sources: God as source of life, God as sovereign initiator, and Jesus' own maleness. To the first point, Peeler concludes:

God is the source of life, but neither in relationship with creation nor with the Son and the Son's siblings are God's actions more like those of men rather than women".

God's process of creation does not bear similarities to male or female procreation. As to the second, Peeler surveys a considerable and weighty tradition that sees initiation, leadership, authority as masculine traits. This, however, is "anthropological projectionism". We should consider why this is so common. Furthermore, the language of initiation should not be mapped to God's relationship to creation nor to sexualized conceptions of God-human relations. The danger is precisely that of a "crude male sexualization of God". Peeler is content to maintain that God is the transcendent initiator, but denies this maps to masculinity. Likewise, if transcendence itself is masculinized, then one cannot help but end up with a position that sees men as superior and closer to God, women as inferior and further away.

You might think that with all this kind of argument that Peeler is in the camp that thinks we ought to, e.g., do away with the language of God as Father. But the opposite is true. Peeler staunchly defends calling God "Father" because it's deeply scriptural and theological. God stands in relation to creation not as a mother, because he did not bear the creation inside himself. He stands apart. Yet God in the incarnation deigns to be carried in the womb. Jesus calls God Father and that is the main reason why we do. He never calls "God "Mother", because he already has one. "

Chapter five turns to the maleness of Jesus. Here Peeler is engaging theologians, not least C.S. Lewis, Kathy Keller, Kallistos Ware, Balthasar, inter alios, that because Jesus is male, and represents God, only men can represent God (in ordained ministry). Peeler's primary argument here is that the maleness of Jesus is unique. Jesus is male-embodied, but his flesh is female-provided - he is the only human born without something provided by a human male father. This, for Peeler, creates a human being who is in some ways uniquely embracing of male and female.

Chapter six is titled 'ministry', and you might think that Peeler is going to get to finally an argument for women's ordination. Not least because Peeler herself is an ordained Anglican priest. Nope, not really. Instead, she spends this chapter unpacking in detail the ministry of Mary, mother of Jesus. In doing so, Mary is a model for all believers.

What to make of this book? I read this book as someone sympathetic to Peeler's overall argument, and many of its details. I think it's a formidable book, and mostly successful, though there are a few places I'd want to explore more connections between Peeler's arguments and other theological nodes. I've read a few other reviews of this book, ranging from the appreciative to the bizarre and dismissive ("It's feminist theology, should we even read it?" To which we might ask if male-authored volumes are all masculinist-theology?). But in sum, we need more theology that pushes the boundaries of our thinking, not because theology is a progressive enterprise, but because theology is a challenging one.