Women and the Gender of God
By Amy Peeler
Eerdmans, 286 pages, $24.99
Listen to an interview with author Amy Peeler on The TLC Podcast.
One day my two elementary school-age children, a boy and a girl, were talking with two of their friends, another boy and another girl. One of the boys said, “God is a boy,” and one of the girls said, “No, he isn’t!” When I asked what they were talking about, they told me they were debating whether boys or girls are better. Eventually this topic led to a statement by the boys, “Jesus was a boy,” followed by the next logical step: “God is a boy.”
The children’s debate highlighted for me the importance and relevance of Amy Peeler’s topic. In Women and the Gender of God, Peeler tells of overhearing a similar conversation at her son’s 8th birthday party. These innocent conversations demonstrate how our understanding of God trickles down to our understanding of men and women in significant ways.
If men or women are ontologically more like God, it is easy to conclude that one sex is inherently “better” than the other — or, as Peeler puts it, “supports for a masculine God are … dangerous because all humans suffer when God is more like some than others.” The question of whether God is male — or more masculine than feminine — is not an obscure debate reserved for those with Ph.Ds. Even children sense that our beliefs on this subject will have a direct effect on our perspectives on human nature and the relative worth of men and women.
Peeler reveals the assumptions we unconsciously make about what Scripture does and does not say about God’s relationship to gender. “One of the ways to correctly understand the masculine paternal language for God is to attend to what the text does and does not say,” she writes.
She distinguishes between what Scripture says about God and layers of accrued logic that are not required by Scripture. Her probing analysis threw the importance of these issues into sharper relief for me as a reader. At certain moments I found myself troubled by the implications of what she raised, because more was at stake theologically, if God is male, than I had realized. But after stirring up those concerns, she brings a remarkable level of resolution to them through her examination of Scripture.
For example, she explores the account in Luke of Jesus’ conception and whether it supports God’s maleness. Since God takes the place of man in Jesus’ conception, does this support God’s maleness? On the surface, this plain fact might indicate God’s maleness is an open-and-shut case.
Peeler peels back the layers of assumptions we unconsciously make about the text. She parses in detail how God’s participation in Jesus’ conception is decidedly unlike the natural role a man plays. The biblical account of God’s interactions with Mary stands in stark contrast to pagan narratives of gods impregnating women. Whereas the pagan gods assume male bodies and engage in sexual acts, often through coercion or deception, the Gospel of Luke takes care to show that Mary becomes pregnant only after she agrees to cooperate with God, and her pregnancy occurs by supernatural means, without violation of her personhood.
Instead, Mary experiences an “overshadowing” that harkens back to God’s creative acts at creation and God’s presence over the tabernacle in the wilderness. Peeler concludes, “Because God does not act as a male acts, this account gives no justification to view God as male.” Instead, God’s role in the conception of Jesus highlights God’s otherness from creation, while also affirming God’s tender care and respect for Mary as a woman. Peeler argues that Jesus, in taking his male flesh from a woman, assumes the entirety of humanity, undercutting the argument that women need a female savior in order to have their humanity redeemed.
Peeler also considers whether God is more masculine than feminine, according to classical philosophical understandings; how Scripture honors and dignifies female bodies rather than scorning them as inferior; and how Mary’s role as a “gospel proclaimer” supports women’s participation in the ministry of the gospel.
Peeler affirms both God’s transcendence beyond the created order and the personal and direct way that God relates to us, inviting us to call him Father as a sign primarily of his goodness and compassion toward us. Her arguments deserve careful examination, both from scholars entering a long history of debate and from parents seeking to respond to their children’s curiosity about the nature of God.