Debate about gender-specific language

• women feel excluded by the use of gender-specific language that is found throughout the bible, which is culturally conditioned and reinforced patriarchal stereotypes of male superiority. in response to this, some gender-neutral translations of the bible have been produced
• however, this doesn't address the problem highlighted by feminists that the god portrayed in the bible is a male figure, with all the typically male attributes of power

  • such language encourages a distorted and unacceptable understanding of god
  • the standard gender-neutral translations of the bible do not apply gender-neutral terms to god
• in an attempt to redress this, many US divinity faculties are encouraging lecturers to avoid the use of male pronouns when speaking of god and to replace them with words such as 'god' or 'godself'

  • a post-christian thinker like Daphne Hampson does likewise, but in her case she also has a rather different conception of 'that which is god'
• some feminist theologians point to the presence in the bible and in the thinking of the church of feminine attributes to god
• example of feminine attributes to god

  an early church theologian (clement of Alexandria) referred to christians nursing at the breast of god the father
• other christians think that to remove all gender-specific references form the bible would be to lose many insights, as it was a product of its culture and to be properly understood, it needs to be studied in that context
• there are also feminists who think that attributing 'female' qualities to the male god just compounds the problem. the male now contains all within himself. what is needed to see women and men, female and male, as equal