TW: Religious misogyny
My fourth semester of divinity school, I was having more and more trouble coating over the cracks between me and the bible. The more I studied it, the more I saw the fingerprints of domination and exploitation within it and all over it; how it was written, and how we have chosen to use it against each other.
At one point I brought up to a friend my growing concerns. I was talking about a theology paper I had to write about Ratzinger's work; I said how frustrating I found it that he could write that our was a God for everyone; for all *men.* That he could write about this expansive deity and yet use exclusively male language to refer to God and to all God's people. Though I find so much of Ratzinger's theology compelling, I couldn't see how to breach the gap between the best of his message and the gaping hole left by unchallenged patriarchy.My friend began to say something like, "Yeah, although we know that God is far more than one gender, the bible does use male language to describe God, and so..." and at that point I tuned out, numb from the exhaustion of hearing and seeing people point to bible and say, "But the bible *says*..." in order to defend, excuse, or ignore something hurtful.I'm tired of using the bible as anesthesia. I'm tired of how we use its weighty authority to make ourselves numb to the ways that we form God in our own worst image, and use that image to beat others down.If God is greater than one gender, there is absolutely no reason to persist in using exclusively male pronouns. If God is so much bigger, then why can't we make an effort to understand and express how big God is? Instead, we use "God is so much bigger" like some empty caveat so that we can continue talking about God the way we always have. It's like saying "no offense" before saying something super offensive. If no offense is meant, then find a not offensive way of expressing yourself. If God is not just man, then find a way to not just use "he" to describe "him."Using the bible as an excuse for bad behavior is the worst kind of "faithfulness." When we do this, we in fact remain faithful only to ourselves; to the bad habits of our culture and our world; to our own laziness and fear; to our own lack of understanding.To be faithful to God is to try to see past our own narrow view into something bigger, something more expansive. It's not necessarily fun, and it's almost definitely frightening. But joy lies there, just beyond the reaches of our exclusivity and fear.
