Is the Holy Spirit Male or Female?

There are a number of websites, some academic, where this issue is discussed.  What I write here is not intended to be a thorough theological discourse but rather my own personal reflection.

Like many Christians my age I was brought up to think of God as male.  I have a Trinitarian understanding of God as essentially one but expressed in three persons.  The Trinity, like many other aspects of God is a mystery.  God is unique and no attempt to describe God is ever going to be adequate. Two of those persons present as essentially male: Father and Son.

I have therefore grown older talking with my heavenly Father.  The concept of God as Father is reflected in Hebrew scripture, is expressed in the words of Jesus in many places including the model prayer he gave to his disciples and in his own prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Coming to know Jesus, growing in that relationship and discovering all I have come to know of Jesus has been by the presence of the Holy Spirit.  However the idea of attaching gender to the Holy Spirit is something that never crossed my mind for most of my long Christian life.  That began to change somewhere around 1991.  Although I had undertaken Old and New Testament studies and other education and training when I joined an evangelistic mission in 1963, none of this was certified and in order to be admitted onto the Roll of Ministries of the Congregational Federation (I had become a part-time minister of a Congregational Church) I had to undergo a thorough training programme.  By then I had accumulated some 28 years of ministry experience but the Congregational Federation was not minded to cut corners!

As part of those studies, which I greatly enjoyed, I was introduced into ways of doing theology that varied from and challenged my own practise.  This included both Liberation Theology and Feminist Theology.  Neither presented any major problem to me and I can honestly say that I "got it".  It was the latter that started me thinking more about the nature of God, and of the Holy Spirit in particular. It was not so much that this was a new exercise, just that I had not given much thought to articulate it before.

I was familiar with Genesis 1:27 which tells us that God created humankind in the image of God: both male and female.  I have never considered any anthropomorphic reference to suggest that God actually looks either like a man or a woman or a mixture of both.  rather I have always understood it as referring to characteristics rather than form. That is (if I may speak plainly) I have never imagined God with either a penis or vagina.  Come to that I never imagined God as necessarily having hands or feet etc.  I always understood this a figurative rather than literal.

It follows naturally that if both men and women are created in the image of God, then the best of both gender characteristics would give us some idea as to what God is like.  I had both a loving mother and father and value both.  I have a sister and brother - both very different - and I vale both.  Some characteristics that are typically male I also see in traces within those who are female and vice versa.

I began reflecting further on passages of scripture that attribute feminine characteristics to God.  Hosea speaks of God acting like a mother bear.  The scriptures speak of God giving birth to the nation of Israel.  Isaiah speaks of God as a comforting mother, and as a woman in child birth.  Both Matthew and Luke speak of God being like a mother hen.  Most would be very happy seeing God like a caring shepherd seeking a lost sheep or as a father longing for the return of a wayward son.  But should we not equally be comfortable with God in the image of a woman looking for a lost coin?

The Old Testament or Hebrew Scriptures were written in Hebrew.  Unlike English Hebrew nouns carry gender.  Some will be familiar with this if they have studied other languages.  I learned in Frech that "La plume (feminine) de ma tante (feminine) est sur le bureau (masculine) de mon oncle (masculine).  The pen of my aunt is on the bureau of my uncle.  The Hebrew word for Spirit, ruach, is feminine.

It is probable that much of Jesus' ministry was spoken in Aramaic in which the word for spirit is also feminine.

The New Testament comes to us in Greek which was the common or universal language of those times.  Reference to the Holy Spirit in the New Testament uses the word pneuma.  Greek nouns may be masculine, feminine or neuter (that is neither male nor female).  Pneuma is a neuter noun.

I have some friends who would be horrified to have God referred to as 'mother' but for others it would mean a great deal.  As far as I am concerned it does't bother me as I do not have a concept of God as either male or female but from whom the best qualities of maleness and femaleness are derived.  In public prayers I try to refer to God without having to use 'father' or 'Mother'.  If I have to do so I would probably only speak of God as Father, but then the term 'Mother God' has no biblical precedent.

For anyone who had a caring mother but a violent or abusive father there will be difficulty in thinking of God as father.  The opposite is also true.  All of us bring to the task of doing theology our own background, insights and experiences.  They become the prejudice or filter through which we try to grasp truth.

Back in 1991 on a training weekend one of the tutors deliberately chose a hymn for part of an act of worship.  The hymn addressed God solely as Mother.  Most students and tutors struggled and many of us could not bring ourselves to sing the words.  The next day, at a review of the weekend's activities the tutor who had chosen the controversial hymn asked if anyone wished to comment on it. There was a long silence until another tutor commented, "It had a nice tune!"

I found the words of the hymn thought provoking but I did not feel comfortable to use them as an act of worship.  I love my heavenly Father.  I love God the Son.  I delight in the presence of the Holy Spirit because the Spirit reveals the things of Jesus to me and this is so very precious.  That might very well be a feminine characteristic but does it really matter so long as we feel fathered and mothered by God?

Thank God for women! From where did they derive those intriguing and wonderful natures thgat have made my life so enjoyable?

Is the Bible less significant

A friend of mine lent me a book he has written lamenting what he sees as a loss of respect for and personal use of the Bible in the lives of Christians today. He is writing, of course from an English perspective. I found myself largely in sympathy with much that he had written. The following comes from mt letter on returning the book.

Recently I heard it suggested that the emphasis on “professional ministry” had led to the decline in scripture knowledge and I think that might be partly true but it is far from the whole truth. I would blame the emphasis on professional ministry for disabling Christians generally but that is another matter.

Like many my age I grew up with the benefit of a structured Sunday School where the Bible was taught. In that hall there was a slogan left by a visiting missionary. It stated “Find a time and a place to pray, and read your Bible every day”. I was also made to take the annual Sunday School Union Scripture Examination and we were drilled on this for several weeks. Consequently before I became a committed Christian I had a good knowledge of what the Bible was about, how it was compiled, the main characters etc. It was like having been to Bible College!

Today we have what I consider generally the benefit of having various versions of the scriptures. The aim has been to make the Bible more accessible. While to some extent that aim has succeeded it has not obviously led to a general increase in personal Bible study, which is where I would like to see greater emphasis. There are some great exceptions and I am always delighted when I see teenagers carrying Bibles to church – often where the adults do not do so.

I feel that there are probably three areas of weakness:

The first of these is the loss of the “family alter”. There is nothing like being introduced to the great stories of scripture from an early age.

The second is a weakness within many theological and Bible colleges, where, it seems, the values of scripture reading (public and private) seems not to have a high profile. If students learned how to engage with the scriptures in a dynamic way during the time of their training they would bring that into their ministry.

The third is in the area of public worship. Here I would place the blame not so much on the absence or limits of scripture reading, but more on the way that it is done. In most churches that I go to it sounds boring. Saying either before or afterwards anything about hearing the Word of God will do little if it is not then communicated appropriately. Even in evangelical churches I have heard the Bible read as if reading from a text book or a car manual. Boring!

Much that is in the Bible is drama but that is so often lost. So I would urge having sessions where people learn to read the scriptures with more expression, with pauses, and appropriate emphasis. A ministry colleague of mine always ensures that when she reads the Bible she makes it live. She has sometimes done this by creating a dialogue, or by allowing someone (prepared) to make interjections or ask questions. It really makes people sit up and listen.

Other good ideas include ensuring that other elements in a service complement the scripture readings, or by providing some way of “spotlighting” the scripture reading to aid that focus to what it actually said. Reading the gospel from within the congregation and having everyone stand to listen can be useful, but not so much when done every Sunday, as it then becomes too familiar. I rather like the custom of a URC minister known to me who concludes the Bible reading by holding the book aloft and towards the congregation and saying, “The Word of God for the People of God”, to which the congregation is expected to respond, “Thanks be to God”.

In conclusion I return to the issue of personal Bible reading through the week. I think we could come up with more creative ways of encouraging this. On a purely personal level I have found using hymns and worship songs and scripture together to be helpful. Sometimes I sit and read through a hymn carefully and thoughtfully and then turn to the scriptures it brings to mind. Sometimes the scriptures then bring another hymn to mind, and so we go on. This is very much akin to Brethren and earlier Pentecostal morning meetings.

And a PS would be to remind myself that if I expect others to be inspired to read God’s Word and be blessed by it then I must ensure that my own experience is a good one and that my life is being informed and excited by reading God’s precious word.