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Some musings on G-d and gender
Friday, January 15th, 2016 12:03 pmA friend just asked me over Facebook if I thought we ought to use non-binary pronouns for G-d. I gave it some thought and here was my reply:
I think I'd prefer to use the “They” rather than “Xe” or “Ze”, since “They” has a connotation of gender indeterminacy.
The way I see it, use of any specifically non-binary pronoun like “Xe” could imply that G-d doesn't have “femaleness” nor “”maleness” but only has “non-binary-ness”. I think that could be just as bad as using “He”, given that “He” implies that G-d has only maleness to the exclusion of both femaleness and non-binary-ness. In other words, I think that G-d ought be considered to possess all genders, not just one type or set of genders to the exclusion of all others.
After all, the problem with defaulting to “He” for most of the past several thousand years of monotheistic religion, has been that it has supported cultural male-supremacy and patriarchy, with all the human rights abuses that come from those things.
So exchanging one gender-limiting pronoun for another in reference to G-d might serve to re-create similar problems: e.g.: if there someday were to develop a culture of non-binary-supremacy, where women and men alike might be considered somehow inferior, or even ranked lower. Yes, right now that idea might seem laughable, but we can't predict the future absolutely, so it is at least possible such a scenario could come about someday. That would be very sad, and probably not what Jesus or other great teachers would want to support by referring to G-d with pronouns inclusive of the genders of only a small part of the population.
So, I think it makes the best sense to use the indeterminate “They” when referring to G-d or Oneness.
I think I'd prefer to use the “They” rather than “Xe” or “Ze”, since “They” has a connotation of gender indeterminacy.
The way I see it, use of any specifically non-binary pronoun like “Xe” could imply that G-d doesn't have “femaleness” nor “”maleness” but only has “non-binary-ness”. I think that could be just as bad as using “He”, given that “He” implies that G-d has only maleness to the exclusion of both femaleness and non-binary-ness. In other words, I think that G-d ought be considered to possess all genders, not just one type or set of genders to the exclusion of all others.
After all, the problem with defaulting to “He” for most of the past several thousand years of monotheistic religion, has been that it has supported cultural male-supremacy and patriarchy, with all the human rights abuses that come from those things.
So exchanging one gender-limiting pronoun for another in reference to G-d might serve to re-create similar problems: e.g.: if there someday were to develop a culture of non-binary-supremacy, where women and men alike might be considered somehow inferior, or even ranked lower. Yes, right now that idea might seem laughable, but we can't predict the future absolutely, so it is at least possible such a scenario could come about someday. That would be very sad, and probably not what Jesus or other great teachers would want to support by referring to G-d with pronouns inclusive of the genders of only a small part of the population.
So, I think it makes the best sense to use the indeterminate “They” when referring to G-d or Oneness.
