Gender and God - is God 'masculine'?

A few years ago I was at a church women's breakfast. At the end, the speaker was asked if she would close in prayer, and she was obviously unprepared for this, so what she prayed was spontaneous and unrehearsed. But what she prayed has stayed with me, though I can't remember anything else she said that day, because I was horrified: "Thank you God, that you love and value women, even though you are a boy..."

Did I overreact? After all, we can't all be theologically correct all the time. I'm sure if I'd sat down with this lady and talked with her, she would have agreed, as most theologians do, that God is not a 'boy' He's not even a 'man'. He is not male. He is not female. Maleness or femaleness is a property of embodied creatures, humans, animals, some plants. It is biological. God has no biology (except of course in the Incarnation, and we'll talk about that later). And sex, being male or female, is a biological property.

But what about gender? Is God masculine rather than feminine? Again, most theologians agree that God transcends gender. Nevertheless, the use of masculine pronouns for God and the predominance of male imagery in the Bible, mean that many people, like that speaker, unconsciously think of God in masculine terms. You've probably already noticed that I've referred to God as 'he', and all I can say is that I wish there were a way to avoid it, but I will continue to use it because first, that's what I've been doing for forty years and speech habits are not easily broken, and second, it's hard to think of a better alternative. You could try to avoid using pronouns at all, just always say 'God', and 'Godself", but that's clumsy. Calling God 'it' depersonalises God, and 'she' has no scriptural warrant, as well as implying that God is female. Which God isn't, any more than God is male. So I'll just stick with convention, which at least does have scriptural precedent, acknowledging that in many ways it is unsatisfactory, but the alternatives are worse. (Augustine had the same problem with the word 'person'. He said that we need to name what is three in God but to use the word 'person' - three persons - is problematic. Father, Son and Spirit are not three persons each with their own will and consciousness like human beings. However, he said if we are not to be reduced to silence" we must use a word for the three and none is better than 'person(s)'.)1

Now I want to look at some writers who have presented God as 'masculine'.

C.S. Lewis, one of Christianity's best known and loved apologists and author, at least early in his career had an essentialist view of gender. He wrote that "Gender is a reality, and a more fundamental reality than sex".2 And he portrayed God as the highest form or ideal of masculinity: "The masculine none of us can escape. What is above and beyond all things is so masculine that we are all feminine in relation to it."3

Stereotypical masculinity and femininity were portrayed by Lewis as timeless archetypes. For example, in a passage in Mere Christianity, which is still read and taken almost as canonical by many evangelicals today, he wrote that men must have the final say in decision making in marriage because they have a stronger sense of justice than women and are more impartial in their judgements.4 He also wrote that the "greater mingling of the sexes" at Oxford "reduces the amount of serious argument about ideas", and that "the proper glory of the masculine mind, its disinterested concern with truth for truth's own sake, with the cosmic and the metaphysical, is being impaired".5

No wonder his contemporary, fellow Christian writer and friend, Dorothy Sayers, wrote of him, "He is apt to write shocking nonsense about women and marriage. (That, however, is not because he is a bad theologian but because he is a rather frightened bachelor".6 Lewis was a product of the Edwardian age (though so was Sayers) and the very male dominated Oxford world. In his later years, he appears to have modified his views about gender considerably. He acknowledged that when common ground existed between men and women, in terms of education and occupation, they could form genuine friendships,7 and he confided to Dorothy Sayers that he didn't like "either the ultra masculine or the ultra feminine... I prefer people".8

It might be easy to dismiss C.S. Lewis's 'Edwardian' ideas about gender and God, if he were not still so influential, and if there weren't a number of similarly influential writers with similar ideas today. In her 1982 book Let Me Be a Woman, Elizabeth Elliot claimed that Eve, in taking the initiative to eat the forbidden fruit, was trying to be like the "ultimately masculine" God of the Bible by "taking initiative".9 "Taking initiative" was deemed to be a masculine not a feminine trait, and God was portrayed as metaphysically masculine. Stereotypical ideas about gender and the subtle or not so subtle suggestion that God is masculine seem to go together. At a conference in 2012, John Piper declared that God's intention for Christianity is for it to have a "masculine feel": "God revealed Himself in the Bible pervasively as king not queen; father not mother.... The Second person of the Trinity is revealed as the eternal Son not daughter". 10

John Piper has very definite ideas about what constitutes masculinity and femininity: "At the heart of mature masculinity is a sense of benevolent responsibility to lead, provide for and protect women in ways appropriate to a man's differing relationships". And "At the heart of mature femininity is a freeing disposition to affirm, receive and nurture strength and leadership from worthy men in ways appropriate to a woman's differing relationships".11

And this expresses itself in the kind of work men and women can do. For example, following the decision to allow women to serve in combat positions in the U.S. defence forces John Piper wrote: "No woman should go before me into combat to defend my country... Part of the meaning of manhood as God created us is the sense of responsibility for the safety and welfare of our women".12

But surely the desire to protect others, especially those weaker than oneself, isn't a man thing. It's a human thing. Why can't we just value the actions of anyone who steps in to help those who need help?13

Now it should be noted that although Piper claims his ideas are biblical, and though there is a Greek word for "masculine" (andreia), that word never occurs in the New Testament. Not once are church leaders or men in general encouraged to be "masculine'.14 Piper's gender stereotyping is a bit different to that of C.S. Lewis, but he shares with Lewis an essentialist view of gender- an assumption that men and women are fundamentally different. A popular manifestation of this was the book Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus,15 and in Christian culture, Wild at Heart, which frequently cites C.S. Lewis's work in support of its concept of "biblical masculinity".16 But we all do it - we call women 'emotional' or 'hysterical' , we refer to 'man flu. There is a widespread perception that men are more aggressive, justice-oriented and mathematical than women, whereas women are more verbal, care-oriented and empathetic.17 But is there any actual evidence for these perceptions?

Source 18

The first thing to say is that, apart from the genetic (men have a Y chromosome) and anatomical differences, "gender differences are 'general' or average in nature rather than absolute dichotomies" 19 The biggest differences relate to men being on average bigger and stronger, with more muscle mass, and being less sensitive to pain. For example, men on average are taller than women, but in each group there is a range of heights that fits a normal distribution or "bell curve". The mean value for each sex is different, but the curves overlap, and there is even a percentage of women who are taller than the average man, and a percentage of men who are shorter than the average woman. And this is also true for the psychosocial differences between men and women. What varies is the difference between the mean values for a particular characteristic, and the degree of overlap. There are few consistent statistically significant sex differences in psychological traits and behaviours. And mostly the small average difference is exceeded by the amount of variability within that sex. Much more variation exists within than between the sexes.20

There are only moderate differences in aggression, sexual responses, sexual attitudes, spatial perception, and empathy (when self-reported the difference is large, but when behaviourally observed it is very small and small to no differences in cognitive abilities - language, maths.21

The results shatter a number of myths, namely that women speak in a moral voice of caring rather than in terms of justice, that boys/ men are better at maths, and that girls/women are better at language / communication.

And we also need to recognise that we cannot assume, even when we find consistent gender linked behavioural differences, that these are essential, innate or 'hardwired differences (what we might call due to 'nature'), rather than due to cultural differences (what we might call 'nurture'), specifically different opportunities experienced by men and women. Nor can we assume that these differences are what God intended in creation, rather than a result of the fall, of sinful patterns of relationships, and/or systemic patriarchy.

In fact there is evidence that as opportunities change, some of the gender differences decrease. One study carried out in thirty seven different countries in the 1990's found a statistically significant tendency for men to rank youth and beauty higher than women, and for women to rank wealth and power higher than men as criteria for potential mates.

The authors concluded, because this was a cross cultural study, that these preferences were "hard wired." 22 But when later researchers rank ordered the countries involved according to two indices of gender equality (which takes into account life span, education and income, they found that as gender equality increased, the differences in mate selection criteria decreased.23 This suggests that at least some of the differences are definitely due to nurture rather than nature.

In summary, men are from Earth, women are from Earth.

Now, having looked at the differences between the sexes, and discovered that many of our assumptions about the differences between them are simply wrong, let's turn again to the question of why people tend to think of God as more male than female, more masculine than feminine. Do the Scriptures present God that way? Certainly there are many "male' metaphors for God in the Bible, but I want to highlight the times where God is presented in female language - which means maternal language, since the ability to conceive, carry, give birth to and breastfeed children are unambiguously female characteristics.

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters" (Gen 1:1-2). The word 'hovering' can also be translated "brooding', and conveys the idea of a mother bird sitting on a nest, hovering and brooding over her eggs. The same word is used in Deuteronomy 32:11-12: "He (God) shielded him and cared for him.... like an eagle that stirs up its nest and (broods) hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them aloft".

Another maternal image is God as a mother bird sheltering her young under her wings. We see this in Ruth 2:12 - "May you be richly rewarded by the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge." And in a number of Psalms: "Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings" (Psalm 17:8); "I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed" (Psalm 57:1) and "He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge" (Psalm 91:4).

Jesus picks up this image when he laments over Jerusalem: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing" (Mat 23:37; Luke 13:34).

But here is a rather different maternal image of God: "Like a bear robbed of her cubs, I will attack them and rip them open; like a lion I Will devour them - a wild animal will tear them apart" (Hosea 13:8) - a reminder that mothers are not always warm and cuddly!

God is also portrayed using the image of a human mother

"For a long time I [God] have kept silent, I have been quiet and held myself back. But now, like a woman in childbirth, I cry out, gasp and pant' (Isa 42:14). The great reformer John Calvin commented on this passage: "Like a woman in labor. By this metaphor he expresses astonishing warmth of love and tenderness of affection; for he compares himself to a mother who singularly loves her child, though she brought him forth with extreme pain, It may be thought that these things are not applicable to God; but in no other way than by such figures of speech can his ardent love towards us be expressed... Besides, he intended also to intimate that the redemption of his people would be a kind of birth... 24

"As a mother comforts her child, so will I [God] comfort you; and you will be comforted over Jerusalem" (Isa 66:13).

"Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I [God] will not forget you!" (Isa 49:15). John Calvin, again: "By an apt comparison he shows how strong is the concern he bears for his own. He compares himself to a mother, whose love for her baby is so engrossed and anxious as to leave a father's love a long way behind. Thus he was not content with using the example of a father, which he employs frequently elsewhere. To express his burning affection, he preferred to compare himself to a mother, and he does not call them just 'children' but his "baby', since affection for a baby is normally stronger. The affection a mother feels for her baby is amazing. She fondles it in her lap, feeds it at her breast, and watches so anxiously over it that she passes sleepless nights, continually wearing herself out and forgetting herself'.25

At this point it would be good to remind ourselves that God is beyond gender, that God is neither male nor female; but the Scriptures use various metaphors to help us understand God who is nevertheless always beyond our full understanding. Theologian Lynn Japinga writes, "Language about God should help us to understand and encounter God, but we should not confuse the reality of God with the limits of our language" 26

It is true, despite these maternal images, that the Bible never refers to God as 'she' and never actually calls God 'mother' nor encourages us to do so. This probably has to do with a reaction against ancient mother goddess worship, which, unlike certain modern-day revivals, was never about empowering women. It was about glorifying Nature; Mother faith was worshiped as Mother Goddess. Hence, the Old Testament's refusal to call God 'mother' does not reflect an understanding that God is masculine rather than feminine. It was an attempt to emphasise God's transcendence over nature and to steer away from the ancient goddess religions that over-emphasised divine immanence in nature.27

Many conservative Christians are uneasy with using feminine images for God. But using female metaphors for God is not a radical feminist innovation - it is thoroughly biblical. Well, we might say, perhaps in the Old Testament, but what about the New? Surely, apart from that one reference to Jesus using the analogy of a mother hen in relationship to himself, the language for God in the New Testament is overwhelmingly male. Jesus refers to himself many times as the Son. His favourite designation for the first person of the Trinity is the Father. And he commands us to pray to "Our Father in heaven" (Mat 6:9; Luke 11:2) and to baptise disciples in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Mat 28:19, the classic formulation of the Trinity. And then of course there's the fact that Jesus himself is unquestionably a man. As Elizabeth Johnson writes: "If Jesus is a man... and as such the revelation of God, then this must point to maleness as an essential characteristic of divine being itself. It indicates, if not an identification, then at the very least more of an affinity between maleness and divinity than femaleness." 28 So what can we make of this?

First, how do we interpret the historical fact that Jesus was male? He was also Palestinian, Jewish, a carpenter, and belonged to the first century. These are "accidents of his particularity, markers of his full incarnation, his full humanity, but this does not mean that (any of these are eternal characteristics of God."29 Yet maleness alone of these aspects of Jesus' historical identity seems "to have gained such disproportionate theological importance." 30 There are good reasons for Jesus having been a male in the patriarchal culture of his day. As one commentator says, "Jesus had no easy road in sharing his gospel message. How do we think it would have been received if it had been delivered by a woman in that place and time? That Jesus was male was a cultural necessity".31

Further, Jesus does not fit well into a masculine gender stereotype. He violated gender-based social taboos by speaking with women, touching them and healing them in public. He occasionally did the woman's work of cooking for his disciples and of washing their feet.32 And the cross is the ultimate symbol of obedience and submission, supposed by some to be feminine qualities. "Jesus Christ therefore modelled a radically non-patriarchal maleness in his context, an ironic maleness based upon service instead of domination and Lordship." 33

Now I want to consider the writings of Julian of Norwich, a fourteenth century English mystic. She received sixteen visions or revelations, mostly relating to Jesus' crucifixion.34 She reaffirmed the famous dictum of Gregory of Nazianzus that "that which is not assumed, he has not healed", and concluded that, in order to be saviour of all - that is, of women as well as men - Christ in the incarnation must have assumed full humanity, not just maleness.35 And she saw Jesus as expressing "the true essence of motherliness in his action on the cross" which she said far surpasses any human motherliness. "Our mothers bear us to pain and death, whereas Jesus bears us to joy and eternal life".36 Julian carries the metaphor of motherhood even further, to another aspect of motherliness, namely, breastfeeding: "The mother can give her child to suck of her milk, but our precious Mother Jesus can feed us with himself, and does... with the blessed sacrament, which is the precious food of true life."37 So Jesus' motherly nature is expressed not only in bringing us to birth, but in ongoing nurture.

Now is Julian slipping into some early feminist heresy in calling Christ our mother, or is she consistent with biblical truth? I would argue the latter, because she is developing a metaphor that is already in the Scriptures, and had already been used by earlier (male) theologians. Clement of Alexandria (150-215CE) spoke of the "milk of the Father" and "the father's loving breasts" 38 St. John Chrysostom (349-407CE) said, "Just as a woman nurtures her offspring with her own blood and milk, so also Christ continuously nurtures with his own blood those whom he has begotten."39 Medieval mystic Meister Eckhart (1260-1328CE) wrote "What does God do all day long? God gives birth. From all eternity God lies on a maternity bed giving birth" 40

But this tradition of using maternal metaphors for God seems to have been largely lost today.

Note that none of these theologians is claiming that this makes Jesus, or God, female. They are all still using the masculine pronoun even when describing Jesus or God as mother. The milk of the father and the father's breasts are certainly mixed metaphors. They know that both masculine and feminine metaphors are just that: that God is neither male nor female.

Another biblical feminine metaphor for God is the Woman Wisdom, described in the book of Proverbs. Consider what she says of herself in Proverbs 8: "To you, O people, I call. And my cry is to all that live. Listen, for I have trustworthy things to say; I open my lips to speak what is right. My mouth speaks what is true... The Lord brought me forth as the first of his works, before his deeds of old; I was formed long ages ago, at the very beginning, when the world came to be. When there were no watery depths, I was given birth, when there were no springs overflowing with water; before the mountains were settled in place, before the hills, I was given birth, before he made the world or its fields or any of the dust of the earth... Now then, my children, listen to me; blessed are those who keep my ways. Listen to my instruction and be wise; do not disregard it. Blessed are those who listen to me, watching daily at my doors, waiting at my doorway. For those who find me find life and receive favour from the Lord. But those who fail to find me harm themselves; all who hate me love death".

If we didn't know this passage was talking about wisdom, and we asked ourselves, "Who calls out to all people? Who claims to speak the truth? Who was given birth before the world was made, who was the firstborn of all creation, who participated in the creation of the world, who proclaims blessing on those who receive their message, and judgment on those who don't?" Surely this passage reminds us of Jesus? Is it too much of a stretch to say, on the basis of these striking parallels, and given that Paul says that Christ Jesus has become for us the wisdom from God (1 Cor 1:30) that Jesus Christ and Woman Wisdom are one and the same? As a figure who predates the historical Jesus of Nazareth, Woman Wisdom, or Sophia as she is sometimes known, draws attention to "the pre-existent second person of the Trinity, the Wisdom - Word of God who was in the beginning with God".41 This is not to say that we should speak of Jesus as a woman instead of a man, or that he is somehow androgynous. It is to acknowledge the perfectly orthodox doctrine of the two natures of Christ, one divine nature, which is therefore beyond sex or gender, and one human nature, "which is therefore gendered, as all human lives are." 42

Now to another theologian, one who certainly cannot be dismissed as an obscure woman mystic or a feminist. Augustine is definitely mainstream! Prior to Augustine, theologians had described the relationship between God the Father and God the Son by way of analogy with human fatherhood. But there were two problems with this. First, it could lead to God the Son being subordinated to God the Father, as human sons are subordinated to their fathers (at least in that culture, and to a certain extent in our own). And there is a problem with using a human 'material' analogy to describe what is immaterial - the relationship between the immaterial Father and the immaterial Son. The way Augustine solves the problem is by abandoning the analogy with human fatherhood. Instead he argues that the words Father' and 'Son' tell us only about relations within the Godhead, but nothing about God's 'substance', or his 'essence', or his real nature.43

In other words, in trying to describe God in human language, we can only use metaphors. We cannot actually fully capture God in human words or with any human analogy. And God; in revealing himself to us in the Scriptures, uses human language and metaphors. "In using the metaphor of God the Father, Jesus captures both the parental love that God has for us and the authority that a father, as the head of the Jewish family, exercises". In that culture, in many patriarchal cultures today, and possibly even in our own culture, "no other image could express so beautifully this combination of qualities in God".44

As for the second person of the Trinity, it seems obvious that Jesus as a man should be called the Son of God. It would be strange for a man to refer to himself as the Daughter. "If the second person of the Trinity had chosen to become incarnate as a woman, such a title would have been apt." 45 But, as we have seen, there were good reasons why Jesus was a man and not a woman.

So there are both male and female metaphors for God in the Scriptures as indeed there are non-gendered metaphors - Shepherd, Potter; animal images - Lion and Lamb, and inanimate ones - Rock, Shield, Light, Bread, Vine, Alpha and Omega. Walter Brueggemann explains the reason for the abundance of metaphors we find for God in the Scriptures this way: "The Biblical defence against idolatry is plural metaphors. If you reduce the metaphors too much, you will end with an idol". 46 In response to John Piper's claim that Christianity has a "masculine feel", one blogger writes: "I think God gave Christianity a redemptive feel, a feel of reconciliation, a feel of hopeful expectation through his desire to save wayward, broken people like us. And that transcends categories of 'masculine' and 'feminine'. Reconciling isn't a masculine act any more than it is a feminine one".47 This article was first published in Giles, K. and Cooper-Clarke, D. (2017) Women & Men: One in Christ: CBE National Conference ‘Better together 2017’, Melbourne, Australia Denise Cooper-Clarke & Kevin Giles, editors. Melbourne, VIC: Christians for Biblical Equality.

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Dr Denise Cooper-Clarke is a graduate of medicine and theology with a Ph.D in medical ethics (end of life issues). She has special interests in professional ethics and the ethics of virtue. Denise is an occasional adjunct Lecturer in Ethics at Ridley College, Melbourne, a member of the Social Responsibilities Committee of the Diocese of Melbourne, and voluntary researcher with Ethos Centre for Christianity and Society. Denise is a past chair of the Melbourne Chapter of Christians for Biblical Equality.

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1. Augustine, The Trinity, trans E. Hill, New York: New City Press, 1991, Book 7, 229.

2. C.S. Lewis, Perelandra, New York: Mac Millan, 1965, 200.

3. C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength: A Modern Fairy-Tale for Grown-Ups, London: John Lane The Bodley Head, 1945, 316.

4. C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, London: Collins, 1952, 100.

5. C.S. Lewis, "Modern man and His Categories of Thought", in W. Hooper, ed, Present Concerns, San Diego: Harvest, 1987, 62-63.

6. Reynolds, ed, The Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers, Vol 3, 1944-1950, Cambridge: The Dorothy L Sayers Society and Carole Green, 1998, 375.

7. C.S. Lewis, "Membership", reprinted in The Weight of Glory and Other Essays, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965, 36.

8. C.S. Lewis to D.L. Sayers, August 5, 1955, in W.L. Hooper, ed, The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, vol 3 1950-1960, San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2007, 639.

9. E. Elliott, Let me be a Woman, Wheaton: Tyndale, 1982.

10. A. Murashko, "John Piper: God Gave Christianity a Masculine' Feel", February 2012, http://www.christianpost.com/news/john-piper-god-gave-christianity-a-masculine-feel-68385/

11. J.Piper. What's the Difference?, Wheaton, I!.: Crossway, 1990, 19

12. J. Piper, "Co-ed Combat and Cultural Cowardice", November 2007, http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/co-ed-combat-and-cultural-cowardice.

13. E.A. Bruce, "John Piper, gender roles, and women in Combat", January 2013, http://wwW.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2013/01/john-piper-gender-roles-and-women-in-combat.html

14. S. Mc Knight, "John Piper, what he said", February 2012, http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2012/02/03/john-piper-what-he-said/

15. J. Gray, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus: The Classic Guide to Understanding the Opposite Sex, New York: HarperCollins, 1992.

16. J. Eldredge, Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul, Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2001. Like Lewis, Eldredge claimed that gender is a more fundamental reality than sex, indeed that our souls themselves are gendered.

17. M. Stewart Van Leeuwen, A Sword Between the Sexes? C.S. Lewis and the Gender Debates, Grand Rapids :Brazos Press, 2010, 167

18. http://www.meetup.com/Manhattan-Lectures-Conversations/photos/24851082/415873272/#415873272

19. A Sword between the Sexes?, 168.

20. A Sword Between the Sexes?, 171.

21. J.S. Hyde, "The Gender Similarities Hypothesis", American Psychologist, 615 (2005), 581-92.

22. D. Buss, The Evolution of Desire, New York: Basic Books, 1994.

23. A.H. Eagly and W. Wood, "The Origins of Sex Differences in Human Behaviour: yolved Dispositions Versus Social Roles", American Psychologist, 54.6 (1999), 184-230

24. J. Calvin, Commentary Isaiah 42:14, http://biblehub.com/commentaries/calvin/isaiah/42.

25. J. Calvin, Commentary Isaiah 49:15, http://biblehub.com/commentaries/calvin/isaiah/42.

26. L. Japinga, Feminism and Christianity: An Essential Guide, Abingdon: 1999, 64.

27. S. Chong, "Biblical Maternal Images for God", May 2011, https://3dchristianity.wordpress.com/2011/05/06/biblical-maternal-images-for-god/

28. E.A. Johnson, She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse, New York: Crossroad Publishing, 1992, 151.

29. S. Guenther Loewen, "Jesus Christ as Woman Wisdom? Complicating the Gender of Christ", Religious Studies and Theology 30.1 (2001), 75.

30. She Who Is, 155.

31. C. Piatt, "Examining John Piper's Masculine Christianity", February 2012, htpp://www.beliefnet.com/columnists/unfairandimbalanced/2012/02/09/examining-john-pipers-masculine-christianity/pipers-masculine-christianity/

32. Guenther Loewen, 75.

33. Guenther Loewen, 76.

34. K. Dearborn, "The crucified Christ as the motherly God: the theology of Julian of Norwich", Scottish Journal of Theology 55.3 (2002), 283-302.

35. Gregory of Nazianzus, Epistle 101, in Christology of the Later Fathers, Library of Christian Classics, vol 3, ed R. Hardy, Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1954, 218.

36. Julian of Norwich, Julian of Norwich, Showings, transE. Colledge and J. Walsh, New York: Paulist Press, 1978, 259.

37. Showings, 298

38. Clement, Paedagogus 1:6, The Ante-Nicene Fathers vol 2, eds C. Coxe, J. Donaldson and A. Roberts, New York: Christian Literature Publishing Company, 1885, 218.

39. John Chrysostom, "The Power of Christ's Blood", http://www.rc.net/wcc/blood-of-christ-chrysostom.htm

40. Cited in Feminism and Christianity, 65.

41. Guenther Loewen, 73.

42. Guenther Loewen, 75.

43. M. Weedman, "Augustine's De Trinitate 5 and the Problem of the Divine Names "Father' and "Son'", Theological Studies, 72.4 (2011), 768-786.

44. W. L. Craig, "Why God the Father and God the Son?", September 2014, http://www.reasonablefaith.org/why-god-the-father-and-god-the-son

45. "Why God the Father and God the Son?"

46. W. Bruggeman, in interview with Krista Tippet for On Being, 2011, http://www.maggidawn.blogspot.com.au/2011/11/naming-god-inclusive-and-expansive.html

47. R. Held Evans, "God Is Not Ashamed - our Brothers Speak Out", February 2012, http://rachelheldevans.com/blog/brothers-speak-out-john-piper-masculine