The Annoying Masculinity of Religious Language

“There has been growing recognition that the religious language of the Judeo-Christian tradition is over-weighted with masculine symbolism. It took shape in an era of patriarchal domination, first in Hebraic and Jewish society, then in the Roman Empire. As women today become aware of their femininity as a major style of being human, they quite properly resent this. Male theologians have pointed out that masculine pronouns are used for God simply because some pronouns have to be used; the statement is annoying, if also reasonably correct.

Christianity always taught that sexual distinctions are not really applicable to the transcendent mystery we call God. But the manward aspect of that mystery, the perennial experiences of Divine calling, providence, shepherding, communion, made it necessary to continue to speak of God in personal terms. ‘He’ is at least more adequate than ‘It.’”

— Erminie Huntress Lantero, 1973
Quaker theologian