Why Was Jesus a Man?

Sparks and Ashes warmly welcomes Dianna Anderson in this guest post, dealing with an old mystery and an important, complex question. 

Dianna has a day job as a radio producer in Chicago, IL, where she is one of several producers on a program for English Language Learners. She moonlights as a feminist blogger, taking a critical eye to church, media, and country. Her blog can be found at http://www.diannaeanderson.net.

At my alma mater – a private Baptist institution of about 1500 students – every undergraduate student is required to take a class called “Christian Thought.” The class is a basic survey of [Baptist] theology, to make sure that all the students are on essentially the same page. I don’t remember much about the class, to be honest, except for one question that stuck with me: “What gender is the Holy Spirit?”

Looking back, I realize a couple of things:

1. The question is kind of brilliant in its absurdity (which is part of the point). It’s a Spirit. Does it need to have a gender?

2. My response reveals a lot more about me than it does God: “Of course the Spirit’s a ‘he’ because that’s how he’s referred to in the Bible.”

This question, in the hands of my more socially aware colleagues, would have been a cause for entire books. At 18 years old though, in a little bubble, “because that’s how it is in the Bible” seemed to be a fine response.

Two years after that, I spent a semester in Oxford, England. During a week spent on the language we use when referring to God, my tutor assigned Janet Martin Soskice’s “Can a Feminist Call God Father?” I honestly didn’t know what to do with the essay – I remember that it became a footnote in my essay that week. Not wanting to open that can of worms and only knowing the very basic elements of the conversation, I ignored it and went on to talk about what we mean when we say “God is a rock” – a somewhat easier philosophical conundrum.

And now, five years later, in establishing myself as a feminist blogger, my work is frequently preoccupied with the role that gender plays within the body of Christ, which every so often touches on the person and gender of God. I’m much more open and better suited to such a conversation now, but that doesn’t mean it’s an easy one to have.

Looking at God in relationship to gender is very difficult. As God is a three-in-one being, it’s important, first and foremost, to decide which part of God we’re discussing, and each part has different implications. Assigning a gender to the Holy Spirit, for example, is problematic because, contrary to what my 18-year-old self thought, there’s not a clear depiction either way in the Bible – it is genderless.

The relationship becomes more complex when we discuss God the Father and Jesus the Son. God the Father is a topic for another day, and theologians like Soskice are much more qualified than I to discuss it. But I’d like to take a crack at Jesus as the Son.

Is it a problem that Jesus came to Earth as a man?

Yes and no. Read the rest of this entry »