Evangelical Feminism: A New Path to Liberalism?

31: GOD OUR MOTHER 231

Stinson recognizes (3) that the Bible sometimes refers to God with
literary devices like metaphors and similes that include feminine figures
of speech. For example, it refers to God in this way:

Deuteronomy 32:18: You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you,

and you forgot the God who gave you birth.

Job 38:29: From whose womb did the ice come forth, and who has

given birth to the frost of heaven?

Isaiah 42:13-14: The LORD goes out like a mighty man, like a man

of war he stirs up his zeal; he cries out, he shouts aloud, he shows him-

self mighty against his foes. For a long time I have held my peace; I

have kept still and restrained myself; now I will cry out like a woman

in labor; I will gasp and pant.

Isaiah 66:13: As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort

you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.

Hosea 13:8: I will fall upon them like a bear robbed of her cubs.

But Stinson points out that while these feminine metaphors use
verbs to describe God’s activities in vivid ways (to give birth, to cry out,
to comfort), they never use feminine nouns when they describe who God
is. And even when feminine activities occur in metaphors describing
God, the gender markers in the Hebrew text use masculine verb forms
when they refer to God (for example, in Deut. 32:18, “gave you birth”
is a masculine participle, not a feminine one).^13
Stinson points out that the Bible uses language in a similar way with
some human beings who are men. For example, Hushai the Archite,
counselor to Absalom, says that David and his mighty men are “enraged,

(^13) See the longer analysis in Stinson, “Our Mother Who Art in Heaven.” Stinson writes, “There
are... figures of speech: similes, metaphors, analogies, or personifications. There are no cases in
which feminine terms are used as names, titles, or invocations of God. There are no instances
where God is identified by a feminine term” (28). He quotes with approval John Cooper’s state-
ment, “God is never directly said to be a mother, mistress, or female bird in the way he is said to
be a father, king, judge, or shepherd” (28). (See John Cooper, Our Father in Heaven: Christian
Faith and Inclusive Language for God [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1998], 89.) In short, we
should not name God with names that the Bible never uses and actually avoids using. God’s name
is valued and highly protected in Scripture.