Why is god considered to be male?

[Sbane]

Is this just a Christian thing or do Jews and Muslims believe in this as well?

[John Dibble]

Jews and Muslims also believe god is male, at least in terms of how the gender of his character is usually described. It's not necessarily that the Abrahamic god has male sex organs or anything like that, and there are some things in the Bible where he is described in a more maternal fashion.

As to why, I imagine it has to do with the culture of the Hebrews at the time when the Abrahamic god was conceived of. If you look in the Old Testament you'll find that their society was rather male-centric, with females usually playing a subordinate role. Since it's a monotheistic religion, the one god would be of the dominant gender as to represent what the culture would think of as the 'natural order'.

[Blue3]

The Jews, Christians, and Muslims I've talked to all believe that God is gender-neutral.


I think it's mostly because our very Language tends to always pass on masculine/feminine traits to certain words.

English isn't as bad as most, but there are very few gender-neutral words that come easy, at least when talking about people. We use "he" or "she," there's no gender-neutral word for that, and "it" just signifies something less than a person. Same with "father" and "mother," and while "parent" does exist, and it just doesn't flow easy. How many people actually call their parents "Parent" like they would call them "Mom" or "Dad"?

I'm not an expert in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek, but I'd guess their languages have similar problems.

[RI]

I've heard it explained in Catholicism (and other forms of Christianity I'm sure) that God is described as male due to His role acting as the husband to His bride the Church.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Dibble and Starwatcher have more or less described my understanding of this. The idea of God as a bridegroom to the Church is considerably less important outside of Roman Catholicism.

[pugbug]

Calling him "He" can subconsciously personify God as male, right? We could call him "It," but it sounds disrespectful because we are already so used to calling him "He." Maybe it's because in the medieval ages, and even before that, men in power wanted to further the notion that men are more god-like than women?

[The Mikado]

Dibble and Starwatcher have more or less described my understanding of this. The idea of God as a bridegroom to the Church is considerably less important outside of Roman Catholicism.

It appears in Judaism, though.  God as the husband of Jerusalem, or the Sabbath day as the beautiful bride of God...

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Dibble and Starwatcher have more or less described my understanding of this. The idea of God as a bridegroom to the Church is considerably less important outside of Roman Catholicism.

It appears in Judaism, though.  God as the husband of Jerusalem, or the Sabbath day as the beautiful bride of God...

Excellent point.

It does come up now and then in Protestantism but it's not really emphasized, particularly not the gendered aspects. The sorts of Protestant churches that care a lot about gender roles are the sorts that tend not employ much of this kind of imagery.

[The Mikado]

Dibble and Starwatcher have more or less described my understanding of this. The idea of God as a bridegroom to the Church is considerably less important outside of Roman Catholicism.

It appears in Judaism, though.  God as the husband of Jerusalem, or the Sabbath day as the beautiful bride of God...

Excellent point.

It does come up now and then in Protestantism but it's not really emphasized, particularly not the gendered aspects. The sorts of Protestant churches that care a lot about gender roles are the sorts that tend not employ much of this kind of imagery.

Reform Judaism does this too...leading to hilarious circumstances where a prayer titled Avinu, Malkeinu ("Our Father, Our King") has its translation titled "Our Parent, Our Sovereign" in Reform prayer books. 

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Dibble and Starwatcher have more or less described my understanding of this. The idea of God as a bridegroom to the Church is considerably less important outside of Roman Catholicism.

It appears in Judaism, though.  God as the husband of Jerusalem, or the Sabbath day as the beautiful bride of God...

Excellent point.

It does come up now and then in Protestantism but it's not really emphasized, particularly not the gendered aspects. The sorts of Protestant churches that care a lot about gender roles are the sorts that tend not employ much of this kind of imagery.

Reform Judaism does this too...leading to hilarious circumstances where a prayer titled Avinu, Malkeinu ("Our Father, Our King") has its translation titled "Our Parent, Our Sovereign" in Reform prayer books. 

Oh, we don't go that far. I'm told there are churches that do but mine doesn't. Thinking of God as male is something that I, at least, recognize as primarily a holdover cultural assumption maintained through inertia and the fact that most theologically acceptable alternatives do indeed sound a little silly, but we still do it.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Some of the people who preach at my church often interchange "He/Him" and "She/Her" in sermons, and this one girl who sings in Desert Song always changes the line "God is my victory and He is here" to "God is my victory and always near"

[minionofmidas]

I thought that when God created Man she was just practicing?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Some of the people who preach at my church often interchange "He/Him" and "She/Her" in sermons, and this one girl who sings in Desert Song always changes the line "God is my victory and He is here" to "God is my victory and always near"

There's some somewhat feminine or maternal language used for God even in the old old sources (of Christianity; I've been meaning to do a 'back to the OT' thing, looking at the Jewish as well as the Christian perspectives, for a while now but it's never really materialized because of other academic and reading projects), it just gets drowned out by the constant Kings and Fathers and Smallcaps Lords. It's there if you want it but it's hard to construct a whole liturgy around.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Obviously that's easier to implement if you don't have a written liturgy and the person speaking can just say whatever they want.

[ilikeverin]

Obviously that's easier to implement if you don't have a written liturgy and the person speaking can just say whatever they want.

Eh, plenty of pastors and such play around with the "established liturgy" willy-nilly.  One of the pastors at my East Lansing church usually substituted "She" for "He" or found a gender-neutral term even when it was printed otherwise.

I predict Bible translations in 100 years or so will be using "They"/"Them", because, as pointed out, it's mostly viewed as an accidental holdover, and God definitely appears using feminine imagery as well as masculine imagery in older texts.  Now that English is getting a third-person singular animate pronoun, we'll be able to replace "He"

[Sbane]

I've heard it explained in Catholicism (and other forms of Christianity I'm sure) that God is described as male due to His role acting as the husband to His bride the Church.

This is very interesting. I figured it was mostly due to it being a reflection of a male dominated society, and it probably is mostly the case, but this is also an interesting fact that I did not know.

[DemPGH]

In case someone else has said it, it's because men (human beings with penises) made Him in their own image.

If God exists, no one knows who or what it / he / she is.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

God is described as a father in both the Old and New Testament, as well as being compared to a mother at times, and I'm sure that the Muslim holy books (the Koran, the Hadith, etc.) do something similar.  I personally believe that God is gender-neutral, but is described with masculine pronouns to use something general (since those are more neutral than feminine pronouns, and are we really going to call God "it"?)  The Bible does the same thing with angels, who are also gender-neutral but are almost always described with masculine pronouns (contrary to what we see in pop culture.)