Said King, “For some, God as father is helpful because of their own positive experiences of a loving parent. For others, God as father may reinforce a bad experience of a strict disciplinarian as their father. If we dig deeper, clearly God is not gendered, so why do we restrict our language for God in gendered ways?”
But Rev. Ian Paul, a member of the Archbishops’ Council of the Church of England, believes that such a change would be unfaithful to God’s Word. Paul stated that God is not a sexed being and that the Bible uses feminine imagery for him.
Nevertheless, Paul said that Scripture “primarily identifies God using masculine pronouns, names, and imagery. Male and female imagery is not interchangeable…If the Liturgical Commission seeks to change this, then in an important way they will be moving the doctrine of the Church away from being grounded in the Scriptures.”
