Praise her, praise her: should we refer to God as a woman?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2015/jun/01/praise-her-god-woman-church-her

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Age: Ageless.

Appearance: Well, now you’re asking. Rare, certainly. Last embodied, sort of, more than 2,000 years ago. Allegedly.

Why’s He in the news? Don’t tell me He’s averted some kind of humanitarian crisis at freaking last? Come to the aid of the poor and needy? Smitten a few of those who are long overdue being smited? Got His arse into gear at last in any way? I’m afraid I have to take issue with your phraseology there.

Don’t tell me – at the secular, liberal, all-must-have-prizes, drooping, dripping bloody Guardian you don’t capitalise the ‘h’ in ‘He’. I should have known. I wish I could smite every last one of you personally. Then you’re going to love this. It shouldn’t even be ‘he’ at all.

With all due sense of impending fury, contempt and dread I ask – what should it be? She.

You are the living end. It’s not us, though. People in the Church of England are saying it.

Which people? Bring them before me. The pressure group Watch – Women and the Church – are arguing that it is more inclusive to refer to God as “she”. Calling him – or her, or it, or whatever – “he” all the time suggests that men are closer to God.

Have you seen how many parliamentary and FTSE 100 positions we have? We ARE closer to God. That’s obviously the way He wants it. The conception of God as a man raises a lot of complex issues – linguistically, theologically, about patriarchal power structures, of historical prejudice. Changing the language of worship is a step towards recognising if not solving some of them.

God’s a man. Big beard, white robe, on a cloud. Problem solved. That’s not a terrifically useful approach to broadening our understanding of the divine.

That’s good, because I’m not interested in broadening our understanding of the divine. I understand Him just fine. Do you not think that’s a little egocentric? If you believe in God, is the idea not that he/she/it is more than you can ever understand? Is that not the basic premise of most faiths?

Not mine. Bloody Anglicans. They’re the Guardian newspaper of Christianity. D’you think the Catholics are recruiting. Always. Mind how you go.

Do say: “God surely transcends mere binary gender divisions.”

Don’t say: “Well, are we going to capitalise ‘she’?”