Farid De La Ossa Arrieta: God, the Mother (2002)
Mother’s Day makes me think about God’s maternal side. Christianity has been guilty of a patriarchal history that has been oppressive of women. Our conception of God as masculine, e.g. God as Father or King, certainly contributes to our slide into patriarchy. Although written in patriarchal contexts, the Bible itself does not refer to God exclusively in masculine metaphors. There are, albeit few, feminine metaphors used to describe God in the Bible. In this post, I want to highlight the maternal or motherly metaphors used.
God as Mother Bird & Mother Bear
One of the common images is God as a mother bird sheltering her children under her wings. We see this in Ruth 2:12 – “May you be richly rewarded by the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.” (All references are from Today’s New International Version.) The Psalms used this imagery a number of times:
“Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings.” (Psa. 17:8)
“… I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed.” (Psa. 57:1)
“He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge …” (Psa. 91:4)
Jesus picks up these images when he laments over Jerusalem: View full article »
Throughout history, God has called certain individuals or groups to become trail blazers, pioneers, explorers, discoverers, entrepreneurs, the avant garde of the march towards the future. Today, January 24, we celebrate the feast of Florence Li Tim Oi, the first woman to be ordained in the worldwide Anglican Communion. (
Scot McKnight, a NT professor, recently published a small book, it is more like an article, regarding the subject of women in ministry. I found a very brief summary of the article this morning on his blog, and I am re-posting it here for some questions and discussion. His argument is as follows:
