Tidbit of Tutu: the gender of God

Archbishop Tutu writes:

I refer to God as He in this book, but the language is offensive to many, including to me, because it implies that God is more of a He than a She, and this is clearly not the case. Fortunately in our Bantu languages in South Africa we do not have gendered pronouns and so we do not face this problem.

... It is a liability of many languages that they are gendered and therefore we must speak of God as a He or a She but rarely both. There is something in the nature of God that corresponds to our maleness and our femaleness. We have tended to speak much more of the maleness, so we refer to the Fatherhood of God, which is fine but incomplete. We have missed out on the fullness that is God when we have ignored that which corresponds to our femaleness. We have hardly spoken about the Motherhood of God, and consequently we have been the poorer for this.

God Has a Dream

That would be easier. Do read the book. ***
Until July 18, I'll be working my butt off at the General Convention of the Episcopal Church, trying to move us closer to full inclusion of all baptized people, including LGBT people, in all the life of the Church. This time is what we political junkies call "campaign mode" -- the crazy, exhausting 18 hour days of frenetic activity that sometimes win changes we seek and sometimes lead only to deep disappointment. I'm hopeful about how this project will work out. If you are curious about how we're doing, you can follow all the General Convention news at the LGBT advocacy group Integrity's GC portal. I don't expect to blog during this time except perhaps a few photos, but I've got at least a rudimentary post set up for every day, many of them more reflective than the time-sensitive political commentary I often write here. Enjoy.