Home"MOTHERHOOD AND RELIGION "
Certain qualities are traditionally applied to mothers; which of these are appropriate for us all? And which are appropriate for a Divinity?
Female divine beings and feminine aspects of divinity have been worshipped throughout the world. In India there are famous goddesses but also most (each?) God has a female consort who balances his qualities.
Once, Europe worshipped the female divinity as primary.
The Bronze Age Divinity known as the Queen of Heaven who had male consort who died, but she then gave birth to a son who was her dead consort. Isis, Osiris and Horus are a prime example. But also hear the parallel with the Christian story, Mary the Queen of Heaven who, impregnated by the Holy Spirit (that is, by one of the three persons of the godhead), gives birth to Jesus (that is, one of the three persons of the godhead).
Campbell and others documented the change that occurred when there was an invasion by a group or groups that worshipped male gods and who suppressed the worship of the Goddess.
Within Judaism there ultimately was only one God (male) but there was a periodic resurgence of worship of other Gods including female (and so the Bible refers to people in Israel offering “cakes for the queen of heaven”).
While the worship of other gods was suppressed by the religious hierarchy, feminine attributes were periodically attributed to God, as is evidenced in these quotes from the Bible:
Deuteronomy 32:18 God who gives birth
“You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you; you forgot the God who gave you birth.”
Isaiah 66:13 God as a comforting mother
God: “As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.”
Matthew 23:37 and Luke 13:34 God as a Mother Hen
Jesus: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!”
So God says to Israel “I who gave birth to you”, and describes caring for Israel as “like a mother hen with her chicks”.
It is helpful to note that in India traditional Vedanta thought is that there is only one ultimate divine power, Brahman. While there are many Gods and Goddesses, these represent avatars or incarnations of the one power. For those who believe this, the gods and goddesses represent not so much genuine individual beings as qualities or elements of the One. That is, the qualities are not to be seen as literally or strictly male or female, but as complementary qualities that are present in all divine beings. That is only one stream of thought, but it is an important one.
Thought of in those terms, the divine can have varied and even seemingly contradictory qualities.
But let us pause here and talk about stereotypes. Most of what we think of as “male” and “female” qualities are stereotypes; men are one way, women another and vive la difference!
What are these stereotypes?
Men are tough, women are soft.
Men are hard and judgmental; women are kind and loving, and so more forgiving.
Your father will punish you, your mother will forgive you.
In fact, a study of men and women some years ago showed that most fathers, when asked what is the most important thing about child raising, wanted their children to learn good behavior and moral values. Most mothers wanted their children to know that they, the children, were loved.
Masculine judgment, feminine mercy; masculine punishment, feminine forgiveness.
It must be said here that fathers also wanted their children to feel loved and mothers also wanted their children to be good; the difference was in the emphasis.
But I must say that within my own family, when it came to child rearing, I was much more likely to feel that our daughter should follow rules, and Genie was much more likely to focus on Heather’s feelings.
Years ago Lawrence Kohlberg studied moral development in children and claimed that it followed a particular path; and he said that girls developed along that path more slowly than boys. Carol Gilligan countered that some time later saying that boys and girls have different moral development paths and process moral issues in a different way. According to her, boys, like other males, tend to think in hierarchical terms. That is, given a story of moral conflict, boys will seek to evaluate varied moral claims according to which takes priority in the given circumstance of the story and will then determine right and wrong action based upon that. Girls, on the other hand, seek to find a way to maintain or build the relationships of each person in the story. The boys were more likely to say that one party or the other was wrong and even should be punished; the girls were more likely to avoid judgments of right or wrong and look instead for repairing relationships.
In a recent online discussion group for UU ministers there was a debate about what time the Sunday morning service should end. Should it end at a particular time, or should it end when it ends?
After some debate, someone on the chat pointed out that men were more likely to say the service should end at a particular time, and women more likely to say “it ends when it ends”; hear in that fact the rules versus the relational aspect. Not every person who insisted upon an ending time was male, not every person who insisted on letting the service go on until it felt right to end it was female; but the tendency was clear.
And so Gilligan claims that Kohlberg was misevaluating the development of moral qualities in girls because he was looking for the hierarchical assessment. Now, the thing about stereotypes is that they are never really true. And, they are often very true. That is part of the paradox. It is true, and Gilligan’s studies point to this, that there are general differences between male and female. But we make a mistake if we then apply group assumptions to individuals. There is a range of psychology in women that overlaps with the range of psychology in men.
But let us pause here for a moment and think about God of Bible – Does that God insist upon a male, rules oriented approach or upon a female, mercy oriented approach? In part that depends upon the particular section of the Bible one reads. There is evidence for both. There are descriptions of the rules oriented punishing God; but there is also the God of the covenant, that is, the God of the relationship. Remember that a covenant is a promissory relationship. It describes how people will be with one another, but is not a contractual agreement; it does not collapse just because one party or the other breaks a clause.
A covenantal relationship is one based in love and commitment, not in rules.
On a Christian web site I found an interesting reflection on the qualities of God and of human beings. The web site used references to testosterone and estrogen, a very scientific approach. It pointed out that while testosterone is the “male” hormone, and estrogen the “female” hormone, all men have some estrogen and all women have some testosterone, that is, it said, no one is 100% male and no one is 100% female. And God made us in his own image, male and female he made us; so god is neither wholly male nor wholly female.
But we can acknowledge general differences between the two sexes. I will point out here that for some transgendered people, and that term covers quite a range of folk, the stark differences that others see between male and female do not apply.
Most Jewish and Christian theologians today would say that God either incorporates both male and female qualities or transcends them.
In thinking about divinity—and I am going to use that word today to refer to God or Goddess or to Life, which qualities do you want that divinity to apply to you?
Do you want the divinity of judgment and punishment, or do you want the divinity of mercy and forgiveness?
The fact is that life has rules and that life can be pretty harsh. If you are a race car driver, going around a track at high speed in a bunch of other cars, your margin of error is fairly small; and the consequences of making an error can be quite severe. And that can be true on the public highway, as well—something many drivers do not seem to understand.
Now if something goes wrong and there are injuries in that situation, that is different than “punishment” per se; that is instead a direct consequence of someone’s actions. The distinction between that and punishment is that punishment is a choice. Sometimes people who believe in harsh punishment pretend that the punishment they impose is no different than the consequences that life sometimes imposes, but I think that is just a way to avoid the fact that the—the person imposing the punishment--are making a choice. When you are about to inflict a punishment on someone, to say to them “you knew the consequences” is really to say to them “you knew which choice I would make of the many that I could have made”. That’s different. The person imposing a particular punishment could choose to do something else.
So, in your dealings with divinity (God, Goddess, Life, whatever), where the divine has choices in how to treat you, which choices would you hope the divine would select: the choice of a severe punishment, the choice of a mild punishment or the choice of mercy with a focus on restoring relationship? Metaphorically speaking, do you want God the father or do you want God the mother.
For me, the divinity of punishment calls up a response of fear, the divinity of mercy calls up a response of love.
Our Universalist forebears rejected the concept of God the eternal punisher. Their claim was that God is a God of mercy and if he imposes punishment it is punishment only for the purpose of bringing repentance and correction. If repentance and correction come without punishment, then there is no need for punishment.
A moment ago I asked which approach you hope for, punishment or mercy; let me rephrase that: Which approach works best for you in terms of bringing repentance and correction: punishment or mercy? Which works best for you: rules or relationship?
If in fact it is punishment, then you and the divine should both choose punishment in your case. If, on the other hand, it is mercy, then both you and the divine should choose mercy.
And now, what of your interactions with others; any others—loved ones, employees; strangers on the street: When you are in the position to either punish or show mercy, to focus on rules or focus on relationship, to call up your inner father or your inner mother, which do you choose? Which should you choose?
Which one is more likely to build relationship and call forth within another person the qualities of decency and caring?
Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.
May our relationship with Life, with the All, with whatever our higher power may be, always call up within us a response of love and hope; may we always be treated with kindness and mercy; may we always show these same qualities to others.
May the loving mother within each of us be present and honored today.
So let it be.
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