Gender and religious language are important issues. Ontologically, God does not exist. This is not a radical claim, God's existence (if one wishes to call it that) is so vastly different from all other forms of existence that it makes just as much sense to say "God exists" as it does to say "God does not exist". That's the simple reality of it. Theologically, religious literature tends to describe God in terms of masculine pronouns, nouns, verbs and virtues. However, gender issues in God-talk become staggaringly important when we begin to talk about Mariology, Mary Theotokos becomes a very important figure in Christian expression of the divine. I'll leave talk about Mary at that for now - I wish to concentrate on strictly "religious language" and the possibility thereof.
In so far as the possibility of language is concerned, there have been very many schools of thought concerning the semiotics of religious language; Kataphatic and apophatic for instance, however there are other ways of looking at this issue. I'm more so convinced of apophatic expressions, and moreso, not because of strictly my understanding of God, rather, because of my understanding of language, deconstruction, differance, logocentricism and the metaphysics of presence (my readings of Derrida). My basic thesis of language is, I think: Language offers and hinders the very possibility of meaning and reality. I feel comfortable saying that I'm uncomfortable with the relationships between sign and signifier (in so far as semiotics is concerned). An apophatic understanding of language is one which places language within the possibility of differance, that is that meaning is infinitely deferred and always different within language; meaning is never fully present it is always along-the-way to presence, further, words define themselves against what they are not - against collections of words - against concepts which are different and yet related, (blue is "not-gold", "not-green", "not-grey", et al.). This differance, is never-ending and thus, there is no transcendental signified. To bring this back to apophatic religious language, expressions which are used to describe God are inadequate, God is ineffable (and yet not even that), if one follows the logic.
To bring gender issues back into play, there are a number of issues here which are of central importance. The first is ontology - it is very clear that ontologically "gender" attributes of God always exist in differance. The second is cultural - it is very clear that esteeming the "male" by attributing masculinity to God is fundamentally sexist. The third is an issue of religious identity - it is very clear that to stand in continuity with the Christian Church, it is important to use gender exclusive language in the liturgies (especially the great sacrament - Baptism -). I would also like to add, very many liberal Christians reduce the Christian message to the "Gospel of gender inclusivitiy", this is unrealistic and insulting to the Gospel. Christianity is about salvation for the poor, hungry and naked - not about being politically correct, even though I do like to be politically correct and I really do wish that there was a way to use gender inclusive language to speak of the mystery of the Trinity. Better to challenge oppression and speak of God the Father than challenge nothing and speak of Godde or "Mother/Father", it's tokenism.
Allan
