Book Review "Women and the Gender of God" by Amy Peeler (Eerdmans, 2022) -- By: Anonymous
Journal: Priscilla Papers
Volume: PP 37:1 (Winter 2023)
Article: Book Review "Women and the Gender of God" by Amy Peeler (Eerdmans, 2022)
Author: Anonymous
PP 37:1 (Winter 2023) p. 28
Book Review
Women and the Gender of God
by Amy Peeler (Eerdmans, 2022)
Todd Edmondson
Todd Edmondson holds an MDiv from Princeton Theological Seminary and a PhD from the University of Louisville in Kentucky. He teaches humanities at Milligan University and pastors a congregation in eastern Tennessee.
For those willing to take an unflinching look at the history of the church, it is difficult to ignore the reality that Christianity has a long and troubling record of misogyny, ranging from the passive neglect of women’s gifts within communities of faith, to the active silencing of women’s voices in the worship and work of the church, to the violent abuse of women within spaces that should be not only safe, but sacred. However, we may still disagree about the root causes of such a shameful history. In her recent book Women and the Gender of God, Amy Peeler argues that misogyny in the church is not exclusively or primarily an anthropological problem, but a theological one. When we allow misogyny to pervade the church, or when we prop up misogynistic systems within the community of faith, this is not simply because we have gotten something wrong about humanity, but because we have gotten something fundamentally wrong about God. While orthodox Christian belief has long upheld the conviction that God is beyond gender, this has not prevented many in the church from presenting what Peeler refers to as “the underlying belief that God is male” (2), if not in explicit statements about God, then in assumptions and the actions that flow from those assumptions. Far from being a purely academic matter, Peeler asserts that, when we allow such a belief to shape us, it becomes easier to view as inferior that part of the population—women—whom we believe to be less like God because they are somehow not fully created in the image of God. It is not too much of a stretch to see how misguided beliefs about God and gender can bear rotten fruit in the myriad ways that women are mistreated in the church every day.
Among the greatest strengths of this book is Peeler’s recognition that any attempt to address our harmful misconceptions about the maleness of God must be rooted in a story central to Christian doctrine, the incarnation. Her argument rests on her examination of that narrative and on the primary characters at work in the narrative: Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and Mary of Nazareth. In Peeler’s words, this story, and these characters, “reveal that the heart of the Christian narrative rejects the damaging assumptions of God’s maleness” (4). In this grouping, Mary is seen not as coequal with the persons of the Trinity, but certainly in cooperation with them to accomplish God’s purposes in a wholly unique way, which will ultimately demonstrate the tru...
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