A group in the Church of England is calling for services to address God as "She" as well as "He". The question of God's gender goes back to the early Christian Church, writes Stephen Tomkins.
The Christian Church has always had a bit of a problem with God's gender. He doesn't have one, but - as that statement demonstrates - it's hard to talk about God without giving God a gender. To talk about God we have to call God something, and avoiding pronouns altogether is cumbersome, as I've just demonstrated again. "It" seems a bit rude, talking as if God was an impersonal force like gravity or inflation. So God has to be "He" or "She", and in a patriarchal society there's no contest. As The Catechism of the Catholic Church says: "God is neither man nor woman: he is God".
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