On the nonbinary God, politics and culture war

Texas State Representative James Talarico (D), who is now hoping to become a blue senator from a very red state, is doubling down on his support for transgender people.

“We are all focused on the wrong 1%,” he recently told MS NOW. “Trans people aren’t taking away our healthcare. Undocumented people aren’t defunding our schools… It’s the billionaires and their puppet politicians. And so we need not only the media, but all of us, to focus on the real problem at hand.”

So what has this to do with the gender of God? Well, Talarico has been very good at making viral videos, and the Republicans are now digging up old videos they think will harm him. In one of these videos he says - in defense of nonbinary and trans people - that God is nonbinary.

The political connotations of the term "nonbinary" aside, I know of no serious religious scholars or theologians - being those Christian, Muslim or Jewish - who would argue that God is male only. To the extent the creator of the universe has a gender aspect, that would include all genders, for sure. 

(The exception from this rule is found among the Mormons or Latter Day Saints, who argue that "the Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s," but I neither have the time nor the patience to go into that here.)

I should add that in Hinduism, with all its gods, there is also the belief that all of them are aspects of one superior being, meaning again, that this being encompasses all genders.

In other words: The general consensus that God is as much a mother as a father. But this does not stop right wing fundamentalists from weaponizing this statement. They are not using theological arguments against him, however, just the regular culture war "woke is bad" kind of rhetoric.

What makes Talarico so refreshing is that i does not allow them to take the religious moral high ground, arguing that real Christians cannot and will not embrace any of the MAGA hate, and if they do, they have been misled.

I have great respect for biblical YouTube scholar Dan McClellan, who is able to present religious studies in a way that makes sense even to those who do not have a degree in theology. Admittedly, his arrogance sometimes go to far - no, you do no need to read Hebrew to say something meaningful about scripture -  but I cannot but love his take-downs of fundamentalist extremists and bigoted dogmatics. 

So when he made a video in defense of Talarico, I just had to write a post about it over at Transgender World.  You will find that post here: Is God Nonbinary? Kinda!

Let me add here that this debate shows clearly how so many are trapped in the limitations of human language. Far too many takes metaphors literally if this serves to uphold their belief systems and mental maps. They cling to banal dogma, because it makes them feel safe. 

The strict gender binary gives, for instance,  too many the sense of belonging, stability, safety and affirmation they so desperately seek. Anyone who threatens this system is therefore the enemy, an enemy you have the right to hate and destroy. Which is strange, because Jesus, for one, preached that you should love your enemies and embrace the outcasts. 

Go to: Is God Nonbinary? Kinda!

Christ Giving a Blessing

PS: The painting “Christ Giving a Blessing” by Leonardo’s student Bernardino Luini above depicts an androgynous Christ. The androgyny is most likely intentional as an aesthetic of holiness and "whole-ness", but not necessarily intended as a claim about Christ’s gender identity in any modern sense. The point is  the Incarnation and salvation transcend ordinary categories.

'Our true Mother' – interpreting a genderqueer Jesus