Our Father?
MIKE & SUE TUNIS
We both grew up thinking of God as an old man. Sue was raised in the Catholic Church and attended Catholic school until high school. As for myself, we attended a non-denominational church until somewhere around six years old when we stopped going. The memories I have are very dim except for that time I went forward during an adult service altar call and was “saved.” (I no longer know what that means, but I have learned it is so much more than the “fire insurance” I was sold).
After learning about the theory of evolution in high school, I pretty much became agnostic because evolution made more sense than a six-day Creation to me. Fast forward to three months prior to my 21st birthday. That began a series of events which culminated just before my birthday in a mystical experience that cemented my belief in God and took us to church.
We devoutly attended an Assemblies of God Church, Sunday morning and evening, Wednesday evening and more, for three whole months. One Sunday evening, the pastor’s wife, during a conversation after church and in the presence of the pastor, made an overtly racist comment that included the ‘N’ word. Our jaws hit the floor, but we dragged them out to never return. We learned the order of authority: God, Jesus, Pastor, me, Sue. This was 1976, and back then, the Bible was clear that woman was to be subservient to man.
We made a couple feeble attempts to find another church but were quite happy with the Pentecostal offerings on TV, Jimmy Swaggert, Jim & Tammy Faye Bakker and Kenneth Copeland, to name a few. The last TV preacher we regularly watched was Robert Schuller, who was our first religious leader teaching a more uplifting religious practice. Over the next couple years, we gradually backslid somewhat, but with a difference: We were aware of the Holy Spirit within us, aware of God’s presence around us, saw God involved with us, and we actively sought His leading.
Twenty-sevenish years, two kids and lots of life later, we were waking up to David Jeremiah on WBNH. In the autumn of 2003, we began attending a Missionary Church. It was certainly patriarchal, but they did allow women to teach men and were not overtly racist. We had become New Testament-literate prior to getting back in church. We had developed some views during our churchless years that didn’t fit within most Christian church views or a plain reading of the Bible: views about evolution, abortion, homosexuality and political parties. Point of this being, we started our adult church attendance in our late forties with well-established views.
Our initial read through the Bible was with the view that these were God’s words that had been carefully transcribed, and all answers were contained therein. One time through will disavow you of the notion that the Bible is clear and provide you with plenty of questions for your pastor. A couple three times through, and you began to question most of what they are teaching. Six and seven times through, and we were looking for another church in the middle of 2011.
Oh yeah, Gender-Full God. In 2007 William P. Young self-published The Shack. In this book he portrayed God as a large black woman along with other blasphemies, and of course there was something of an uproar within Christian circles. Our associate pastor was not upset by the book, was proactive and decided to teach a Sunday School class on the book. One week, he brought out all the Bible verses where God was portrayed in feminine language, such as “as a mother hen gathers her chicks” and many others. That is when we first had permission from the church to think about God as having feminine characteristics. One of the things that associate pastor taught me was to question why I believe what I believe. I discovered that some things I believed did not have a solid foundation.
Fast forward to now, and at this point we understand that God has no gender. It seems useless to even attempt to assign gender to a universe-creating God. Not having the language to describe this God and our only frame of reference being ourselves, we naturally personify God. We do that with lots of things, which is not bad in and of itself; it helps us to have an understanding. It becomes an issue when we begin to accept our personification as THE truth. I have become aware that biblical writers had an evolving view of God, but their patriarchal culture required a male God. We, as a society, have slowly begun to understand and recognize the harm that comes as a result of patriarchy.
Since we were made in the image of God, it follows we are all somehow an image of God. Is each of us a perfectly accurate representation of God? Not only no, but hell no! Maybe it is our duty to try to figure out what parts of us represent God and what parts of others are God-like as well. Maybe we are to help one another realize our God-ness, to discover together the many facets of God and quit trying to place God at our level. I agree that our God is gender-full, but also gender-less.
Mike and Sue have been together forever, and you will rarely see one without the other being nearby. We know what an incredible blessing it is to have our two children and four grandchildren all be regular attendees of Imago Dei. In a past life, we enjoyed cross-country trips on our GoldWing motorcycle and hope to again.