“God is both masculine and feminine and everything in between. God is nonbinary.”James Talarico during a debate in the Texas House of Representatives
"Nonbinary" was an impolitic thing to say. Talarico allowed a word from the realm of partisan politics to invade the realm of religion. "Nonbinary" is a fighting word from one side of the culture wars over pronouns, gender expression, and the role of trans people. He might still have gotten in trouble from some had he said that God is so great that the heavenly spirit is beyond gender," but "nonbinary" was a pure gaffe.
Gaffes aren't when a politician says something untrue. A gaffe is when one says something that is true, but must not be acknowledged.
Texas' senior U.S. Senator John Cornyn jumped on the gaffe with a Twitter/X post. Gotcha!
I get the willies when I try to get my head around the nature of reality, religious and scientific, especially since Newton is out and now the world is quantum everything. Was there a creative force that predated creation? Who knows? Can anything predate anything if time isn't real? What with time dilation and that Schrödinger's cat thing, and superposition, I give up.
As I reflect on the here-and-now world of politics, I feel pretty sure that whatever created the universe was not a being in the form of a physical human male -- a gendered being with upper-body strength, a penis, body hair, and a healthy heterosexual interest in females.
Such gods existed at the time the Bible was put together. Zeus was indeed binary. Greek statues depict a tall, bearded guy. Zeus is hyper-sexual, married to and flagrantly cheating on his wife, Hera. He unleashed lightning bolts in a way that President Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth unleash bombs on Iran.
The God my parents prayed to, and the one I grew up accepting passively, was invisible, omni-present, and spiritual. It was, as Talarico said, nonbinary because such a god is too big and too ephemeral to be limited by gender.
Within the "serious commentary" arena of Republican media, the National Review says that I am wrong and Talarico is spouting nonsense. Of course God is male; how dare Talarico say otherwise?
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| National Review |
Talarico is not retreating. He is pushing ahead, explaining a non-gendered God in public appearances when the subject comes up. The GOP under Trump closed ranks with an evangelical Christian patriarchal and gendered view of Judeo-Christian belief. It is God-the-hands-on dominator, dispenser of harsh, righteous justice, a war god on behalf of his chosen people, the USA, not the empathetic God of the Sermon on the Mount. Talarico's dilemma is that the Sermon on the Mount version of God is a kind and generous nurturer, a classically feminine expression of gender roles.
11 comments:
God is non-binary....just like the Easter Bunny, Santa, and The Tooth Fairy!
He comes across strong when he wants to, like attacking the super rich and corporations not paying their fair share. The voters who are worried about God being male, a stupid concept, were not going to vote for him. The catholic Hispanic will like him , moral people will like him, liberals will mostly like him, blacks will like him. He is manly enough.
“God is most certainly male”.
I couldn’t say, not having met God, but I CAN say that the Biblical God is male. Talarico says he’s a Biblical Christian. He also claims that God endorses abortion.
My sense is that Talarico’s progressive Christianity is the equal opposite of the self-serving cafeteria Christianity of those smug Prosperity Gospel folks on the political Right.
I realize that the Bible refers to Him, but, "In the beginning was the Word...and the Word was God." John 1.1. God is love.
To belabor the point, I was raised to believe in the Trinity of Jesus, God, and the Holy Ghost. Jesus is male, period. God is the Creator, and the Holy Ghost is the presence of God that fills me and surrounds me. At least that’s what I remember from my church’s Sunday school.
……”and on the seventh day, man made God in his own image”. This is beyond silly.
Speaking as a computer scientist, everything is binary. 🤔😀
The Scriptures are ambiguous. Starting with ambiguity, you can prove anything.
We need more religious music!
True enough. One of the least ambiguous passages, though, IMO, is Jesus saying “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me”.
That’s “THE” Way, not “a” Way, as syncretist/ecumenism Talarico would seemingly have it in published remarks. And God as Father is pretty plain, even in these mixed-up days.
Nicely done!
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