Associate Editor on the DFV

I’ve told a number of my friends and associates about a project I’m working on – the DFV (Divine Feminine Version – a version of the NT that is gender-inclusive in reference to humanity and feminine in reference to Godde). A large group of individuals have been contributing for several months now and a core team has emerged. I’ll be continuing as part of that team as an Associate Editor. We’ve recently set up a WordPress blog for The Christian Godde Project.

Now I know from face-to-face conversations with a lot of my friends and associates that a lot of people are unhappy with me for two reasons: 1) adopting the word “Godde” in place of “God” and 2) participating in a version of the NT that is opting to render references to Godde in the feminine.

A number of years back I came up with a wise saying: “not everything in the bible is biblical; not everything outside the bible is unbiblical.” I remember so many conversations with people over the years where that saying helped people come to terms with things in the Christianity they weren’t happy with (like it is ok to own slaves provided you treat them humanely; having to submit to things like Apartheid; having churches extort money from the poor using OT tithing references) and  accept things that are true that aren’t in the Bible (evolution; yoga; chakras; psychology).

I honestly feel that our language shapes our perceptions and our experience shapes the development of our language. For starters, I have only a few words snow (like “snow” and “ice” and “hail”) but I believe some people have upwards of 70 words (and I’m sure they’re not just saying “snow” with a headcold or lisp)! My context and my experience of snow leads to a limited vocabulary and the lack of need for further differentiation; their context and their experience of snow requires a larger vocabulary with a great need for clarification and distinction.

What does this mean in reference to Godde?

Well, for starters the biblical picture is one wherein both men and women are the image of Godde. Our continued choice of language, however, leads many to feel that Godde is male or that feminine references to Godde somehow take something away from Godde.

Here our practice is clearly not in keeping with the presentation of Godde and the image of Godde in Scripture and is “not Biblical”. Why do I say this? Well, because my critics (at least those I’ve spoken to) raise two consistent objections – 1) to reference Godde in the feminine is somehow to disrespect Godde and somehow skew our relationship with Godde and 2) that Scripture only uses masculine language in reference to Godde and so we cannot use feminine references.

Now both objections, I argue, stem from our beliefs and practices rather than from Scripture.