Is God Non-Binary?

The media has decided to make a star of a Texas politician, and that politician says a lot of questionable things about Christian beliefs. One that received some attention was "God is non-binary." If you were like me, you were caught between two reactions: "Well, yeah" and "Wait, what?" Does it feel like something else is going on here? There is.

First, his argument. Senate candidate James Talarico said in the Texas House of Representatives:

The first two lines of the Bible, the first two lines in Genesis use two different Hebrew words to describe God. One is the masculine Hebrew noun for divinity. The second is the feminine Hebrew noun for spirit. God is both masculine and feminine and everything in between. God is non-binary. In Genesis 1:26, God speaks of Godself in the plural saying, "Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us." That's the infinite multitude of God. The masculine, the feminine, and everything in between.

Representative Talarico attends Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. I don't know if this is what they teach there or if he's just a C-student, but that's not how language works.

In Hebrew and Greek every noun has a gender. It's a little foreign to English speakers, but Spanish or German do this, too. In German, door and cat are feminine nouns; girl is neuter. That doesn't mean doors are female or all cats are female; it certainly doesn't mean all girls are gender-neutral. That's just the way nouns operate in the language.

It is true that the Hebrew word translated "spirit" in Genesis 1:2 is a feminine noun. The word for "spirit" in Greek is neuter. That tells us nothing about God. Whenever the Holy Spirit is being discussed, masculine pronouns are used in the Greek. That tells us something about God.

Does that mean God is male? No. Male and female are biological terms relating to sexual reproduction. Animals, even plants can be male or female. Bacteria are not; the term just doesn't apply. God is not material, and he does not reproduce sexually. God has no gender.

This doesn't mean God does not have what we would consider male or female characteristics. Humans, both male and female, are created in the image of God. Together we reflect God's nature. So males will reflect some aspects of God's nature better and females others. Does that mean we can use either male or female terms for God?

No. To put it in the modern parlance, God has given us his pronouns. Though he has no biological gender, he relates to his people as Father, King, and Husband. And when the Word became flesh, it was in the body of a human male. Jesus is and always shall be a circumcised Jewish man with holes in his hands and feet.

But technically God has no gender. Does that mean he's non-binary. At first glance, it's tempting to say yes. But that sticks in the craw. Why? Because "non-binary" is a political term. It's totally accurate to say God has no biological gender. But the claim that God is non-binary attempts to say something else entirely. Representative Talarico's speech continued:

Trans children are God's children, made in God's own image. There's nothing wrong with them, nothing at all. They are perfect, they are beautiful, and they are sacred. Bullying children is immoral. It is a sin, a special kind of sin.

I hope we can all agree bullying children is immoral, whether they're "trans" or not. But children with gender confusion or gender dysphoria are not "perfect"; they are in need of help. Refusing to accept trans ideology's "treatment" for them is not bullying; it is love. We need to recognize that Rep. Talarico's speech was not an argument; it was a claim. He assumes trans ideology is correct, then he asserts anyone who disagrees is in sin.

Every Christian's political views should be shaped by scripture. I applaud that, even when the conclusions someone comes to are different than mine. But we have to be very careful that we're letting scripture determine our politics rather than letting our politics interpret scripture, an error so easy to fall into. I believe Rep. Talarico, indeed all "progressive Christians", makes that error, trying to find ways to explain away passages our society deems unkind.

There is no political party that qualifies as God's party. They all are rebuked on some point or another by scripture. We need to embrace that, to own that. The word of God was not given to us to tell us we're quite alright. It was written to change us, to point out where we've gone wrong. If your reading of scripture never makes you question what your party does, you're not reading it right.

And if your reading of scripture makes you say something about God that would have been absolute nonsense just 30 years ago, you're probably not reading it right.


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