The other day, I was listening to a Christian Radio station and there was a broadcast of what I assume to be a local church’s sermon. When i turned on my radio, the pastor was in the middle of saying “there was not 1 female angel”. He want on to say that there was a reason that the angels were referred to as “he”. I’m sure said preacher had a point but I didn’t continue listening to see where he was going with this. I do not know all about the Bible. I am still in the infancy of my faith. However, I do not believe that anyone knows for a fact that all the angels were males. A quick search tells me that only a few angels were ever mentioned by name in the Bible. There are possibly a few more mentioned in the Torah or Qur’an, which I doubt this pastor was referring to. Either way out of a “host” of angels having at most 10-15 names you can’t possibly know for certain that ALL the angels were male. The concept of gender, to be quite honest, might not even apply to angels. It reminds me of the male seahorse. Maybe just maybe, what you thought was a male is indeed a female and at that point you are just too ashamed to admit it. Happens to the best of us.
I will always wonder how much of the role women were given in the history of monotheism was because of male traditions at the time. When I was growing up my mother always taught me that women were not supposed to be preachers/ ministers/pastors, etc. but she never explained WHY. When I was younger and thought of God I always pictured a Sistine chapel, old, white, bearded God.
Then in high school, I liked the idea of Black Jesus with dreadlocks. Now I much prefer an unknowable God. I like to think of a God too beautiful and terrible to look upon. I would like to believe that our concept of what God sounds and looks like, fail in comparison to who he really is. And if angels are the instruments which God uses to do his work, why couldn’t they be what our frail minds conceive of as “female”? Didn’t God work through Esther? Through Ruth? Through Mary?
What do you think? If I am wrong by all means correct me and let me know.
The New Royal Radio 