I was raised with those words as a foundation to my being. Jesus died for my sins and his Father loved me so much that he sent His Son to die for me so that I could live. It was simple...
As a woman the image of God as Father meant a lot of really complicated things to me and the connection between the white Father figure in the Bible was something one didn't really need to think about- it just... WAS. The sad reality is that it is so ingrained in the culture that you don't even have to articulate that you think god is white or male but the feeling that God is indeed male and white is just there.
As I grew older I questioned that belief and it led me away from the church, away from belief in a male deity. Any deity actually. I won't go into a long theological diatribe about my own belief system I have had some thoughts I have been left with today that I thought about posting to FB but it would take up too much of a post and also, it's not necessarily something I want to share with everyone. So for those who clicked on the link, I assume you have some interest.
If God is our father (and let us admit that the preponderance of images of the all the ancient texts show god as male- the female images that women worshiped in pre-bibical times were wiped out by the men, the men who wrote the bible and the few that are left are quite scant.) then men take on a relationship to God that women don't have. It's undeniable and it's subconscious. Men can try to deny this or reorder how they interact with the people in their lives so they more accurately align with who they believe God is, but the intention is still the same, the Men and God have a particular relationship and it is deeply ingrained in our culture. And that's just one of my observations: Men are too close to being God-like no matter whether you are liberal or conservative- it is deep in the religious psyche. So much so that it infects the non-religious.
