I didn't find this very persuasive at all. God is beyond gender, but we should call God "He" because Jesus referred to God as Father and fathers are masculine. How many fathers are beyond gender? Not many, so I wouldn't get too hung up insisting on a masculine pronoun. Remember Aquinas on divine attributes being analogous.

On the other hand, Sh/im sounds downright barbarous, as well as being unnecessary. If a role or metaphor signifies a gender, use a gender. If using "God" as a proper name, limit pronoun use altogether or vary gender.

Also, why is there this perpetual assumption that feminine pronouns lead to mistaking the creation for the creator? That "God as Mother" inevitably leads to the inability to tell the Creator of the universe from a tree frog? It simply does not follow. Of course God is in all things, but if you're afraid someone is going to mistake a full moon for the Creator, what makes you think changing pronouns from She to He is going fix things? It seems to me such problems need prayer and meditation, not prescriptive linguistics.

Pantheism is an easy target, but more smoke than substance; today's idols are much more subtle. And every time you pick an easy irrelevant target instead of a subtle danger, you aren't doing anyone any favors.

Matthew, I think you are missing the point. The First Person of the Trinity is called "Father"as an analogy. And like all analogies it carries with it truths which are important but breaks down at some point. He is called "Father" because "Father" traditionally carries with it the idea of one who is "the origin and transcendent authority of all and cares for the needs of all". Moreover the word "Father" suggests something about the nature of the First Person. He is one who can be know personally, one who cares for us personally, one with whom we may have a relationship. This marks God out as something very different from an arbitrary law giver, or one described by philosophers in cold-blooded terms as an indifferent Spirit who, having made us ten leaves us to our own unaided devices. It is also consistent with the real flesh and blood male human being who is also God, the second person of the Trinity. So it does matter that we pray in the words our Saviour gave us, "Our Father", and that he is "he" not "she" or "it". Father John Fleming

Once again we hear that male and female are different and that all males become masculine and all females become feminine. Everyone is made in gods image so how can god be just he In the time of Jesus Females were consitered as lesser then males Gods message would not have been accepted if it came from a female to be fully human Jesus needed to be born so a mother was needed "Mary" if Jesus was to be fully devine then he would have needed a parrent to be Devine (god) as only Mothers give birth The Father had to be God. We know that the bible records the sons of many important men in the bible but most females only appear as someone who a man is to marry. If God was to be believed to be powerful then God must be male regardless of how many fem traits God exibits we no longer believe that females are lesser beings to Males so we shouldn't believe that the reasons for calling god He are so important that we allow ourselves to blindly think that the language used by Jesus 2000 years ago is the same as what we use in Mass Today there was a word of mouth for many years before anything was written down then the gospels were written down especially for the different comunities of the early church many who had before conversion had seen God as hype masculine as many of the Old testermont stories depicted God that way if Society in Jesus' time had gender equality Like we do at the moment I doubt that Father Son and Holy Spirit would still be as male dominated possibly the Creator the Redeemer and the Sustainer. I prefer to see god as all Genders rather then beyond gender after all we are all made in gods image weather we are male, female or anything in between many men are not masculine and many Woman are not feminine that doesn't make them outside of gods plan by guiding some people toward androgany god Is creating more diversity for the world to accept the beauty is all of creation