A dozen years ago, some Christian feminists began half-seriously referring to God as "she" while struggling with the heavily masculine images of the Creator.

Eventually, it was widely agreed that the biblical God embraces both genders.

But that left the problem of the pronoun unresolved. In an era when women religious leaders have challenged church-as-usual, how could the feminine dimension of the Deity be expressed?

A new response is taking shape quietly in Christian theological circles: Recognize the Holy Spirit as female.

The Holy Spirit – or God's Spirit – plays varied roles in Judeo-Christian traditions – acting in Creation, imparting wisdom and inspiring Old Testament prophets. The Holy Spirit of the New Testament is the presence of God in the world and a power in the birth and life of Jesus.

Holy Spirit Well-Established

The Holy Spirit, rendered the "Holy Ghost" in the 1611 King James Version of the Bible, was well-established as a partner in the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit after doctrinal controversies of the late 4th Century. Churches today speak of "gifts of the Spirit" (especially tongues-speaking Pentecostalists) and of guidance from the Holy Spirit.

The Spirit is not called "it," despite the fact that the New Testament, written in Greek, uses a neuter noun, pneuma. Church doctrine regards the Holy Spirit as a person, not a force like magnetism. "He" is used to match the pronoun for God.

pagan outlook.

But Mayr contends that Augustine "skipped over the social and maternal aspect of God," which Mayr thinks is best seen in the Holy Spirit.

Some Feminists Object

Ironically men, not women, are raising the possibility of a maternal Spirit. The concept strikes some feminists as unfair.

"It's two against one" in a reconceived Trinity of Father, Mother and Son, one woman scholar said wryly.

A suggestion to describe the Holy Spirit as feminine was made in 1979 by Joan Chamberlain Engelsman of Drew University in "The Feminine Dimension of the Divine."

"The Holy Spirit is the least sexually defined member of the Trinity and ... it is often symbolized by femine images-by fire and the dove," she wrote.

(The Holy Spirit comes upon Jesus in the form of a dove in the New Testament stories of Jesus' baptism. Historians of religion note that the dove was often associated with female deities in the ancient Near East.)

But Engelsman named two other choices feminist theology might make: (1) Add a fourth member to the godhead in the person of the Virgin Mary or (2) develop the feminine aspects of each member of the Trinity.

Asked recently by telephone which alternative she prefers, Engelsman named the latter.

The only woman apparently pushing the idea of the feminine Spirit actively is Lois Roden of Waco, Tex., a fundamentalist- oriented sect leader who began her effort after a personal revelation. The 65-year-old widow has traveled to Jesus rallies and the recent National Religious Broadcasters convention to try to catch the unsympathetic ears of conservative evangelicals.

Regardless of how naturally the mental picture of a "divine family" occurs in church upon the mention of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Christianity has historically labeled it an apostate idea typical of ancient religions.

That may not have been the case at all times and places in the church's history, however.

A 14th Century fresco in a small

romance rather than history. . ." Jewett wrote in a book published last year. Current suggestions to think of the Holy Spirit as feminine have historical precedent only among "obscure and heretical sects on the periphery of the Christian church," Jewett said.

However, Jewett relied on research that had neglected the discovery in 1945 of the Nag Hammadi Library, some 50 texts buried in a jar in upper Egypt by monks in about AD 400. The subsequent translations and studies of the texts brought to light not only the views of Gnostic Christians attacked as heretics from the 2nd Century onward, but also traces of early Christian thinking.

The best-known find was "The Gospel of Thomas," a collection of 114 sayings attributed to Jesus. One of its principal American analysts, Harvard's Helmut Koester, believes that it was composed about the same time as the biblical gospels in the 1st Century.

Considered Historically Valuable

Koester and a number of other New Testament scholars term the "Gospel of Thomas" and a few other apocryphal works as historically valuable.

In one "Gospel of Thomas" saying, Jesus declares that his disciples must hate their earthly parents (as in Luke 14:26) but love the Father and Mother as he does "for my mother (gave me falsehood), but (my) true (Mother) gave me life."

In another Nag Hammadi discovery, "The Secret Book of James," Jesus refers to himself as "the son of the Holy Spirit."

These two sayings do not identify the Holy Spirit as mother of Jesus, but more than one scholar has interpreted them to mean that the maternal Holy Spirit is intended.

"The Gospel of Philip," a clearly Gnostic Christian text recovered at Nag Hammadi, refers repeatedly to the Holy Spirit as a mother figure--for both believers and Jesus.

Traditions in Error

The tradition that Mary conceived Jesus by the Holy Spirit is in error, asserts "The Gospel of Philip." "They do not know what they are saying. When did a woman ever conceive by a woman?" the gospel author asked.

The feminine Holy Spirit appeared to linger longest in favor among Syrian Christians in Edessa. That is the site where the gospels of Thomas and Philip and "The Acts of Thomas" may have been composed or finally edited. A 4th-Century orthodox Christian, Aphraates, wrote in a homily, "A man who is yet unmarried loves and honors God his father and the Holy Spirit his mother."

Elaine Pagels, one of the Nag Hammadi editors, contends in "The Gnostic Gospels" that female imagery for God was lost to the church because of a political-ideological battle between freewheeling, Gnostic-oriented Christians and victorious-minded orthodoxy.

Pagels' contributions to discussions on the female aspects of the Deity have been as a historian, however, not as a theologian recommending beliefs.

The numbers of women studying religion in Universities and seminaries is increasing, but few are writing theology.

"A genuine feminist reconstruction of systematic theology is yet to be written," declared Catholic scholar Rosemary R. Ruether in a recent review of women's religious studies.

Women tend to go in one of three directions, Ruether said.

The evangelical feminists hope to "clean up sexism" in the Scriptures through better analysis, she said. Others are abandoning the Judeo-Christian framework to celebrate womanhood through an evolving Goddess religion.

'Liberationist' Alternative

Ruether prefers a third alternative that she calls "liberationist." In it, she said "Biblical sexism is not denied, but it loses its authority."

Religious feminists loyal to the churches, for all their daring in eliminating unnecessary masculine wording in worship services and religious literature, have seldom reached into the apocrophyl Christian writings for feminine imagery.

Many may be unfamiliar with the material and its historical context. Others may be resigned to the church's usual rejection of writings once deemed heretical.

Fuller Seminary's Paul Jewett said as a conservative, he looks to the New Testament sources as the only authoritative ones-"not simply as an accident of history but rather due to the divine leading of God's Spirit in the early church."

Another evangelical scholar, Donald G. Bloesch, recently conceded that the Holy Spirit could be portrayed as feminine "as the indwelling presence of God within the church, nurturing and bringing to birth souls for the kingdom." But, Bloesch added in recently published "Is the Bible Sexist?," the Spirit who acts on humanity with transforming power "is properly designated as masculine."

In gauging the appeal of the concept, or lack of it, the key might be in watching the grammar of theologians and biblical scholars.

All but the careful reader would have missed the "she" referring to the Holy Spirit in a Christian Century article by biblical authority James A. Sanders..

It was not a typographical error, said Sanders, a professor at the School of Theology at Claremont and president of the Ancient Bible Manuscript Center for Preservation and Research.

Mentioning the impossibility of alluding to God as "he/she" to recognize the Deity's nature, Sanders said his use of the feminine pronoun for the Holy Spirit "is just a choice I have made."