Funding for To the Contrary provided by the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation the Park Foundation and the Charles A. Frueauff Foundation This week on To the Contrary, if as some Christians sects are now saying God has no gender, why refer to God as a he?

Then a disturbing CDC report on the mental health of teenage girls.

(MUSIC) Hello, I'm Bonnie Erbe' Welcome to to the Contrary, a discussion of news and social trends from diverse perspectives.

Up first, separating God and gender.

What are God's pronouns?

It's a modern question that some Christian faiths are grappling with.

The Church of England, also known as the Anglican Church, recently joined the list of sects that are considering changing how they refer to God.

Traditionally, the Christian God is referred to by male pronouns, but Christian leadership across the various sects admit that God is not considered male or female.

Members of the Episcopal Church, part of the Anglican Communion, voted to revise future editions of the Book of Common Prayer to no longer reflect God with male pronouns.

Conservative members and conservative sects, however, decry these sorts of moves.

Joining me today are Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat from Washington.

Linda Chavez of the Center for Equal Opportunity, Sam Bennett from the New York Amsterdam News, and Anne Stone, Republican strategist.

Where do we go with this?

Is do you really think we're going to get to a point where not just these small sects?

I think the Episcopal Church, anyway, in this country is about 1.5 million people, whereas Catholics, almost a third of the country identify as Catholics.

Not all of them are churchgoing and believers, but firm Catholic families.

So what do you make of all this?

With many people in our culture already believing in nonbinary gender, meaning people are all fluid now.

You know, in the old categorizations of male or female, just admit to many possibilities in the middle and are therefore discriminatory.

What about God?

What happens when God is nonbinary?

We finally come to the understanding that if God can be a he, he he can be a she.

I don't know if this is the modernization of language, but what it means to me, especially as someone who was christened in the Episcopal Church, is that we're finally beginning to recognize that God has no gender.

What do you think about that?

Well, it's not a new concept.

In 1895, Elizabeth Cady Stanton actually wrote the women's Bible.

As you know, she's one of the three founders of the move of women's suffrage in the United States.

And she thought it was extremely important.

And of course, was roundly attacked and savaged for having rewritten the Bible in a woman's voice.

But even back then, we're talking two genders.

She wasn't.

I presume, talking nonbinary, which is what people are are.

You know what the culture is starting to believe (Bonnie)more and more these (Ann) He wasn't Talking neutral, but she was viewing Christianity from a woman's perspective with a woman's voice, which was quite revolutionary.

And what do you think?

Okay.

Let's say, you know, you go to church.

What do you think about worshiping a a non-binary god?

Well, my church actually does sort of recognize it that way, even though the text still says he.

We've always considered God to be gender gender neutral, that God was presented the way he was in the Bible to make it more acceptable for society at that time, for it to be accepted.

So still in human form, but non non binary.

Non binary.

Yes.

Okay.

But what what does that do to faith too?

I mean, you know, I think about let's let's strip God the concept of God of all prejudices, you know, no particular skin color, no gender, no way God looks in particular, what is God a spirit, then?

I think he's a force.

He is the life force.

He's an organizing force.

He is all encompassing.

And I'm again, still using he.

But in the terms that we do look at it, that God really is, it doesn't have a gender that's a human need to give it a gender.

But in fact, like I said, in our faith, we really look at it as gender neutral.

Well, if religion is a fundamental keystone of of a society, what could be more destructive than a language and in worship that only talks about he, him, father, son, you know, as a choir singing church going Christian, I have learned I can only go to a church that's got a pastor leader that's a woman.

And I'm the one who says God instead of father and refused to say hear him.

When I was a girl in church with my deeply religious grandfather, you know, each he and him and father and son, I would hear as I was in the pew, pew pew with my grandfather felt like a personal body blow.

I never had that problem.

I never had that problem.

Me it was it bothered me my whole life.

Well, I.

Was raised as an atheist, and I have to tell everybody that when I would go into a church.

You.

Yeah.

I went to church with friends.

I went to temple with friends.

I traveled overseas and I saw churches overseas.

I would go in and see an image of a blond hair, blue eyed guy, and I'd be in Africa.

And I think to myself, who exactly are they worshiping?

Why are they not worshiping a God who looks like them?

And then again, I'd like your thoughts, Linda.

If you strip everything away from God, gender, color, body shape, I mean, you name it.

What is God?

What are you supposed to pray?

Well, first of all, having been raised Catholic and going to mass in the mass, we say something called the Creed and it begins.

I believe in God, the father, creator of heaven and earth.

That is part of our our prayer.

However, I am happy to have religions do what they want with their own liturgy.

The fact that Anglicans may be changing the Book of Common Prayer, that they may be changing the pronouns used to describe God.

That's fine with me.

In fact, as I was taught in Catholic school, God has no corporal presence.

There is no body.

So giving gender, giving a sex, attributing a sex to God.

It's really a metaphor.

But for Christians, Jesus Christ did in fact have a body, He was believed to have come to Earth, to have been born to a virgin, and to have suffered and died for all men's sins.

But he was definitely a man.

So I think it would be a little more radical if the Anglican Church were trying to make Jesus Christ gender neutral or binary or assigning a sex other than male to him.

You're talking about Jesus Christ.

But what about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost?

Right.

That's the Trinity.

This is a a mystery and one that is accepted on faith.

I think it's sort of defies attempts to make it rational.

I don't think it is rational in that sense.

And that's the thing about faith.

Well, consider the the Bible itself was written to the extent that it was written, was written by men who were women.

Women were not involved in the process.

Right.

So when people write, they write about themselves.

And that's that's reflecting what we see happening today is women coming forward in society.

No wonder that would be reflected in religion.

Yes.

And in the Bible in the way we regard the Bible as well.

And I would like to point out the Catholic Church has a lot of female imagery in it.

It was Protestantism that that stripped the female out of liturgy.

It was the Protestant revolution of the 1500s.

So it's the Protestant face.

We're the ones that struggle the most with this, Linda, Because, you know, when I go to a Catholic Church, there's the Virgin Mary.

I see a woman there.

Again, when we say father, son and holy ghost, I don't think, oh, the guys are dominating everything.

Just don't look at faith that way.

I really do.

Look, God is gender neutral, which is as I'm taught.

The bottom line is I've never looked at it as well.

God was a boy, so therefore I'm less.

Just never crossed my mind.

Never crossed it.

Never crossed your mind and when all the priests were men, all the references (Ann) I'm Lutheran, so it was ministers and we had women very active in the Lutheran church from the get go.

Well, women are very active in and actually the backbone of every church.

And that has mystified me as I watch this.

It's like women do all the bake sales, bring in the money, the nuns in the Catholic Church take care of the sick.

And yet and there couldn't be churches without women.

And yes, yet they are for the most part, no matter how you want to put it, shove to the bottom and know and very little, if any, power.

It's more than that.

Look at the teachings of Jesus.

Look at the way he conducted his life.

Many would tell you many of his attributes were very feminine.

In fact, it was important to have him deliver it in male form to the community at that time.

But his teachings, his whole essence, many would ascribe to be very a very feminine way to life in peace and conducting world affairs.

But that didn't make it into liturgy, that didn't make it into the person (Ann) Sure it did No, it didn't.

(Ann) In our church it did And as you rightly said, Siobhan, it is true that in Catholicism, the whole Mary and devotion, the devotion to Mary is very profound and very strong.

And I can tell you, as somebody who went to Catholic schools for 12 years, women were very influential.

They affected my life far more than the priest did, even though the priests were the ones who said mass and distributed communion.

(Bonnie) And the priests.

And there and then the bishops and the pope had all the power and made the decisions about who who was viewed as what.

And the people who wrote the Bible, quite frankly, the New Testament were pretty darn primitive.

But let's face it, in the year zero.

I don't agree, Bonnie.

I have to disagree.

In terms of the New Testament.

The Old Testament is a far harsher view than the New Testament.

The New Testament teaches love of your neighbor.

It teaches being kind not just to people in your family or your group, but to the stranger, to welcoming them in to forgiveness.

The whole ethics of the New Testament, I think in fact, are ethics that if society lived by them, we'd all be in a better place.

(Sam) Christ himself was a feminist.

(Sam)That is absolutely true.

(Sam) And it's why I'm a Christian, honestly, (Sam)is if I look at Christ's teachings, what I see is him embracing women.

But then when it comes to what makes its way into the liturgy, what makes its way into the structure, the religion, who the power holders are, what the language is, it's all profoundly patriarchal.

Worldwide men control everything.

Why shouldn't God be keen as a man?

That would be extraordinary in light of the sexism that dominates every single society that God himself would be a man?

Well, Bonnie, I have to say that, you know, you talked about the writings were primitive and all that.

They reflected the time.

They were limited by their knowledge.

And these are people interpreting what happened, parts of it.

The gospel is divinely inspired, but other parts of it is human beings writing.

And we know all of history was written by men, which is why women's histories has had to fight for so long to become recognized.

So that was the way, things are changing.

I know there have been movements in the past.

Is this all driven by the LGBTQ community?

No In fact, in the Catholic Church there has been a continuing movement of women within the Catholic Church that promoted this for decades.

And the Anglican Church has been working on this for a long time.

The Episcopalian Church has been working on gender neutrality for a long, long, long time.

And I think what's important is something Linda said.

The Bible is a book of poetry.

It is metaphorical, but the language that 's used is important because it's a fundamental reflection of our society, and it's time to strip that gender male patriarchal language out.

This is already being changed locally.

For example, the Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C. no longer uses gender.

So you're going to see this incrementally done throughout the country and throughout the world.

And when do you see this, the tentacles of this progress?

Many would call it.

I know some people wouldn't, but many would call it progress.

When do you think when how long before Catholics do start believing that Jesus and and God in the Holy Ghost don't have a gender?

Well, Catholicism is the oldest of the religions frought with man.

The disciples were men.

So I would expect change to come slower there than in any other religion.

And the only I guess, Catholic on the program, I will tell you, I doubt that change will come to the Catholic Church.

They're certainly not going to change the sex of Jesus Christ.

But I do think that, you know, if you want to look to a model Judaism, which I've studied a great deal, does not seem to use pronouns to describe God.

And in fact, the very name for God, Yahweh is one that is is not doesn't have a gender, and it is rarely used because it is considered so sacred.

And even though it has not dribbled down through the millennia that the Jewish religion is almost 6000 years old, much older than Christianity, but still accepting in reform and to a lesser extent conservative Jews, that the power is still all in the hands of the men.

Only men can be rabbis and the Uber Orthodox.

And, you know, again, this take, this is taking forever.

But, you know, the only concern I have and maybe this is silly right now, we have a need for people to come back to church.

I think one of the problems in society is the moral underpinning.

Doesn't this have to be organized religion?

Although I'd like to see some of them come back and changing the the pronouns on God.

Is that going to keep men away?

And they're the ones that really need to come back to church.

So that's a concern I have.

All right.

From God's pronouns to a mental health crisis.

According to a new Centers for Disease Control report, teenagers, especially girls, are experiencing a, quote, overwhelming wave of violence and trauma, end quote, as well as hopelessness and suicidal thoughts never seen before.

Nearly three in five teen girls reported they get persistently sad or hopeless.

52% of LGBTQ teens say they struggle with mental health issues.

Overall, 40% of boys and girls report they feel so badly they were unable to complete regular activities like schoolwork or sports for at least two weeks.

And violence against girls is up.

One researcher suggests if girls are experiencing increased violence, it's important to find out what's happening with teenage boys that might lead them to sexual violence.

The Youth Risk Behavior Survey is conducted every two years.

In 2021, 17,000 adolescents were surveyed in high schools across the country.

So, Linda, use you have lots of grand children, girls who are going through the ages that we're talking about in this survey.

Are they talking about an increased level of sexual violence, violence and depression?

One of them did have someone who pursued her and harassed her.

But with my granddaughters, I think as with all young women, the whole influence of social media, I think, has really affected girls and it's affected them more.

I mean, I look back on my teenage years.

I can remember the age of 13 as probably being my most miserable years.

The girls picked on me, the boys picked on me, the nuns picked on me.

It seemed like everybody was picking on me.

I can't imagine what my experience would have been like if when I went home from school.

I went on to a device and looked at people who were trolling me, who were anonymously insulting me or attacking me.

I would have been absolutely as miserable as the young women in this survey are.

And I think this is a real crisis in our society.

Now, boys and girls are out of school, school, but girls may be more social, may be more interested in having relationships with other girls.

Boys play sport, so you don't need to talk to one another.

You just need to do things.

So I'm still trying to figure out why.

Why both now?

Both sexes are having the effect, but why is having a larger affect?

On 30 years ago, all of the media interest was in girls because girls were the ones who had been oppressed and blah, blah, blah.

And then conservatives responded about 25 years ago with what's happening to our boys.

Our boys are in trouble.

Now, this survey says everybody's in trouble.

Do you agree with Linda that it's because of social media?

Oh, I think 80% of it is social media.

I think the other part is the crumbling of the underpinnings in our society.

Like I was saying earlier, there's a real lack of morals.

There's more violence on the street, random, not even specific.

People are concerned.

Boys are frustrated with the way they're viewed.

Girls are horrified by the way they're viewed.

And again, society right now is just in a real flux.

And we've got to get some grounding and get our heads back on straight.

I'm confused about the violence because to me, a sexual attack means you're raped or somebody grabs your clothes off and or, you know, goes under your clothes and touches your private parts.

And that can't happen on social media.

So it's more verbal abuse, you write and intimidation and all that.

And some of that can be almost as devastating as the actual physical attacks.

Well, I wouldn't think I wouldn't think with social media, because social media is not new.

Social media has been out there all along.

I believe all the failure to have personal contact with one another is critical here.

When you're out of school, you're only on social media.

When you're in school.

And remember, the virus has kept these girls and boys out of school.

It looks like girls are more social and therefore more in need of contact.

And without having it, you see the result.

I think that, Bonnie, your question about sexual assault is an important one.

I think what we're doing is in some ways redefining that term.

And I do think that, again, growing up, you know, if a boy tried to reach under your blouse or whatever, you might slap his hand and push him away and.

But I think we've now defined that as an assault unless he first asked permission.

So I think a lot of girls feel this aggressiveness, sexual aggressive aggressiveness on the part of boys more strongly than in in my generation.

We might have we I think we're in a better place now with boys having to get permission, in essence, to to try to be physically intimate.

But I do think that that may have to do with results is hard for me to believe that one in ten girls has actually been raped.

I think they may have had unwanted physical, you know, moves and and inappropriate kinds of interaction, but I'm not sure I would define it as rape.

Do you think teenage boys are saying, may I kiss you?

May I hold your hand?

May I?

I think they are more I just can't imagine they are.

Having been sexually abused as a girl, having been sexually trafficked as a teenager and raped as an adult.

These findings don't surprise me.

I think when the research is done around sexual assault, sexual abuse, all, all researchers agree that it's a wildly underreported phenomenon.

I think it's a true canary in a coal mine for the true state of affairs for women and girls, especially here in the United States.

Here we are in the nation as the only, you know, advanced nation that's rolled back reproductive freedoms.

We consistently rank in the 30th percentile on overall gender equality in the world.

And even when it comes to electoral equality, a passion of mine and Congresswoman Holmes, we're ranked 112th among all nations behind that.

That paragon of women's rights, Afghanistan.

And 20 years ago, we were number one.

It really is amazing.

Well, in the early seventies, we were number one actually in the world.

Who should fix this?

Is this up to parents to keep their girls away from social media?

Is it up to the schools?

Who should step in here and make things better?

I'm going to speak first, and you may be surprised to hear my answer.

I think maybe Hillary Clinton was right.

It takes a village.

I think it takes all of us.

(Sam) Agreed (Linda) It is a family.

You're becoming a Democrat Linda Well, on this.

On this.

I think the community matters and community mores matter.

Or the community should.

How should that work?

I think that what we teach in schools and I think schools are trying to do a better job are to inculcate a sense that we have to be respectful of each other.

And I think, you know, we have laws now of against harassment of any sort.

I think that's been a positive move.

Our best chance is schools, because that's where boys and girls come in contact with one another.

And and that's where you can have those interactions revealed and and cured.

I toured my old high school last year and I was interested to see in every classroom everything.

It was all about respect and treating people with dignity.

And that's on walls everywhere.

It's what the teachers talked about.

So they are trying, but it starts with the parents.

The community needs to then reinforce it.

And quite frankly, Hollywood needs to step up and start acting a little more responsible.

Hollywood and the television community, because that's where these kids get a lot of their messages.

Yeah, well, that's.

To do that, you're going to have to get rid of the rating system.

Good luck on that one.

That's it for this edition Keep the conversation, going on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

And visit our website, pbs.org, Slash to the contrary and whether you agree or think to the contrary.

See you next week.

(MUSIC) Funding for To the Contrary provided by the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation.

The Park Foundation.

And the Charles A. Frueauff Foundation.