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Originally Posted by robkelk
If I recall correctly, angels in Christian traditions are genderless. The correct pronoun is "it", not "he" or "she."
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English pronouns (as with many other languages) have a lot of ambiguity. Aside from the distinction between strict sexedness and gender identity (which of course can be fluid, and so on) there's an active/passive distinction that makes God the Father a "Him" and animals sometimes "it"s.
Of course it's likely in-universe that changes to language allowing people more freedom to define their gender identity, like changes allowing more freedom generally, are Infernal in origin (certainly in spirit) and angels resist them.
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(This obviously doesn't apply to In Nomine... at least, not to the game's Mercurians.)
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This is easily changed, of course.
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Originally Posted by Cassanos
I think that, considering the social and cultural circumstances of the age(s) when the Bible was written, it would indeed have been unthinkable in the purest sense of the word to consider a powerful celestial entity being a female. Just as, say, God is always referred to as a "He". Despite all the stuff about the nature of God being incomprehensible to humans, there was never any question that God was, in fact, male.
That does not mean that the people who wrote the books of the Bible were actively trying to discredit women, which, after all, was not even necessary. Almost all societies at the time were not exactly of the opinion that all humans were equal.
Therefore, I think it is very reasonable to conclude that the writers of the Bible, and therefore the Bible itself, were misogynistic in the modern sense of the word. That's no insult, it's a rather simple statement. It does not mean that modern Christians are all misogynists.
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Extremely misogynistic-by-our-standards societies have had no difficulty imagining female deities - certainly the ancient Hebrews believed in them, even if factions among them discouraged their worship - so this is really orthogonal.
(Also, all that stuff about God being unknowable and transcendent comes later. The God of Abraham and Isaac is male because he has a male body.)