What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit” (3:5–6). God’s Spirit is here likened to a woman bringing forth new life through childbirth, so that those who believe are truly “born of God.” Unfortunately, as Sandra Schneiders comments, “the theological tradition which has controlled the reading of Scripture has insisted on its own male understanding of God to the extent that it has virtually obliterated from the religious imagination this clearly feminine presentation of God the Spirit as mother.”
