While there were many images in Winner’s book, Wearing God, that helped us grow in our understanding of God, the image of God as laboring woman (or nursing mother) wasn’t one that many people at Campus Edge could appreciate. This is probably due to the fact that most people at Campus Edge do not have children; yet, it is likely also due to the fact that birth and nursing are often hidden away from most people in Western society.

At the same time, through imagining God as a laboring woman with all of the messiness of birth, we recognized that we have often sanitized aspects of God. We sanitize how easy redemption was, including death on the cross. Should we not have the same unease with the picture of Jesus on the cross as we do with God as laboring woman? As Winner points out:

“The Crucifixion has become so sanitized in my mind, so normalized and familiar, that thinking of it does not shock me or disturb me or really produce much reaction at all, because I, along with much of the church, have turned a bloody state punishment into nothing more or less than tidy doctrine.” Winner, Wearing God, 154.