text: A clinging to tradition, and thereby referring to God by solely masculine-gender grammatical forms, and perhaps also by imagery associated with male human beings and other creatures, is not in itself heretical. A positive statement to the effect that it is ONLY permissible to refer to God with such masculine references, and that attempts to represent God in a not exclusively masculine way are themselves heretical or at least wrong-headed, is in any case poor theology. Whether it is "heretical," I can't judge.
  
  Jesus was wrong, or to put it more justly, in his own world, on all kinds of things. That he referred to God not just as a masculine being but as "Dad," quite against his tradition, is an important indicator of a theological truth, marking just the beginning of speculation about God. "Heresy," or rather, poor theology, comes with making an idol of the gospel portraits of Jesus, and treating them as exclusive models of our own beliefs and practices.