Metaphors are tools. When you use a metaphor, you do so to illustrate a point, and not to assert that an actual similarity or identity obtains between the concepts or items which are being compared. If Jesus says that He is a door, He is trying to make a particular point about Himself. He does not mean that He is, in fact, a door or that He has all the characteristics of a door. You can go too far and start going off on how Jesus must also have a knob or a lock or a peephole since He said He was a door. You can talk about how doors can be open or shut, locked or unlocked, and so on and completely miss the point of the original metaphor by being so caught up in a literalist reading.
The same goes for other metaphors used to talk about God. In some cases, it may be useful to speak of spiritual warfare, as when Paul exhorts us to put on the armor of God. This does not mean that our spiritual life is, in fact, a war or that it even has many of the characteristics of war. Rather, in some way that makes sense in the context of Paul’s letter, spirituality and war have some similarity that can be exploited for Paul’s immediate literary purposes.
And when we say that God is our Father, we do not mean that he is our biological or legal father. Rather, we mean that the relationship in which we stand to God has some similarity to that of father and child such that it is useful to use this terminology for a literary purpose. It does not make sense to take the metaphor beyond what the writer or speaker intended. Saying God is our Father does not mean that God is male or masculine or limited by any such earthly categories. We might just as easily have good literary reasons to speak of God as our Mother.
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The Bible does in fact use a mother metaphor for God at some point, (I think it is a comparison to a mother bird perhaps... I'm forgetting precisely where it is).
I should also mention Kierkegaard's challenging point that "Father" is in many ways a humbling title since only God is perfect as a Father. Earthly fathers should aspire to be like the true Father. (He said it better of course).
Why are some theologically conservative Christians (like myself) wary of the stress on God as Mother (e.g. pointedly referring to God as "She" rather than "He")?
I can't speak for others but for myself there is the concern for a turn to goddess worship... A threat to worship of the true God throughout the Old Testament. My own protestant view is that Mary has become a de facto goddess for many Catholics, (I have no doubt that theologically well informed Catholics do not make that mistake but meanwhile back at the ranch...)
Why is goddess worship so compelling? I'm not quite sure, but we have plenty of historical evidence to tell us it is. And this concern is by no means irrelevant in our own times. Goddess worship may be, in fact, one of the few religions that is currently politically correct and nearly acceptable to our largely secular elites. Neo-pagans delight in goddess worship, because it is pagan and because they know it pisses off Christians (I gather the latter is a more powerful factor in neo-paganism than true understanding of, or loyalty to, ancient paganism).
So, in short, feminine metaphors for God are certainly legitimate. But over emphasis on this is playing with fire.
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