Language for an Inclusive God

 How do members of the Church of England describe situations which are blown out of proportion? Given that they are British it may be a "tempest in a teapot." Such a situation has emerged with news that the C0fE has embarked on a further study of what many denominations refer to as inclusive language. 

The Daily Mail isn't considered the height of balanced journalism and the headline makes it sound as though this hasn't been considered previously. Still, a number of other news sources have covered the story, including the Washington Post: 

LONDON — The Church of England is exploring whether to use gender-neutral language instead of referring to God solely with masculine pronouns, such as “He” or “Our Father” — which would be a major change after millennia of prayer and teachings.

The church is launching a project on “gendered language” this spring, following a years-long effort to study the ways in which God is referred to and addressed in liturgy and worship.

“Christians have recognised since ancient times that God is neither male nor female,” the Church of England said in an emailed statement. “Yet the variety of ways of addressing and describing God found in scripture has not always been reflected in our worship.”

The church — and theologians — say this is nothing new, and is part of a broader push to adapt the language it uses to contemporary times. 

Sensible, faithful, and as you can see from my highlight, Anglicans have been working at this for a while, but the current societal discussion about pronouns may have stirred up interest and some indignation. 

I'm always surprised when this arises as though the discussion is new. In 1983, forty years ago and about a year after we moved back to Ontario from Newfoundland, the United Church Women of the congregation I served were asked to fill out a survey on the use of inclusive language in worship. Some members were convinced that this wasn't happening in our church, and a couple huffed and puffed about this newfangled notion. 

One of the women said that she thought that in fact I was using inclusive language as often as possible, which was the case. We were encouraged to do so during my seminary training in the late 1970s and while I didn't make an issue about it and we still repeated the traditional "our Father" of the Lord's Prayer I was very intentional in my choice of language. Through the years I would include paraphrases of the Prayer of Jesus which were not as gender specific. 

This is not radical theology and not bad translation of scripture. In more recent bible translations an effort has been made to reflect the gender neutrality of words and phrases which had been masculinized in earlier bibles. The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) began that process and the recent New Revised Standard Version Updated Version has made hundreds more amendations based on sound scholarship. 

It's good to hear that the Church of England is continuing this process and something tells me that there are already plenty of priests who have incorporated inclusive language into worship. And now to get elements of the media to calm down.