I’ve been meaning to come back to the inclusive language question for the last couple of weeks and say something about it, but what to say at this point?
The story so far: after a great deal of shilly-shallying, one of the Scottish Episcopal Church’s liturgies has been given a few alternative texts which replace phrases which when intending to refer to people now do so using language that is inclusive of both men and women instead of simply referring to men or “mankind”. For example, in one of the prayers, we can now say, “which is your will for all the world” rather than “which is your will for all mankind.”
Oh, I know that some people react to this with the phrase, “political correctness gone mad” and refuse to think things through but to me its just a matter of politeness. Its rude to make people feel left out by using language which does not include their personhood and experience. I think that is a matter of etiquette at least as much as a matter of theology.
So far, so uncontroversial. (Well, almost, some people don’t like change and will get grumpety when it happens regardless).
The changes went a little futher than that though by allowing some changes to the way we refer to God. So, for example, we can now say, “…and peace to God’s people on earth” rather than “…and peace to his people on earth”.
When I looked through the changes I found that we had been using a number of them at St Mary’s for years and those other changes which have now brought in have come about without anyone saying anything. They have been entirely without controversy here, which is more or less as one might expect.
But what a furore this caused. Newspapers around the world led on “Scottish Episcopal Church declares that God is no longer male” (here’s the Telegraph article) despite the fact that we had not said such a thing nor said that God was male in the first place. It was all over the press and blogs like a rash.
Then came a statement on the SEC Website which I presume was written by the Primus saying that we were not changing the way the Church understands God.
It seems to me that if you move from a position of always referring to God in male-dominated language to something more subtle which does not treat God as necessarily male then you are indeed saying something about the fact that the church’s way of understanding and talking about God is developing. That seems to me to be both interesting and potentially full of good things. Do any of us think that our language encapsulates God. The idea of a God held hostage by our inadequate pronouns seems very far from whatever I’ve understood by God in the past.
Malcolm Round made a brave attempt to declare that God was in fact male and particularly that the Holy Spirit is male but I’m not convinced. One would think from the way he writes about it that none of us knew that some of the language for the Spirit in the Hebrew Bible uses words are grammatically female and always were. Malcolm also associates femaleness with gentleness. I’m not that sure my sisters would want to go all the way with that analogy.
I’m surprised that our bishops chose to make these changes by decree rather than going through a synodical process whereby we could talk about these things and come to something of a common mind about it. I agree with the changes but would rather have taken a bit longer and got more people on board. This very clearly changes the Church’s understanding of God and that’s a good news story not something to be shy of.
Now, what use of exclusive language is getting my goat and causes me to huff and puff whenever I hear it right now?
Its not gendered language at all. It is the phrase “family doctor” which seems to be constantly in use on the news and at the Tory party conference.
I don’t have a family doctor. I have a GP.
(GP = General Practitioner – for all our readers from furth of these shores).
Nick,
I remember an ‘Any Questions?’ event at St.Silas where one of the ””experts”” (!) said that , not only is God not necessarily gendered male, but that the Holy Spirit is probably female. And your successor as Fr.Gadgetvicar’s Sith Apprentice ( ;-)) once told me that St ”Paul was a feminist” – presumably because, being inspired by God, he had to be. So your own view and Rev Round’s posts aside, I’m not sure that maintaining the necessarily male nature of God is, unlike other issues, something that evangelicals generally regard as key to orthodoxy and necessary to uphold in the face of liberal progress. Evangementalism’s semi-embrace of feminism – whether for pew-filling or hopefully nobler reasons – has of course obvious (however delayed or ignored) implications for full LGBT inclusion and in and of itself is of course very much to be applauded 🙂
Incidently, saw a photo of your ordination, and hope that such fabulous robe-rockin’ wasn”t a one-off! 😀
I got the impression that the press furore happened when someone noticed that the draft minutes of the Synod were published and decided to read them. The thrust of the press coverage seemed to conflate the discussion that happened around the Gender Audit rather than the notice of the inclusive alternative texts being issued by the College of bishops.
I’m not sure I would have dignified the coverage with a response.
Kennedy
Yes Kennedy, there is something in that. Though its certainly true that the use of language in liturgy was a strong theme in the debate. Indeed it rather surprised me. The apparent tardiness of the Bishops’ decree (which had been trailed as coming soon by +Mark at the previous Synod in answer to one of my questions) was a subtext to that debate.
I find there is something incongruous about Christians wanting to accommodate every nuance of of peoples sensitivities, when Christ could hardly open his mouth without offending people. And from a worldly point of view the Pharisees had him killed for offending them.
Regarding family: whilst I agree with your implication that our relationship with the Father will never be exactly as Jesus’s was (He was in perfect and constant communion with the Father in a way that we never are) I don’t think that we can do away with the picture of family for those who follow Christ. I (once again!) agree that the word “family” is not extensively present, but the units which make up a family are: Father, brother, sister, mother.
For example: “Abba, Father” is used, as we all know, not only by Jesus in Mark but by Paul in Romans (8:15) and Galatians (4:6) seems to suggest that the early church was following Jesus’ lead and calling God “Father”. The NRSV also says (Romans 8:15) that we have “received a spirit of adoption.” It may be me reading my understanding of adoption into this text, and if that is truly the case I am prepared to be corrected and change my understanding, but a ‘plain reading’ would suggest some sort of family understanding here – children are adopted into families.
Similarly in Hebrews (2:10ff) we see not only that we have the same Father as Jesus but that Jesus calls those “who are sanctified…brothers and sisters.” (NRSV) The word “family” is not present. But “brothers and sisters” are part of a family unit, add “Father” to this and is a family picture not starting to develop?
Also, the constant use of “brothers and sisters” (NRSV – although the footnote recognises that in Greek it was only “brothers”) in the writings of the early church suggests some sort of ‘family’ link between those who followed Jesus.
I said above that mother imagery is also found, although I accept that, given the context (i.e. it’s a picture of Jesus’ feelings for a whole city, not just of His feelings for/relationship with His followers), this may be more readily discounted. But in Matthew (23:37), Jesus does use the image of a hen gathering her brood under her wings. As I’ve admitted it isn’t a statement which, at least in its plainest sense, is as clear as some of the ones I’ve listed above. But might there not be some suggestion of a motherly/parental type relationship between Jesus and Jerusalem? At the very least it is another family type picture (albeit involving chickens!).
So, incase it got lost in there, whilst “family” is not used much at all, as Kelvin has rightly pointed out, I would want to suggest that family imagery is and that, therefore, this picture of what it means to be followers of Jesus – and there are others, e.g. body – should not be lost from the language of the church.
Oh, its there, Nick, but erm, was Jesus always positive about family?
Matthew 12:46-18 and all that.
Never mind what they thought of him – Mark 3:21
He certainly didn’t always seem to be that positive about His own family due, it seems, to their misunderstanding of who He was. But that doesn’t mean that family imagery is wrong, afterall in the Matthew account “brother and sister and mother” are not done away with, but are shown to be a wider group than just those to whom Jesus is genetically related.
Why the desperation to use a metaphor for God’s companions which seems to meet with a resounding ambivalence when tested against Scripture though?
Politics not theology, I’ll be bound.
‘I’m far less sure that the divine nature is definitively, exclusively and absolutely male’. For my part, I’m pretty sure that it is not! Maleness/femaleness is an attribute of human persons, and God is not a human person, but something much greater, who transcends gender.
I take the point that Jesus addressed God as ‘Father’, but as a good Jew he was using the metaphor which predominated in the scriptures he had learnt.
Jesus obviously was male, but transcended gender when he became the Risen Christ, and it is surely the latter that Christians worship.
We have a family doctor, I’m not sure its (I daren’t say “he”) not really a general practitioner since there seem to be a whole lot of general things it doesn’t know about and I have never seen it practising anything.
I feel that it’s worth pointing out that the term ‘family doctor’ is not one that’s used by the NHS. It’s done some weird and wacky things with job titles in the last few years, but GPs are still GPs. I’ve never met a patient who didn’t understand what a GP was, I’ve never met a GP who wanted to be called a “family doctor”, and I’ve never met a non-GP who wanted to call their GP colleagues “family doctors”. The term seems to be exclusively the domain of politicians who think that GP is too complicated a term for some people to understand. Codswallop.
Stewart, at the risk of flogging a dead horse, my problems with the term are:
1) It isn’t inclusive. It excludes me and it excludes all other single adults who live any number of miles away from their relatives. I have no family members with whom I share a doctor, therefore I cannot possibly have a family doctor no matter which definition of family is being applied.
2) I think if it were to be adopted as a term, it would have a real risk of negatively impacting patient care. (Yes, I know that this isn’t entirely related to the subject of inclusive language. It is related to the idea that words mean stuff.) There are many things that people are already uncomfortable talking to their GP about and it’s very often because they have valid concerns about their confidentiality. If they have to talk to something called a “family” doctor, nobody will ever seek help for sexual health problems, mental health problems, or alcohol and drug abuse ever again.
Beth, I don’t actually use the term “family doctor” either. The term I am currently using for the person who supposedly gives us local medical care is much ruder, since his general practice of a member of my family’s health has indirectly led to that family member being seriously ill in hospital. Nevertheless he is the doctor to all my nuclear family and I can call him that if I wish since it is factually correct.
Either way the more important thing is whether he/she/it can do their job.