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).
I have always thought that I was a member of the “family” at St. Mary’s Cathedral. However,I am sad that this word appears to be no longer acceptable. For me, however, it is a harmless little word, but then I am an old-fashioned (?) innocent (?) type of person who values friendships and family commitments. I DO use the term “GP” so perhaps I am not all bad.
What word should I not use next? Perhaps I should just keep quiet in future but I am afraid that there is no guarantee of that!
Thanks Muriel
I think I feel more that I belong to a great community at St Mary’s – one where we are trying to make everyone feel welcome.
I support the use of inclusive language, but recognise difficulties arise due to the inadequacies of language to describe the mysteries of God. I am also mindful of St Francis’ words of following the (inclusive)gospel and where necessary use words. All our efforts – words and actions needed to convey God’s love for all.
From the whole experience of my life to date, taking into account everyone I know both straight and gay, I can only come to the conclusion that your problem with the word “Family” is for you an idiosyncratic personal foible.
But not mine alone, it seems, Jimmy.
Assuming that your own experience is necessarily more representative – and ‘accurate’ – sounds a lot like a personal foible, Jimmy.
I’m reminded of an excellent essay, The Family Curse, by Stephen Fry. Some excerpts :
“The word is used these days much as the word ‘Aryan’ was used in Germany during the 1930s. Anything that isn’t Family is ‘unfamily’, and anything that is unfamily is unrepresentative of the joyful majority. The ruthless condemnation of unfamily values is therefore a populist democratic imperative.
Family schamily, I say. What is it with us at the moment that this word should be transmogrified into a shining banner borne ‘mid snow and ice that will lead us into a new golden age?It can hardly be a defence against the rise in the crime rate. After all, something like eighty per cent of murders are domestic in origin, child molestation and physical abuse are almost entirely family crimes and I believe there is only one recorded cass of incest being practised outside a family and that turned out not to be incest after all”
—
”Obedience, complusion, tyranny and repression are family words as much as love, compassion and mututal trust. It rather depends. on the family. I wonder which sort of ‘family values’ we most readily associate with our government? Well, I don’t really wonder : it’s all too plain. ”
—–
It does crack me up when nominal Sola Scriptura types make a big point of saying that, in fact, Paul must have been married. Our Lord’s asceticism has to be grumbily conceded, but obviously we can’t put such faith in Paul unless he’s a Normal Family Man.
Ryan, the reason so much that is good and bad occurs within the context of “Family” is because practically everyone of us is in or from a family. Even people who have no family are from a family. If by some Orwellian misadventure we were to change the word “Family” to the word “Cabbage” within a short time the word cabbage would take on the full meaning of the word family because family accurately describes the structure of human life. I have also experienced that the truth is usually to be found in the possession of those who do not crack up at errors of others.
That ‘full meaning’ is hardly a positive one, nor one necessary to a church context. Tangentially,I’m pretty sure that your opinion of the connotations of the word ‘traveller’ is , to say the least, quite different from that in the middle/upper class culture that worships most devoutely at the Shrine of The Family, so it’s odd that you either don’t know or don’t care about the fact that ‘family’ is a problematic word for many (irrespective of what they ‘should’ feel). Not sure what your last sentence is getting at ,unless its tuning up for some more ‘poetry’.
The F word is not Family. At its best the f word is a vacuous expletive, which can well be replaced by something like ‘sugar!’ As an adjective it suggests an inadequate vocabulary. At worst it is demeaning, belittling abusive and thoroughly impolite.
I think that you have outrun your cleverness on this one. This is, of course, not a matter of theology, but simple courtesy and politeness. To take a word which may be unhelpful for you, but is clearly full of positive values for others, and hitch it to possibly the coarsest word in common usage risks causing offence. I find it offensive.
I accept entirely that some people’s experience of family may not be entirely positive. I accept that most people’s experience of family may indeed be mixed, but I would argue that in itself makes the family metaphor entirely appropriate to describe the Church.
I have never yet served in a Church which was like a perfect family. But we go on aspiring. The more we insist on the imperfect nature of family as we experience it, the more appropriate it is to use family as a metaphor for the Church. The struggles and battles and disappointments, the envy and jealousy, the hurts and slights and so much more are all replicated in the life of the Church. So course are the delighs and joys in each other, the achievements singly and together and the often unnoticed and unremarked kndnesses and acts of caring and affirmation which we call love. I see them in the family and I see them in the Church.
I wonder what it is that people find so difficult about the idea of a perfect family? Is it something of the idea of closeness, the togetherness, which I find largely lacking in ‘community’ or ‘household of faith.’ I find these two rather cold, business-like. The first is so vague that it could refer to any bunch of folk not actually fighting each other, or perhaps to a gathering of thinkers… The second sounds like a property qualification for the vote (and was)
Frankly I struggle to find another metaphor for the Church which expresses both the success and the failure which is the Church.
Nonsense, Peter! Christians might have to believe that swearing isn’t Big or Clever, but as Stephen Fry (again!) pointed out, the idea that swearing indicates a poor vocabulary is an utter myth, on a par with those other schoolmarm dimbulb truisms like ‘you’re not allowed to start a sentence with But’ or ‘people who speak in RP are more intelligent than those who speak scots ‘. The greatest novel of the 20th century (Ulysses) is pretty sweary.
This may not help, but several times I’ve led or contributed to seminars on the effect of attaching the word Cathedral to a building and the consequent positive and negative expectations and mission imperatives of such a designation.
The name I give to these seminars?
Obvious, really – “The C Word”.
Poem for Ryan.
Careless Words.
They talk about them
like they are not there
they talk about them
like they do not hear
they talk about them
with a wink and a nod
as though everyone agrees
and everyone knows what they mean
when they say “traveller”
They make grandiose statements
career ending statements
hounded out of public office statements
if they made them about any other group
any other group in the world
apart from “travellers”
They would gladly load the cattle trucks
all that’s lacking is a law
all that’s lacking is the paper work
the corporate abdication of personal responsibility
and the police would obey the law
and the army would obey the law
they could muster an Einsatzgruppen in a day
And if you stand perfectly still
in this slip of the lip
you can feel Humanity slip
you can feel the Earth slip
toward oblivion.
Thank you for this. This is what I think People should be caring about – the plight of our fellow man when we know in our deepest conciousness that injustice is being done