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August 27, 2005Gender Neutral Holy TrinityDenise Leslie, a delegate from Hope Lutheran Church in Cleveland Heights, said using language for God that includes women is important because “when you hear gender-neutral, things suddenly become more clear and comfortable.” Speak for yourself, toots. When I hear “gender neutral” I hear fingernails on a blackboard, everything becomes murky and earth-bound and I become dreadfully antsy and embarrassed. “Oh, no…” I find myself thinking, “once again we serve the idea that women are too stupid to understand that “mankind” includes them, and they’re too insecure in their understanding of their own sex to simply let God be - as Jesus called him - “Our Father.” The ELCA has decided to update the hymnal and remove those pesky masculine pronouns. “This is an important moment,” said Bishop Marcus Miller of the Northeastern Ohio Synod, which has some 93,000 members in 208 churches. “I’m happy. I’m convinced it will be a great blessing to the church.” Even Jesus has been “rendered neutral.” Which is just sad. And really small and insecure. And sad. When we were helping to build a local parish, a sister was part of the “pastoral team.” And she ran the choir, too, so immediately all masculine references to God were obliterated, - they couldn’t even use the word “Lord” - and the choir ended up sounding ridiculous, but sister was “clear and comfortable.” I find gender neutrality and the overuse of the word “God” for “He” to be hard on the ear - it plods…but it’s “correct.” God help us. Father? Unfortunately, the building team also allowed sister to pick the colors for the women’s bathroom…and you know, PINK was not allowed because it was “too stereotypically feminine” so she chose a really offensive mustard yellow - if you go into the bathroom you look like you’re dying of jaundice…but at least the monster of gender-predictability was wounded. The men, btw, have a nice grey and green bathroom. They don’t come out looking bilious. Feminists have a very misguided notion of how to celebrate the feminine. They seem to think the best way to celebrate the feminine is by rejecting every traditional notion of femininity, every “stereotypically feminine” idea, and embracing the masculine ideals…except when it comes to language, wherein either neutrality must reign or the feminine must dominate. It’s all so sterile, and cold. I can’t live there. If there is one thing about the feminist movement that drove me nuts, even when I was a liberal democrat, even when I counted myself among their number, it was this terror of the masculine pronoun. I distrust people who are so bogged down in counting every “he” and “him” so stuck right there, that they can’t move into transcendence. I know a woman who has said the Catechism of the Catholic Church has “nothing to say” to her, because the language is not inclusive. Imagine that. A book full of riches and information is useless to her because it uses words like “mankind.” That’s like saying that a chestnut tree, which provides shade and nourishment is useless to one, because its leaves are the wrong shape. I don’t much like inclusive language…but I don’t allow it to get in the way of worship or information. If I did, I’d be pretty closed off and bogged down. Who is opened, and who is closed? You cannot “be opened” if your heart is so set on expunging “offensive” words from a psalm that you cannot lift your eyes to the mountains from whence shall come your help. http://theanchoressonline.com/2005/08/27/gender-neutral-holy-trinity/trackback/ 15 Responses to “Gender Neutral Holy Trinity” |
August 27th, 2005 at 3:01 pm
I completely agree (once again), not only in terms of worship but in grammar in general.
I REFUSE to use the plural “they/ them/their” instead of the singular “he/him/his” when the gender is unknown or immaterial, as in “Everyone [singular] needs to get his book out.”
When a student first questioned me on this over 10 years ago, I explained that English doesn’t have a neuter, so we just neuter the males. The girls laughed and the boys squirmed, but it was not a problem.
BTW, The French do a similar thing with their language. Why don’t feminists attack that?
August 27th, 2005 at 4:05 pm
I received an email from a Lutheran friend a while back saying “God has no sex.” Really, how can you believe that and be a Christian? Jesus was not “gender-neutral.” He addressed his prayers to “Abba.” And he made it quite clear that women, like men, were loved by him and welcomed into His Kingdom as equals.
(My Lutheran friend said that Christianity abolishes the feminine element. To which I answered, speak for yourself!
We have Mary!)
Incidentally, I read more than one review of TPOTC which stated that Gibson’s Jesus was too masculine. That’s exactly one of the things I liked about the movie. But then, I like masculinity. (Not the macho perversions of masculinity, just as I don’t like those distortions of “femininity” which portray women as either being entirely emotional and incapable of logical thought, or dressing and behaving like sluts.)
People who try to erase sexual differences end up by devaluing both sexes.
August 27th, 2005 at 5:12 pm
Dear lady, there’s an easy way to fight back: Simply speak the language the way you were taught to speak it, without apology. It can make the self-appointed language police explode from simple internal pressure to encounter an English-speaker who’s not politically correct. As long as you stay staunch, never apologize, and never explain, you win.
See also this.
August 27th, 2005 at 9:28 pm
In-the-name-of-the-Holy-Eternal-Majesty-the-Holy-Incarnate-Word-and-the-Holy- Abiding-Spirit-amen does not roll off the tongue as easily as In nomine Patre, et Filii et Spiritus Sancti, amen.
August 27th, 2005 at 11:15 pm
“when you hear gender-neutral, things suddenly become more clear and comfortable.”
My dear Anchorperson (I don’t want to offend any of you out there by using a sexist “-ess”), OF COURSE things become more clear and comfortable. Don’t you know that almost every place that gender-neutral language is used, it has a tendency to drive out large numbers of common sense people? If the place is half-empty, of course things are going to be more clear.
August 27th, 2005 at 11:23 pm
I’ve seen fporretto’s advice in action, and believe you me, it works. We had a pastor who insisted on “neutering” our hymns; he ordered “corrected” hymnals. Our choirmaster responded by changing the words right back when he printed the handouts for the Mass. (Not only does he abhor PC-speak, as a professional musician, he finds it very offensive that the PC-Nazis are mucking around with the composer’s/lyricists hard work.) End result: Father was the only one singing the PC words; the rest of the congregation was ecstatically singing the traditional ones.
As I once said in a letter to a previous, liberal-minded bishop, “The radical feminists don’t speak for all of us. I’m not even sure they speak for most of us. They just speak the loudest.”
Perhaps “the squeaky wheel gets the oil,” but, on the other hands, “empty barrels make the loudest noise.”
August 28th, 2005 at 5:04 am
I’m a woman, and I am not the least bit troubled by the masculine pronouns used for the Father, certainly not for the Son–given he was a MALE in the physical sense, for pete’s sake–or even for the Spirit.
I was taught that it was polite to use the name and title a person preferred to be addressed by. If someone wants to be called Anne or Mrs. Sommers or Ms. Sommers or Miss Anne or Lady Anne, that’s what I call them. Since God himself, as he revealed himself to prophets and priests and kings and through his Son, wants to be called “Father” and “Lord” and uses the masculine pronoun for his own Spirit, I think it’s only right and true and obedient and–if one is a skeptic– COURTEOUS at the minimum to address Him as He designates.
I wouldn’t want someone calline me Mister or “he” just cause they choose to, contrary to my preference about my own self.
Mir
August 28th, 2005 at 11:39 am
Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do…
I do support minor revisions like removing the “men” from-
“Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven.” We can eliminate unnecessary references like that without changing the meaning, the substance or the spirit of the words.
August 28th, 2005 at 11:46 am
[...] (via The Anchoress) [...]
August 28th, 2005 at 5:55 pm
If someone wants to be called Anne or Mrs. Sommers or Ms. Sommers or Miss Anne or Lady Anne, that’s what I call them.
That reminds me of when I when to my first Spanish-language Mass, where for Lord Jesus, they said “Senor Jesus.” I got quite a laugh at the thought of Mr. Jesus.
August 28th, 2005 at 10:15 pm
Darrell, it may surprise you to know that I too support that change, mostly because it seems like an unnecessary “men” that does nothing to clarify. I have over the years found myself simply saying, “who for us and for our salvation”…it just seems to flow better…but we’re not supposed to just change things like that!
August 29th, 2005 at 12:15 am
Actually, it doesn’t surprise me at all: I know there is careful thought and consideration behind your opposition to change. I know we are not supposed to do it on our own, but…It did feel good when I started doing it in the 80’s. I believe it was just a mistake when I heard it myself for the first time, shortly before that..I forgotten word in a recitation of a prayer from memory. But I noticed how quickly people, especially women, followed along when I repeated it at the next Mass. The Holy Spirit? I don’t know. But it feels right. If we take away the unnecessary gender use, maybe the other nonsense will be forgotten. How about somebody making this change official? Pope Benedict?
August 29th, 2005 at 2:05 pm
Woo hoo, shout out to Cleveland Heights, the land of non-offensiveness. (Um, yeah, I live there. Haven’t yet met Ms. Leslie though.) I’ve got to disagree with you on one point, most-repected Anchoress. I think “men” in the creed has a definite purpose… otherwise who is this “us” who Jesus came for? Us Catholics? Us Christians? Us Americans? No! Us MEN (humans.) All of us. I see it as actually more inclusive than just saying “for us.”
August 29th, 2005 at 2:37 pm
We always start with the most inclusive definition first. “Us” means “humans” or “everyone” to most people. You could play the same sort of logical or semantic games with “us men”–men, not women; men of Italian ancestry; humans with beards…etc. Modifiers are the limiters:The fewer of them the better.
November 5th, 2006 at 1:08 am
[...] I’m working and I really don’t have time to be writing this, but I just got back something I wrote and it was edited in a way that allows the removal of “him” in reference to God, and replaces it with “God”. It made me so mad that I started looking into why it is so common. I read this fantastic article at The Anchoress. I’m glad there’s a woman out there who can see clearly and describe the line of bull that many women accept without question. Anyway, gotta go…read it. [...]