Inclusive Language

Due to the lack of an inclusive third person singular pronoun in English and due to the traditional use of the masculine noun and pronoun for referring to a generic person, English-speaking peoples have through their language implied a secondary status for women. Recently, some churches have attempted to correct this androcentrism of the English language. Some have dismissed these alterations as trivial, while others have expressed concern about the intent of such changes, especially regarding those terms that convey our images of God. The growing importance of this issue ensures that lively debate will continue for some time.

The question of inclusive language in liturgy and biblical translation has been a subject of considerable controversy in the English-speaking church. The issue has been raised in connection with other languages as well. In the United States and also in Canada where feminism has been advanced in the churches and theological seminaries and where increasing numbers of women are being ordained to the ministry, there has been particular attention to this issue. The definition of inclusive language depends on a perception of current English usage as characterized by androcentrism. The male is taken to be the normative human person; i.e., the word man connotes both the male and the human being as such. Male pronouns are used as generic pronouns. The term woman and female pronouns are never used as generic references for a human being, but are exclusive terms for females. This pattern of grammar is not a linguistic accident. It has developed under the influence of a patriarchal social order, in which the male head of family was regarded legally as the representative human person. On the other hand, women and other dependents could not represent themselves, but were included under the male head of family. This patriarchal social pattern is further reflected in theological language by referring to the community of Christians as brothers, by referring to that same community, in relation to God, as sons, and by using images for God that correspond to male leadership roles, such as father, lord, and king. Male generic language renders women invisible as autonomous persons and conveys the implicit message that women are secondary and dependent beings, whose relationship to males is analogous to the relationship of human creatures to God. This pattern of male generic language has today come to be recognized as incompatible with the equal dignity of female and male as human persons. The corrections of male generic language can be done either by using neutral generics, such as person rather than man, or by adding words that connote the female counterpart to the male term, such as brothers and sisters rather than brothers. Avoidance of male generic pronouns can be accomplished by repeating the noun, or by using either he or she or them in place of the generic he. The objections to this have often been the sense of the awkwardness of style, due to the lack of an inclusive third person singular pronoun in English. However, in liturgical usage, this awkwardness can often be avoided by substituting first and second person pronouns, we and you or thou, in places where such direct address is appropriate in the language of the prayer. Such rewriting of the language of hymns, readings, and liturgical prayers has often been done on a local basis by church groups concerned about the issue. The most ambitious effort at developing inclusive language for church usage has been the Inclusive Language Lectionary mandated by the Division of Education and Ministry of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA. Since 1980, a three-year cycle of lectionary readings in inclusive language has been in preparation for use by the member churches. The committee of the Inclusive Language Lectionary has undertaken to provide inclusive terms, not only for human beings, but also for God. Theologically, the committee understands its mandate for such inclusive language for God as based on the fundamental affirmations that God is, by nature, beyond gender and that all images for God derived from gender roles are metaphorical, not literal. To use exclusively male metaphors for God implies either that God is literally male or that males alone are the appropriate human images for God. Such an assertion implies that women are not truly theomorphic; that is, do not possess the image of God. If women are truly equivalent with men as images of God, then metaphors for God drawn from female roles should be as appropriate as metaphors drawn from male roles. Consequently, the Inclusive Language Lectionary adds the word mother to that of father as a metaphor for God's parental relationship to humanity. It also substitutes neutral generic terms, such as sovereign or ruler, for terms of male leadership roles, such as lord or king. In relation to Christology, the committee uses male nouns and pronouns for Jesus Christ's historical humanity, but substitutes inclusive terms for the divine Word or the second person of the Trinity manifest in Christ's historical person, such as child of God for Son of God. The term Son of Man as a messianic title has been replaced by the term the Human One, as a translation of the Hebrew term ben Adam, a term which, although male generic in form, means simply "?a human being.?" These changes of language, not only for humans, but also for God and Christ, have provoked profound anxiety and animosity among church members, as well as church leaders. Clearly, inclusive language is not simply an academic matter, but strikes deeply at people's emotional feelings about their sexual and social identity. Although inclusive language is sometimes decried as trivial, the depths of emotion stirred by this question suggests that the implications are complex and far-reaching. Part of the anxiety comes simply from the sense of being deprived of familiar language, which has acquired great emotional resonance through usage in prayer and worship. For many, the word itself is the bearer of the realty to which it points. To have the words father and lord vanish from public worship to be replaced by father and mother and sovereign is experienced as a literal loss of the familiar divine presence for an alien divinity. For some, underlying this sense of the loss of familiar language is a deeper association of male generic language with the social and cosmic order and a fear that all right order is upset if male and female stand on the same plane socially and as metaphors for the divine. Thus, the question of inclusive language points to profound connections between language and the experience of reality, which have only begun to be explored. Relevant titles include: An Inclusive Language Lectionary: Readings for Year A, 1983; Readings for Year B, 1984; Barbara A. Withers, ed., Language and the Church, 1984.