Saying God's instead of His

[Elizabeth2]

benedictgal;3235316:

I have never proposed a change to the texts of the Mass. I’m only suggesting that we respect how some people want to express their love for God, even if it is different from the way we ourselves express it.

The important thing is “how do the Scriptures and the Church express it.” I have never taken it as an affront to my sex that God is Father, that Jesus is male, and even the Holy Spirit is referred to as He by Jesus, at the Last Supper. I find it annoying that people play around with words where God is concerned. I think the way God is described in the Scriptures is there for a reason. We even had an example of political correctness in the Liturgy here in Canada. In one of the readings the text read: “I saw one like a human being” when the original text said “I saw one like a Son of Man”. I understand that things like this will be corrected pretty soon. I hope so.
A hymn I heard recently at another Church:
“Alleluia, Alleluia, give thanks to the risen Christ
Alleluia, Alleluia, give praise to God’s name.”
As a woman I’m not afraid of the words Lord, his, him, he when referring to God.

 

[JimG]

And finally there is this, from an Evangelical, who takes exception not only to inclusive language bible translations, but to the near total encroachment of the inclusive language agenda within academia:
“I wonder if there isn’t a word out there to describe this state of affairs. Oh yes . . . how could I have forgotten . . . of course there is a word. The word is censorship.”

PS–perhaps I do the author a disservice by merely identifying him as an evangelical. He is Louis Markos, Professor in English, Houston Baptist University,

He notes that after acquiring his PhD in English, he was quite relieved to go to Houston Baptist, where is use of English was no longer censored.

 

[drpmjhess]

Rather than jump into the argument…I mean discussion… I though I would share a story. A couple of years back I had the opportunity to occasionally attend daily Mass at the Cathedral - sometimes a couple of times a week.

This is a sad story about a confrontation that was completely unnecessary. I wonder how love and understanding on both your parts might have changed the outcome.

 

[drpmjhess]

Why is this nonissue suddenly an issue?

Precisely – why is this non-issue such an issue? In our parish no one holds an inquisition into whether or why other people use or do not use inclusive language. It’s a non-issue.

 

[drpmjhess]

They are remaining in a world without the light of Christ. That’s the difference. Islam is a step backwards from Christianity (not in “lineage”, but in “progress”). They are subject to a darkness that can be dispelled by Christ (as is much of the world).

The similarities are that both Islam and CAF
(1) reject inclusive language in prayer
(2) insist on keeping women in their “proper place” and
(3) mutually insist that the other is eternally lost without their own respective brand of revelation, Muhammed or Christ. “Nulla salus extra ecclesiam” and “Muhammed is God’s only prophet” are mirror images of each other.

 

[Elizabeth2]

The similarities are that both Islam and CAF
(1) reject inclusive language in prayer
(2) insist on keeping women in their “proper place” and
(3) mutually insist that the other is eternally lost without their own respective brand of revelation, Muhammed or Christ. “Nulla salus extra ecclesiam” and “Muhammed is God’s only prophet” are mirror images of each other.

1. The Church doesn’t reject inclusive language in prayer. There is no objection to using brothers and sisters when it comes to the letters of St. Paul for instance. There is only an objection when it comes to distorting the truth about God.
2. There are many women in positions of influence in the Catholic Church.
3. The Church teaches that anyone who lives according to the light they have been given, can be saved. But, it says that they will be saved through the saving power of Jesus’ death and resurrection, whether they know it in this life or not. They will know it in the next.
   There is a vast difference between Islam and Christianity. Christianity teaches the value and worth of every single human being as a child of God.

 

[drpmjhess]

1. The Church doesn’t reject inclusive language in prayer. There is no objection to using brothers and sisters when it comes to the letters of St. Paul for instance. There is only an objection when it comes to distorting the truth about God.

Ah, so in prayer it’s acceptable to refer to both the feminine and masculine dimensions of our ontologically genderless God.

 

[japhy]

The similarities are that both Islam and CAF
(1) reject inclusive language in prayer
(2) insist on keeping women in their “proper place” and
(3) mutually insist that the other is eternally lost without their own respective brand of revelation, Muhammed or Christ. “Nulla salus extra ecclesiam” and “Muhammed is God’s only prophet” are mirror images of each other.

On #1, inclusive language, when it is procured through the neutering of existing exclusive language, is the problem. When you eschew “Our Father, …” in preference for “Our Creator” or “Our Mother”, you are making a statement about the universality (catholicity!) of Jesus’s words. “All men are created equal” did not have to be changed, the (narrow) understanding of “men” had to be changed; similarly, “for us men and for our salvation” needn’t change, but the narrow understanding of some people who see “men” in this context as exclusive.

On #2, I’m in favor of keeping women in their proper place, and men in their proper place. By “proper”, I mean that place ordained for them by God. I am opposed to female ordination because the Church has consistently taught it has no authority to ordain women because God gave the Church no such power, that the priestly (and diaconatial (?)) charism is a gift from God to males.

On #3, extra ecclesiam nulla salus is a dogma of the Church. The Church has always taught Her universal necessity and the universal salvificity of Jesus Christ. This goes back to Acts 4:8-12. Vatican II didn’t change this.

 

[drpmjhess]

but the narrow understanding of some people who see “men” in this context as exclusive.
.

The narrowness and pettiness is on both sides; the Church is large enough for both!

Inclusive language is here to stay in the broader society, whether conservative Catholics want it or not. Of course, the Church does not have to become inclusive just to please the wider society.

 

[JimG]

There is no objection to using brothers and sisters when it comes to the letters of St. Paul for instance.

However, if that’s not what St. Paul actually wrote, then the translator is putting words into his mouth. Not the translator’s job.

 

[drpmjhess]

However, if that’s not what St. Paul actually wrote, then the translator is putting words into his mouth. Not the translator’s job.

JimG, does one refer to altar girls as “altar boys,” or is it acceptable to use the inclusive language of “altar servers” here? Someone on this thread objected last week to “chairperson,” arguing that all committee chairs are to be referred to as “chairman” regardless of their gender.

 

[japhy]

JimG, does one refer to altar girls as “altar boys,” or is it acceptable to use the inclusive language of “altar servers” here? Someone on this thread objected last week to “chairperson,” arguing that all committee chairs are to be referred to as “chairman” regardless of their gender.

I’ve never known the word “boy” to have the same inclusive sense that “man” does. I call female altar servers “altar servers” or “altar girls”. I refer to myself (when I served in that capacity) as an “altar boy”.

 

[sphilomena]

Then there’s this lady, who is not a liturgist, but she writes this on
the “Pansy and Peony” blog:

“My personal perspective as a woman, a reader, a mother, and a Christian, is that I hate inclusive language,” giving her reasons here

Love what she wrote on her blog!

 

[JimG]

I’ve never known the word “boy” to have the same inclusive sense that “man” does. I call female altar servers “altar servers” or “altar girls”. I refer to myself (when I served in that capacity) as an “altar boy”.

Thanks. I concur with your reply. The word ‘boy’ is not generic in the same sense as the word ‘man’ which has had a generic meaning in several languages for millenia.

Also, in the word ‘chairman,’ the final ‘a’ is pronounced like a neutral e; chair-mun; it is not, in my view, a gender-specific term, and could easily be used for either gender

 

[JimG]

I can’t help but quote from Professor Markos once more. His essay sums up my own views on the matter quite well. I would urge everyone to read the essay.

“Gender-inclusive language is, again, a wholly new thing; yet, its very vocal proponents act as if it were the most obvious and natural thing in the world: the necessary endpoint of thousands of years of linguistic evolution. Buoyed up on a wave of what C. S. Lewis called “chronological snobbery,” they feel no shame in blithely sweeping away three millennia of traditional syntactical structures that are shared alike by Hebrew, Greek, Latin, English and the majority of other world languages. Never mind that the English man/mankind is an exact equivalent of the Greek anthropos; we now know better than both our English and Greek forebears, and it is our duty to set them both straight.”

Source

 

[drpmjhess]

I can’t help but quote from Professor Markos once more. His essay sums up my own views on the matter quite well. I would urge everyone to read the essay.]

JimG, you may be right that gender-inclusive language is relatively new; so is the abolition of slavery and female suffrage. I suspect the clock will never be turned back to exclusive language in secular contexts in the developed world. It will be up to Islam and conservative Catholicism to stem the tide against it in religion.

 

[benedictgal]

JimG, you may be right that gender-inclusive language is relatively new; so is the abolition of slavery and female suffrage. I suspect the clock will never be turned back to exclusive language in secular contexts in the developed world. It will be up to Islam and conservative Catholicism to stem the tide against it in religion.

First the Taliban and now slavery! These two things are not even germaine to the argument at hand and give the appearance that, perhaps, at this point, you are merely shooting a rifle towards the sky and hoping that a duck will fall down. Sorry, but, no ducks have fallen.

There are those who perhaps see themselves as superior because they allow themselves to be carried away the latest fashion and trend. This approach may work if you are in the fashion business or if you are running for politics, but, it cannot and should not be the same with the Church.

So far, you have not given us one concrete shred of bona fide commentary to support your position. You gave book citations, but, I suspect that these authors may not be in line with authentic Church teaching, whereas, you cannot get more authentic than Pope Benedict XVI.

 

[James0235]

This is a sad story about a confrontation that was completely unnecessary. I wonder how love and understanding on both your parts might have changed the outcome.

Nope. Any anger on my part was certainly righteous anger. I was not the one who was purposefully abusing the Liturgy.

She decided to make an issue of it. I made numerous attempts to avoid conflict by changing seats. Apparently she sometimes would decide to “target” someone with the hope that they would eventually just give in and join her in her disobedience to the Liturgical texts and her bizarre “female God” theology.

The part that is the saddest is that she is a nun - a bride of Christ. She should have followed the Church and not some radical feminist ideology that encourages heresy.

James

 

[benedictgal]

Nope. Any anger on my part was certainly righteous anger. I was not the one who was purposefully abusing the Liturgy.

She decided to make an issue of it. I made numerous attempts to avoid conflict by changing seats. Apparently she sometimes would decide to “target” someone with the hope that they would eventually just give in and join her in her disobedience to the Liturgical texts and her bizarre “female God” theology.

The part that is the saddest is that she is a nun - a bride of Christ. She should have followed the Church and not some radical feminist ideology that encourages heresy.

James

That is what makes it worst of all. Unfortunately, that is the trend that we are witnessing. A childish faith seeks to follow every whim and fancy. It is not grounded in anything substantial. It is like the seed planted along a pathway (as recorded in Jesus’ parable of the sower). Birds will eat it up (getting swallowed by bad doctrine) or the wind will blow it away (much like what the Pope was talking about in his relativism remarks).

No, you had every right to stand your ground and continue to hold firm.

 

[TMC]

Gender inclusive language may be new, at least in English, but the idea that God is neither male nor female, or what is more accurate, encompasses both the male and the female while simultaneously transcending easch is not new. Adam and Eve are both created in God’s image. God is referred to in Scripture with both masculine and feminine qualities. Can there be any doubt of this? Mankind encompasses two genders, will we limit God to only one?

Both Jesus and Paul instruct us to call God Abba - which means Father, but is really more familiar, closer to “Dad”. We should follow this instruction, but understand what it means. It means that God is not a fearsome and remote being that we do not know and cannot relate to, except through fear. Many of those Jesus taught, and most if not all of those Paul taught, saw God that way. They are emphasizing God’s relationship to us - not God’s circumscribing God’s nature. They are telling us how to approach God, not describing a limitation on God. So yes, we should call God Father, but we can also call God Mother.