Tag: Inclusive Language
God’s Response to Being Asked: What’s Your Preferred Pronoun?
August 2021 Poetry Selection
Imagine that awkward moment when mortals arrive
at my pearly gates only to find I am neither XX nor XY.
Imagine that awkward moment when mortals arrive
at my pearly gates only to find I am neither XX nor XY.
The Gospel According to H. L. Hix
"Kurios, often translated as “Lord,” is translated “Boss,” to more closely reflect the original sense of Kurios and to eliminate a word that holds little relevance for present-day readers. Reading Jesus as the Boss always made me think I’m reading about Bruce Springsteen."
Hersay: Songs for Healing and Empowerment
"As people of faith, we are already familiar with the ability music has to bring our own communities together, but Katie and Jann go further, to explain how “singing creates unity and builds a foundation for a peaceful and sustainable world..."
Language About God Matters
April 23, 2018
"Language is never separate from our experiences. When several years ago I awakened to how limited our speaking about God in masculine...
Church of Sweden Adopts Inclusive Language for God
December 27, 2017
"According to the Church of Sweden, it’s preferable not to refer to God as a "he." The official decision to use gender-neutral...
Where can I find music and hymns that use inclusive language?
Hymns, anthems, and other songs that don’t jolt women out of their seats are available and becoming more widely used. “I will make you fishers of men” is so last-century.
What is inclusive language?
Inclusive language is a way of speaking that includes everyone. It contrasts with male-centered (androcentric) language that addresses the church as “brethren” or other ways of speaking that exclude some people.
Revisiting Re-Imagining
"We worshiped as feminists, sharing rituals grounded in women’s experiences and using feminine language for God. These rituals included a milk and honey ritual that celebrated the goodness of women’s bodies and a song that affirmed the wisdom of women as created in the image of God..."
How I Learned to Call God Mother: A One-Person Experiment
I can see now that, like my spiritual director said long ago, my image of God was all wrong. My gut feeling was that my own best interest was second to God’s. The image of God as Father left me with too few harbors to go for emotional safety. He would send me out to sea, endlessly, on some errand of his own design, as he did Jonah.
Toward an Inclusive Incarnation: Easter and Male Divinity
Don’t question what it means that a man saved us from sin; don’t question what it means that it was a man who died for humanity; and don’t question why it is a man who promises to raise us all in the same way.
2016 #GCNConf – First Timer Reflections – Jann Aldredge-Clanton
As I listened to people’s stories, my heart ached over the pain they have suffered from denunciation and rejection by church and family, and I felt inspired by their courage in claiming who they’re created to be and working to liberate their churches from homophobia and unjust, unloving actions.
True Colors: Celebrating the Truth and Beauty of the Real You
Susan's theology is overwhelmingly inclusive and accepting. She trusts deeply in the love of God for all people, and it shows in every word. This loving, large, expansive God is contrasted with the "in a box" God as seen in many churches and leaders and theology.
Calling God “She” — It’s Just Another Pronoun!
To linguistically portray God as a father, or God as a woman giving birth, or an eagle, or a sacred wind, all of those things put a limiting image up to represent God. And, for that matter, so do the three letters, G-O-D. All the ways we choose to refer to God are images, all are limited representations, all are potentially idolatrous symbols. But all our metaphors and ways of referring to God are not necessarily idolatrous. Only potentially.
“God the Mother”— The Sacred Feminine In Christianity
Something CFT members have been writing and speaking about for years, embracing inclusive language and using female pronouns and metaphors for God, is no longer the taboo subject it once was.
She Lives! — A New Book by Jann Aldredge-Clanton
"She Lives!" (the exclamation point is part of the title), helps us move beyond the limited gender binary to see God as both male and female, yet strictly speaking, neither male nor female, and at the same time inclusive of all gender identities.”
Earth Transformed with Music! Inclusive Songs for Worship
This collection brings timeless melodies, made sacred by years of being sung in worship, and places them firmly in the present with words that make sense and relate to today’s issues. When the words make sense, the message easily rides on the breath right to the singer’s heart.
Blind Spots and New Vision: Virginia Mollenkott’s The Divine Feminine
If you are grappling with lifelong patriarchal teachings about God and Christianity, pick up this gentle book! It is packed with information that will help. It will enrich your life. It has truly enriched mine. Through these pages, I see that my precious God and Savior not only is reflected in my father, but is also a God who “looks” like my mother —and me!
God is Not a Guy, and Neither Am I!
"Just when I thought we’d about eliminated the so-called 'generic' use of 'man' because it really is exclusive, up pops 'you guys' almost everywhere. Women and girls seem to use 'you guys' as much as men and boys do. So why do females think they’re included in 'you guys'?"
Birthing God: Women’s Experiences of the Divine
Interviews with forty women from a variety of religious traditions—Taosim, Judaism, Zen Buddhism, Islamic Sufism, Indigenous, Hindu, Religious Science, and Christianity, including several women who are part of Ebenezer Lutheran Church, more commonly known as “herchurch.”
Fearing the Feminine or Embracing Our Mother
"Multiplied over the course of a lifetime, it is easy to see how our culture reinforces male preference at the same time it methodically undermines any sense of well-being and confidence a woman works to cultivate. Our exclusive language continues to make women invisible and in some cases our derogatory language aimed at women reinforces an insidious sexism that is more difficult to expunge than the more easily located, explicit variety."
Why Inclusive Language Is Important
The more controversial issue is language about God – the capital “He.” Some people seem to be convinced that God really is male. Many of these are the same people who answer, “God made man is His image” and assume that is, in some way, a literal statement.
Why Inclusive Language Is Still Important
The prevalent worship of an exclusively male Supreme Being is the strongest support imaginable for the dominance of men. Some advocate using only female divine references for the next 2000 years to rebaptize our imaginations that have been so fully immersed in masculine divine images.
Commentary on “We Sound a Call to Freedom” Video
The Bible links Sophia (Wisdom) to Christ. The apostle Paul refers to Christ as the “power of God and the Wisdom (Sophia) of God” (1 Corinthians 1:24), and states that Christ “became for us Wisdom (Sophia) from God” (1 Corinthians 1:30).
Creating Learned Helplessness, One Potluck at a Time
It seems, in my experience (and by what I’ve observed) that most church potlucks are still initiated, organized, and managed by women. Why is that? Why are women the ones who stay long after everyone else is gone, cleaning the kitchen (while a few men linger to stack chairs)?
Transforming Vision: Explorations in Feminist The*logy
Wisdom does not make distinctions between public and private or spiritual and sacred. For wisdom, all of life is full of the divine and to be lived to the full.
Changing Church: Stories of Liberating Ministers
Jann Aldredge-Clanton, a Baptist minister, is crystal clear about the relationship between God-language and social systems: “The strongest support imaginable for the dominance of men is the worship of an exclusively masculine Supreme Being.”
Standing Firm in My Convictions (Maybe. . .)
Sometimes, when I don’t respond to what I consider an offensive comment, when I let claims about “how women should be” go unchallenged, even when I bypass a teachable moment (as with my student), I wonder if I am merely a coward, unwilling or unable to put myself out there not only for myself, and my feminist identity, but also for my sisters and brothers who are oppressed, if only by the church’s expectations about what it means to be a woman, or a man.
Jann Aldredge-Clanton Interview
In Changing Church I tried to reflect not only racial and ethnic diversity, but also diversity in sexual orientation and Christian denominations. To pursue their calling some of these ministers have overcome obstacles not only of sexism but also of racism and/or heterosexism.
God the What? What Our Metaphors for God Reveal About Our Beliefs in God
Bringing the examination of God's power and will into the discussion, Bohler discusses how in many life crises and natural disasters, what we perceive about God's power, ability and willingness to control events, and how we perceive God's care for us in that crisis, affects what we pray, how we pray, and whether we feel God answers or even cares.
Is It Okay To Call God “Mother”?: Considering the Feminine Face of God
I was convinced before I read this book that it was okay to refer to God in feminine ways. Yet reading the book was refreshing and rejuvenating. It encouraged me to use "she" and "her" more often when referring to God, both when talking one-on-one and when talking to my classes. Sometimes conviction also needs courage, and this book gives it.
Songs as Yet Unsung
by Mary Louise Bringle
My vocation as a Christian feminist hymnwriter began accidentally—and perhaps even a bit irreverently. Never let it be said that God...
Carolyn Bohler: One God, Many Metaphors
She writes, “God is like a Father, a Daddy, Abba Mia, My Daddy, ”but only in the same sense that God is like a Nursing Mother or Shepherd or a nonparental image such as Intimate Friend, or Guide or Rock or Light. “
The Inclusive Bible
Not only is the appearance of one-way submission corrected in a way that is actually more in line with the Greek text, but the insights are made accessible to people in nontraditional relationships. In fact, the Priests for Equality frequently use the word partner where the Oxford version sticks to the more traditional husband and wife...
An Empty Pew
Careful to avoid parking in the reserved "visitor" space, I found my way to a few United Methodist Churches within fifteen to twenty minutes from my house. Comforted that none of my choices turned out to be mega-church wannabes with huge white screens and coffee-house coffee, I felt somewhat hopeful that my opening to faith community would end favorably.
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