Why I choose inclusive language

Almost two years ago, a good friend of mine asked me why I thought it was so important to use inclusive language in the church. I don’t remember exactly how I responded, but I remember that my answer was less-than-stellar. I didn’t know how to put into words why I thought it important, just that I knew it was.

But now, having studied more about this issue, I am far more prepared to defend my choice.

Dr. Naomi K. Walker, the Music/Worship pastor at Immanuel Baptist Church in Frankfort, KY, summed up the importance of inclusive language on her blog back in June:

Language shapes thought. Thought precedes action. And our grammar rules and practices keep women linguistically invisible. Our moderate churches say they are including women, but unless church leaders are intentional about including them through deliberate, consistent use of gender-inclusive language, women will remain second-class members in most churches.

I see this as greatly important to how we name God. With so many options for naming God, resorting to gendered terms sets specific standards. Naming God in only masculine terms assigns gender to God and thus places human restrictions on the Divine. By referring to God through solely masculine terminology, many assumptions dealing with gender roles and identities are enforced. This undergirds the patriarchal systems under which scripture was written, the systems that allow for continued discrimination of women in churches across the world.

The churches in which I grew up discriminated profoundly against women, even if tacitly. These churches would not have functioned if not for the female membership. Behind every deacon was a deacon’s wife. For all intents and purposes, most if not all of these deacons’ wives were as active in the deacon ministry as their husbands. Yet they would never be ordained as such, nor would they be recognized as true ministers.

I have now had the opportunity to be led in worship by three different female pastors. Each of them has had a profound impact on my understanding of scripture. They have understood pastoral care better than any of the male pastors I have had in my life. Additionally, they each have been dynamic preachers, offering the most challenging sermons I have ever heard in my life.

I also now use The Inclusive Bible: The First Egalitarian Translation as my Christian enchiridion. It is a beautiful translation that, as one of my former pastors says, “takes the guesswork out of it.” No masculine pronouns are used to describe the Holy. Instead, this translation makes use of the term Yhwh, or Yahweh. The entire translation really does take the guesswork out of making the language inclusive. I recommend it to everyone. It is available on Amazon.com as well as your local Cokesbury bookstore.

This morning, my pastor, Rev. Sarah Jackson Shelton, told a story about her experience teaching at an Acteens camp. She had agreed to preach at this camp as an Associate Pastor, before the Southern Baptist Convention famously voted to disallow women to hold a pastorate. That vote occurred one week before Sarah was scheduled to go to camp, though she had already seen the signs and had resigned from her church. She called up the camp director and asked if she should change what she was planning to speak about.

“Can we in good conscience encourage these girls to use their God-given gifts when we’re sending them home to churches that will not support them?” she asked.

The camp director wisely replied, “If we don’t affirm them, who will?”

I can blog and yell and cry out about inclusiveness in the church all I want. I can only be so affective. The real agents of change are pastors like those I have had who lead churches, not in spite of the fact that they are women, but because they are women. They do not let the misogynistic false doctrines of certain denominations keep them from living into the calls they have felt on their lives. Each has responded to her vocation.

It is for the sake of women like my pastors, like my sister, and like those girls at Acteens camp that we must strive to use inclusive language when talking about God. It is for them that we have to break down patriarchal constructs within the church so that they may live out their vocations.

So in answer to my friend of two years ago, I choose to use inclusive language because God is neither a man nor a woman. Because anyone should be allowed to respond to a call on his or her life. Because all of us are called, as Christians, to be intentional about how we live out our faith. That intention should include how we weave the story of God from generation to generation. Let us choose to empower everyone who feels a call to ministry, regardless of gender. And let us use non-gendered terms for God so that all may have equal access to the Divine.