One of the most outspoken and brilliant books on the use of gender exclusive language was written by Brian Wren, the title, What Language Shall I Borrow? It is a sustained argument against male dominated language in discourse about God. Whereas today for many the worry is "the feminisation of the Church", Wren's concern has always been the "masculination of God". Words like King, Lord, Almighty, Father, Protector are words about power, strength, and are all masculine in their pronouns. Wren's complaint is, if God is spoken of in language which is gender exclusive or predominantly masculine, then it reinforces patriarchal discourse which in turn contributes to social structures which marginalise women. Equally unacceptable to Wren is that such masculine discourse and male reinforced privilege takes on biblical and theological rationalisations, which are then a completion of a circle of exclusion centred on a distorted discourse about God.This makes it absolutely crucial that the words we sing in our hymns should reflect the wholeness of human experience, male and female, young and old, in all our ethnic diversity and psychological uniqueness.
I will never forget the first sentence of a prophetic paper delivered by Ruth Edwards (pictured) at the Aberdeenshire Theological Club around 1990. Ruth was at the time Senior Lecturer in New Testament Exegesis at the University of Aberdeen, and is a recognised authority on greek language and Johannine studies. She was also one of the first women to be ordained priest in the Scottish Episcopal Church. I was privileged as her friend to be invited to stand with her following ordination in the celebratory prayer. Her paper on the theology of God and gender stereotypes began with her observation that in the imaginations of many Christians, it seems the Holy Trinity consists of a dad, his boy and a pigeon!
What followed was a carefully reasoned, biblically founded, exegetically persuasive and theologically combative exploration of the case for the ordination of women to Christian ministry. The foundation pillars of her argument were exegetical faithfulness to the biblical texts and a strong theological case for ensuring that our discourse about God was predicated on language which allowed for the full range of human experience. Metaphors we must have, but they must be rich and varied, faithful to the whole wide range of Scripture in their gender connotations. For that reason they must reflect the images not only of Father, King and Lord, but also of life-giving mother and self-giving birth, of protective tenderness and resilient resourceful parenting against all the odds and threats to her child. And much else. The prophets Hosea and Isaiah, the Genesis creation accounts, the example of Jesus in the Gospels and the contextual complexities of Paul's letters must all be weighed in to the exegetical and theological equations, and be allowed to contribute their metaphors, perspectives and diversities of discourse and context.
The love that Christ revealed was no male macho toughness, nor was it the indulgent sentimentality that never challenges or confronts. It is a love that Christ revealed as living and working in our world. Brian Wren's hymn below plays with such ideas of living, active, creative love. And in that Divine Love we all recognise and acknowledge and depend upon, are all those other loves in our lives that nurture and steward creation, that nourish by self-giving, that defend and will die for love of the child. God loves like that, Christ said so, and showed so. The feeding of hungry children, the making of home and the welcome of stranger, these are not exclusively feminine actions and dispositions, but nor are they exclusively male. Brian Wren uses these and other metaphors to explore and explain the work of God the Holy Spirit. The result is this hymn.
There's a spirit in the air,
telling Christians everywhere:
"Praise the love that Christ revealed,
living, working in our world."
Lose your shyness, find your tongue;
tell the world what God has done:
God in Christ has come to stay,
we can see his power today.
When believers break the bread
when a hungry child is fed:
praise the love that Christ revealed
living, working in our world.
Still his Spirit leads the fight,
seeing wrong and setting right:
God in Christ has come to stay,
we can see his power today.
When a stranger's not alone,
where the homeless find a home,
praise the love that Christ revealed,
living, working in our world.
May the Spirit fill our praise,
guide our thoughts and change our ways:
God in Christ has come to stay,
we can see his power today.
There's a Spirit in the air,
calling people everywhere:
praise the love that Christ revealed,
living, working in our world.
Fabulous Jim. We sang that hymn this past Sunday for Pentecost.
Posted by: Rebecca Werner Maccini | May 27, 2015 at 02:07 PM