God Goes Gender Neutral

The Scottish Episcopal Church isn't the biggest religious organization around, but it made a big splash with its recent decision to no longer refer to God as male.

The change was made after female priests, whom the Scottish Episcopal Church began to ordain in 1994, asked why they still had to use male-centered language in their sermons. So, after some serious discussion about what they knew would be a controversial move, bishops unveiled a new service in which all masculine pronouns have been replaced with a gender-neutral variety, while the trinity of "Father, Son, and Holy Ghost" is now "Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier." Even the word "mankind" got the boot, exchanged for "world" (it's about time for some recognition that women comprise half the population). These changes are currently optional, so traditionalist or sexist priests aren't forced to update their language, and, at least for now, don't apply to direct quotations from the Bible, which will be preserved in their historical appearance.

"God is above and beyond human gender," explained Rev. Darren McFarland, convener of the church's liturgy committee. "We are not saying God is not masculine. God is also feminine. The problem is trying to use human language to describe the indescribable." In essence, just because sexist society used masculine terms to refer to God, the Scottish Episcopal Church doesn't believe that they should be bound to that simple conception of God. It might be harder for some to envision a gender neutral God, but that's no excuse for entrenched sexism. And, hey, maybe Lady Gaga can give them some tips on bucking gender constraints.

Of course, critics of the change condemn this alteration as mere political correctness, or try to argue that the word "man" is itself a gender neutral term. But if you're a woman listening to a service, or a woman priest giving it, it makes a huge difference to constantly hear references to the man in the sky you're supposed to worship, rather than a supernatural being without gender; to refer to God as male will always make it difficult for women to achieve full equality, even in a progressive denomination like this one.

And I just laugh when I hear it argued that the term "man" is gender neutral. God has been painted with a beard for centuries because when churches refered to him in male terms, they meant that he is male. This also came in handy for excluding women from church hierarchy. If "man" or "mankind" were such a gender neutral terms, then women in the Scottish Episcopal Church wouldn't have needed to fight for the right to be ordained until 1994, and women in the Catholic Church wouldn't still be battling for the right to stand behind their brothers in the priesthood.

H/T Shakesville

Photo credit: Inha Leek Hale