A Progressive, Inclusive, and Relevant Approach to
the Use of Language in the Multicultural Church
Rev. Brian Hutchison,
M.Div.
One
of the defining elements of liturgy, literature, and speech in Metropolitan
Community Churches (MCC) is what we commonly call “inclusive language.” Inclusive
language is the practice of celebrating the experience of all peoples of all
ethnicities, cultures, abilities, gender identities and expressions, classes,
and sexual orientations. It is also the practice of affirming that if all
people are made in the image and likeness of God, that the images of God we
speak of and display must reflect the wide diversity of the human experience.
God is therefore for us not just Father, but also Mother. God is not only the
Light, but the deep Darkness of the mysterious night sky. And we also know that
these are just labels that we use to try to understand the Mystery Beyond Our
Naming. Those who come to MCC from another Christian tradition that does not
practice inclusive language may find this practice to be odd. After all, who
are we to change the Bible, tradition, and the language of hymns? Most churches
are not sensitive about language that has been traditionally been used, so why
should we be?
These
questions are first answered with another question: “Who and what do we give
authority over our practice of spirituality?” Some traditions have claimed solo scriptura, that only the Holy
Scriptures (whichever version of the Bible a given denomination chooses to call
the canon) have authority over people’s lives. This movement was born out of
resistance to unethical traditional teachings of the Roman Catholic Church
concerning purchasing salvation (by a method called “indulgences”) during the 16th
century, spurring the movement we now call the Protestant Reformation. German
Catholic priest Martin Luther (1483-1546) affirmed that humans are saved by
grace through faith, not through works (Ephesians 2:8). His stance gave scripture
authority over tradition. Such thought undermined the authority of the Western
church hierarchy, allowing individual movements to determine from scripture how
the Christian faith is to be practiced. With this historic movement came both
freedom and responsibility.
Another
reformer, John Wesley (1703-1791), a priest in the Church of England, developed
a model of four ways of experiencing the “revelation” of God in the walk of
discipleship. We now call it the Wesleyan Quadrilateral. The four (quad) ways
are 1) Scripture, 2) Tradition, 3)
Reason, 4) Experience. In the 21st century, liberal theologians
are finding that this model still holds true in seeking to find who we are
today as God’s people and in seeking how we are to build the Realm of God.
The
first element is scripture.
Accredited seminaries in the United States teach about the Bible within its
cultural context. Seminarians learn about the values, mores, taboos, and
various other sociological elements of the setting of each book of the Bible.
Students are taught “biblical exegesis,” commonly known as “Bible interpretation.”
Scholarly seminaries affirm that we cannot completely understand the message of
the Bible by reading it literally outside of context because we immediately
project our contemporary context onto the text. We find that detailed knowledge
of the Ancient Near East and its cultures is essential to a clear understanding
of scripture. It can in fact be a dangerous practice to read the Bible on one’s
own, giving authority to a certain passage without knowing the author’s social
location and probable intent. We instead must read the Bible with respect to
our own social location, as it meets that of the author. For example, I can
choose to disagree with the unanalyzed text of the two Deutero-Pauline letters
that literally appear to say that slaves should obey their masters (Colossians
3:22 and Ephesians 6:5-9).
When
we give the unanalyzed literal text the authority to scare us, oppress us, or
mute our existence as human beings made in the image of the Divine, we make the
Bible an idol. Some call this “bibliolotry.” We worship God in Spirit and in
truth by listening to the Spirit within and searching for the truth of the
message we receive through reading. The message inspires us, not lords over us.
The
second element is tradition. In MCC,
we come from many different backgrounds: Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox,
Protestant, Evangelical, and non-Christian. We are an interdenominational
movement that respects the gems of each tradition, rejecting the unloving,
essentially non-Christ like dogma that has formed through the privilege of
individuals in these traditions. When we claim that we are an “inclusive”
church, we mean that we celebrate the gems of many traditions. It does not mean
that we embrace the oppressive dogma[1]
of any tradition.
African
American same-gender-loving theologian Rev. Dr. Yvette Flunder (MCC and United
Church of Christ minister) writes, “Radical inclusivity’s primary goal is not
to imitate the mainline church. The true church belongs to God and is the body
of Jesus Christ; it cannot be owned exclusively by any denomination, person, or
group. Further, adherence to religious dogma is not freedom. There are wrongs
in organized religion due to oppressive theology, bibliolotry, and some
traditional beliefs, which prevent freedom for all people and which we can
never fully right. Radical inclusivity, however, is ministry rooted in
restoration- believing that God has given the church the work and ministry of
reconciliation and using the power of love to model and demonstrate the
radically inclusive love of Jesus Christ.”
Reverend
Flunder affirms for us that God transcends the boundaries that various churches
and denominations have attempted to put on God and God’s blessings. Simply for
who we are- God’s children, we access God right where we are in the ways that
we show loving hospitality.
The
third element is reason. In the
modern age, science and religion have been set by many as polar opposites, two
opposite ways of understanding our existence here on Earth. However, people of
faith are (obviously) humans and have been given the gift of reason too. We
cannot in good conscience take life-saving medications, put faith in the cars
and busses and airplanes that transport us, and plug anything into an
electrical outlet and then deny the truths of science. Darwin’s theory of
evolution does not have to be understood as the opposite of the creation myths
found in the Book of Genesis. We can safely claim as our truth that the Life
Force that we call God has been eternally omnipresent throughout time, in each
single-celled organism and in the human heart today. The two creation myths in
the Book of Genesis were not meant to be understood as literal history. Rather,
they simply demonstrate how a group of Semitic nomads understood its origins.
As all texts, we celebrate the gems of these myths without worshipping the
dogma that has been applied to them in tradition.
Reason
saves us when we are tempted to deny our thinking abilities by handing all our
power over to ancient worldviews. We worship God by using our God-given
intellect to discern the ethics of any given teaching. Faith and rational
thinking are not mutually exclusive.
The
fourth element is experience. We
know through reading documents from over the ages that our experience of life
is drastically different than the experience of those in the Near East between
4000 BCE (before the Common Era) and 200CE (in the Common Era). We also know
that even in our own time, our experiences differ based on where we
geographically live in the world and what cultures we affiliate with. A middle
class 40-year-old Caucasian male American, a 60-year-old working class Chinese
woman, a homeless male-to-female transgender African woman, a Polish 95-year
old male holocaust survivor, and a
10-year-old upper class South American boy all have very different life
stories. Their life stories or “social locations” are the lenses through which
they view the world, including the Bible tradition.
African Americans have traditionally
read scripture from a “liberation” perspective. That is, they have found
themselves within the stories of scripture, especially those where the people
of Israel are delivered from their oppressors. African slaves in the United
States were forced to give up the indigenous faith they professed in their land
of origin. They were indoctrinated with Christian tradition as a way to
mentally control them. They were told that slaves should obey their masters (see
above passages) and that dark skin was a curse from God to show who should be
slaves (Genesis 9:18-27). Over time, African slaves made the Christian religion
their own and in whatever ways they could, incorporated what they could
remember of their indigenous traditions. Out of the struggle for emancipation
and equal treatment under the law came soulful Negro Spirituals, African
American hymnody, and Gospel music. A recurring theme of these songs is the
same message of liberation from oppressors. The experience of African Americans has informed their understandings
of scripture and tradition.
Beginning
in the mid-20th century, feminist and womanist movements affirmed
the equality of women in all aspects of life, including employment and family
life. Liberated women found themselves in scripture, regardless of the
patriarchal language the Bible was written in. They looked beyond the often
primary male characters to find the often absent female characters. They also
pointed out the many strong female characters found in Scripture. Feminist and
womanist theologies affirm that ALL are made in the image and likeness of God,
not just men. Only one of the two creation myths found in the Bible says that
woman was made from one of man’s ribs (Genesis 2:21-23). The other myth says
that they were made at the same time, both in God’s image (Genesis 1:26-27). But even if this were not so, women’s experience tells them that the God who
pours out Spirit on ALL flesh (Joel 2:28-29) affirms their prophetic voice in
the face of sexist and misogynist messages.
And
since gender expression and expectations are the subject of both feminist and
the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) movements, LGBT theologies have
adopted the feminist notion that we too can find ourselves in scripture. Not
only can we find same-gender love in scripture (such as between Jonathan and
David, Ruth and Naomi, and others), we also find gender-queer characters in
scripture (such as eunuchs). We can also, as feminists have done, imagine that
just as about 10% of people today are primarily same-gender-loving, the same
applies to ancient times and cultures. Such people certainly had to express
their genders and sexualities in accordance with their cultural norms, however.
Also, through intense study of the scriptures, we know that the six Bible
passages that reference any condemnation of same-sex sexual behavior refer to
cultural norms that do not translate to our current context. Our experience tells us that in our
same-gender love, we find God.
Inclusive
language is not about being politically correct. Being politically correct is
about making sure people don’t say things that will offend certain groups and
could be taken as derogatory or discriminatory. This could be used out of
positive intent, but is often used simply to avoid conflict, not because of a
genuine concern for another group. Political correctness can be sometimes taken
too far to where we cannot properly communicate with each other without fearing
saying something wrong. This process requires grace with those who are ignorant
of other cultures and groups.
Inclusive
language on the other hand has to do with just that- inclusion. The vision of
the Realm of God that Jesus preached, as written in the Gospels, is a vision of
many peoples sharing in the Great Commandment: loving God and loving our
neighbor as our self (Matthew 22:34-40, Mark 12:28-34, Luke 10:25-28, John
13:34). Our “neighbor” is anyone and everyone. And that is our great challenge!
Loving all kinds of people in a multicultural church setting means that we take
the gems found in all of these people’s experiences and we string them together
into a beautiful necklace. Every gem is a truth that comes from one group’s
experience, but applies universally to the lives of all present. Not only
African Americans understand the truths expressed by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr. And not only lesbians will be fed by the truths of Audre Lorde or
Adrienne Rich. We all share the human experience.
Difficulties
begin to arise when in such a mixed community the dogma of tradition is dragged
in with the gems of tradition. For example, many Christians are accustomed to
calling God or Jesus “Lord.” They may not have given any thought to the fact
that it is a gendered title. The English word “lord” is the male match to the
English word “lady.” In the Hebrew Bible, the word Lord (usually in all caps:
LORD) is a translation of the unspeakable masculine Hebrew name for God: YHWH
(which has been pronounced Yahweh or Jehovah). In the Christian Testament, the
word Lord is translated from the Greek word kyrios,
meaning “owner”, “master”, or referring to someone higher on the social
hierarchy. Jesus’ disciples called him kyrios in respect of his wise teaching
and guidance, and in order to subvert Caesar’s power, not because they equated
him with God. In Hebrew, the name for God is masculine in that language (like
the word table in French (la table) is feminine). That doesn’t make God male.
It just shows that the men who wrote and kept the scriptures in the Jewish
patriarchal culture imagined God as masculine.
Likewise,
Jesus did not have to be male in order for him to be called “Christ.” The
historical Jesus was probably born with a penis, as the scriptures say that he
was circumcised on the 8th day according to tradition. But his
gender expression does not match the gender usually matched with male genitalia.
Jesus crossed the lines of gender norms and regulations about who to not
associate with or touch. He often denied his privilege as a man to instead put
himself on the equal power plane of a woman. This does not necessarily make
Jesus “transgender,” but he certainly did not fit gender norms. Also, if he was
indeed the result of a rare occurrence in which a female becomes pregnant on
her own without the sperm of a man (only observed thus far in non-human species
that typically copulate), science tells us that the offspring of such an
anomaly would probably be born intersex,
with ambiguous genitalia. But for all intensive purposes, let’s leave poor
Jesus’ genitals alone.
Inclusive
language is ultimately a matter of ethics. If we truly believe that it is wrong
to allow one people’s culture to dominate all others within a multicultural
worship context, we must labor to ensure that all gems are celebrated and all oppressive
dogma is filed away as “history”. Unfortunately, one historically oppressed
group’s dogma can be the oppression of another group. For example, though the
Bible has been used against African Americans in order to justify slavery and
inequality, some African Americans have used the Bible to discriminate against
LGBT people. And though fundamentalists have used the Bible to condemn LGBT
people, some LGBT people have used the Bible to oppress women. This is what is
called “oppression sickness.” In this sick cycle, the struggle to be right and
powerful trumps the struggle to be good and loving. One minority oppresses
another, who oppresses another, who oppresses another… while dominant groups
enjoy their privilege. The oppressed are busy trying to find someone else to
dominate, forgetting that the only way to free ourselves is to free others.
No
matter what tradition we come from, oppressive dogma is never a gem. Exclusive
language has been romanticized, so it may at first seem sweet to our ears. But
if we put ourselves in another’s shoes, the same words sound like nails on a
chalk board. Exclusive use of “Father” or “Lord” for God (never including
“Mother” or other feminine images) implicitly sends out the message that God is
solely male in character. Extensive use of the metaphor “light” for good and
“dark” for evil implicitly sends out the message that light-skinned people are
good and dark-skinned people are evil. Also, to call a person a “leper” is to
say that their illness defines their life. We would not call someone a
“cancerer” or an “AIDSer.” Rather, these are people living with leprosy (now
called Hansen’s Disease), cancer, and AIDS.
Language
is a powerful tool that we can use for good or for wrong. It at times seems
meticulous to make sure we include everyone’s gems in the great strand of
Truth. It is often a terribly painful process to let go of dogmas that we once
thought were gems. But if we are to respectfully, successfully and lovingly
travel the path of faith together, this practice is imperative.
For more information on inclusive language, visit MCC’s
denominational webpage: www.mccchurch.org/resources/mcc-theologies
**All opinions expressed in
this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the
views of the UFMCC or any given affiliated congregation.
© 2011
[1] Though
“dogma” primarily means “a system of principles or tenets,” I use this word to
emphasize its negative connotation as used in the US. My working definition of
dogma is “Teachings or rules that restrict the use of free thought and prevent
the natural evolution of thought over time and according to context.”
No comments:
Post a Comment