National Working Group on Worship
Theology and Discipleship
The Uniting Church in Australia
Naming the Self-Naming God:
A Position Paper on Inclusive Language in Theology & Liturgy
Paper
No.14
1. Introduction: Theological and Liturgical
Language.
1.1
Language is a complex phenomenon. On the one hand, it is the expression of
reality, arising from human experience: articulating our concerns, needs,
longings, and shaped by cultural, spiritual and psychological factors. We
create language in an effort to articulate our experience and communicate with
one another. From this perspective, we know that language often fails us—and
not just because of a lack of eloquence. There are experiences (whether joyful
or tragic) that are, quite literally, ineffable: unable to be put into words.
We have the sense that language struggles to keep up with us. Sometimes it
seems as if language is never big enough, never precise enough, never as
feeling as our experience demands: too banal, prosaic, sentimental, obscure,
inaccurate, ponderous. Language, in this sense, is shaped by experience that it
never quite manages to articulate. It strives to maintain a pace that always
outstrips it.
1.2
Particularly in the case of theological (and therefore liturgical) discourse,
language is always reaching for something beyond. In traditional spirituality,
this is called the apophatic dimension (literally, the movement away from or
beyond speech): it is the admission of the gulf between language and reality,
the awareness of the transcendent which can never be captured in human
utterance. In the end, language takes us only as far as the threshold of divine
mystery and leaves us there in silence. Theology calls this the via negativa (‘negative
theology’).
1.3 At the
same time, we can also say that language shapes our reality. Language, in this
sense, is ‘the house of being’ (Heidegger): the environment in which we live
and move and have our being. It not only expresses who we are; it has a
critical role in shaping identity. From this angle, language does not strive to
keep up with us, but rather is the matrix in which we are formed. It is that
vast abode in which we live. Our very experience is shaped by language in a
general sense, and by our mother tongue in particular. If we do not have a word
for something, it is as if, for us, that entity does not exist.
1.4
Theological language, in this sense, shapes all Christian experience: its
liturgy, spirituality, pastoral care, teaching, ethics and apologetics.
Liturgy, therefore, needs to be grounded theologically in order to be
authentic. The actual words and images of worship are of crucial importance.
Here the dimension we focus upon is the kataphatic (literally, moving into
speech), that which compels us into speech. Language now frames and upholds our
lives: ‘in the beginning was the Word’ (John 1:1).
1.5 There
is a further dimension to theological language—namely, its symbolic character.
God-talk is a kind of stretched metaphorical form of language. This is not to
deny the referential and objective nature of Christian discourse. Nevertheless,
God’s elusive being—at the same time, revealed and concealed—calls for symbolic
speech as that form of eloquence most suited to worship. Language that is
banal, clichéd, ugly and prosaic implicitly denies divine mystery and
transcendence, reducing the divine to the mediocrity of unreflective human
experience. Correspondingly, language that is overly abstract diminishes divine
immanence and personhood. Symbolic language, on the other hand, has the
capacity to avoid both extremes, acting as poetry does to renew and revive the
linguistic currency and break open the human heart.
1.6 The
point needs to be clarified in several ways. In the first place, to describe
theological and liturgical language as symbolic is not to claim that its only
value is ornamental or pedagogical. Rightly understand, symbol and metaphor
(along with simile, a weaker form of metaphor) are not decorative elements to
adorn, and thus make attractive, the hard teachings of the gospel. As Ricoeur
and others have pointed out, symbols are themselves constitutive of meaning.
Metaphors, for example (which are the linguistic manifestation of symbol),
create new meaning by bringing together two seemingly unlike elements and
forming a new entity altogether.
1.7
Metaphors contain both a like and an unlike dimension; for the cognitive
content to be grasped the listener/reader needs to be able to distinguish them.
For example, to claim that Jesus is the Light of the world (a Johannine
metaphor) is to utter new meaning about Jesus’ relationship to creation, to
Torah, and to divine moral and spiritual guidance. It does not mean that Jesus
is a solar deity. Metaphors certainly can be paraphrased, but the paraphrase is
never the same as the original metaphor. In this sense, symbols cannot
ultimately be ‘de-mythologized’. Form and content belong together, so that to
strip away the outer form is to lose something intrinsic to the meaning. Like
sacraments, metaphorical language is the bearer of the reality to which it
points. It is not merely the sign-post pointing in a direction it never
actually takes.
1.8 Because
the theological referent of symbolic language is transcendent, more than one
symbol or set of symbols is needed to express the breadth and depth of that
which it connotes. Although meaningful in itself, no single metaphor is
exhaustive of meaning. In biblical language, for example, metaphors inhabit
complex fields of reference. The ‘logic’ of symbolic language is coherent but
not necessarily linear. One can move within different constellations,
maintaining an internal cogency that does not rule out other ways of expressing
the same (or similar) realities. For example, it is possible to speak of Jesus
as ‘Lord’ and also ‘brother’; he is the divine ‘Son’ yet he can also be
described as the ‘mother’ who gives birth to the Church. In each case, the metaphors
belong in different fields of reference where meaning has internal coherence
and consistency. It is possible to make the leap from one field to another,
from one constellation to another, and to find in each a new set of
metaphorical ‘rules’.
1.9 None of
this can be used to imply that metaphorical language is arbitrary and
reducible. On the contrary, theology has a body of content that includes
certain metaphors as integral to its evangelical core. Some metaphors are more
peripheral and evanescent; others, if their content clashes with the Christian
gospel (for example, the Gnostic ‘laughing Christ’ who does not actually suffer
on the cross), are illegitimate. Liturgy needs to be clear about the central
symbols and metaphors of the faith, knowing that these cannot be discarded
without significant loss of meaning. A variety of metaphors can be employed to
describe the community of faith or the mystery of God, but that diversity is
not infinite. Indeed the presence of diversity in metaphorical language is
dependent on a strong sense of centre, which acts as a centripetal force to
hold together what might otherwise become fragmented and disparate. The New
Testament has the extraordinary capacity to hold the centre yet sanction
diversity, and the language of liturgy has the responsibility for doing the
same.
2. Inclusive Language for People.
2.1 The use
of inclusive language for the people of God has come to be accepted in many
parts of the Church, and does not need to be reiterated here, nor its detailed
enactment in worship. What does need to be confirmed, however, is that the
question is not basically an ethical one. The language of ‘rights’—so dominant
in our culture—is not really appropriate here. The danger of such talk is that
it can diminish awareness of the freedom and sovereignty of divine grace. The
issue is a theological one. We use language that acknowledges male and female
presence in worship for cogent, theological reasons that take into account the
cultural context and the role liturgical language plays.
2.2
Theologically, women and men are created in the divine image, and bear equal
responsibility before God for the presence and the defacement of that image. In
the liturgy male and female stand before God in their dignity and created splendour,
in the shame of their disfiguration and in their yearning for transfiguration.
The language which articulates Christian anthropology needs to be transparent
in the liturgy.
2.3 This
point is at the same time Christological, since all creation—and especially
humankind—is created in the image of the divine Word. It is this image that is
restored in the Christ event: incarnation, death and resurrection. The Church
baptizes females and males, without gender distinction, because the person and
work of Jesus Christ are as decisive for female identity before God as for
male. Our language both expresses and gives shape to this divinely human truth.
2.4 Females
share with males the same eschatological goal: their origin in the triune God
is also their destiny. To reflect fully the image of God is the final meaning
of redemption and part of the essential purpose of the Church’s life. Women’s
eschatological dignity, like men’s, cannot be compromised without damage to our
understanding of the Church and its eschatological role. Where the Church in
its language and symbolism fails to recognize the mutual participation of
female and male in divine worship through Christ, it is untrue to its own
theological insights. In its liturgy, it presents a damaged offering to God.
The language of liturgy is, in this sense, both performative and restorative.
3. Theological
Principles for Divine Language and Imagery.
3.1 The
issue of language and imagery for God and Christ is more complex theologically
than for people-language. Once again, it is not a question of ‘equal rights’
but rather the issue of how to embrace an appropriate Christian understanding
of God. The role of tradition here is vital. Bearing in mind the distinction in
the way language operates, a number of theological principles need to undergird
liturgical language. Without it, such language is arbitrary and fragmented,
without core or content.
3.2 Scripture
depends largely on male imagery for God—father, husband, king, lord, master—and
invariably employs male pronouns even where the imagery is gender neutral.
This, at least in part, reflects the androcentrism of the cultures out of which
the tradition arose. It is not the full story, by any means, but it is an
important factor. It is foolish to ignore the contingent nature of theology and
language, just as it is mistaken to underestimate the coherency which holds
together symbol and content.
3.3 In the
Judaeo-Christian tradition, God is holy mystery, beyond all human categories,
including those of gender. Whatever may be concluded from Christian language,
God is neither male nor female. Although divine mystery is disclosed in
gendered language, there is no disagreement among theologians (Jewish or
Christian) that God is holy and wholly other, transcending the world in every
sense. God’s mystery always escapes us and cannot be captured in human
utterance (cf. John 1:18, 6:46). The point is made in the tradition itself.
Gregory of Nyssa, for example, in his Homily on the Song of Songs concedes that
God can be named as Mother as well as Father, since ‘every name which is found
is of equal power in manifesting the [divine] incorruptible nature: neither
female nor male defiling the significance of God’s undefiled nature’. This is
not a reason to de-personalize God. The divine mystery is never less than
personal. God cannot, in this guise, be turned into an impersonal or abstract
force vaguely lying behind the universe.
3.4 At the
same time, God is revealed to human beings and the creaturely world in various
ways, times and places. We need to beware of falling victim to a cultural
relativism that denies divine Self-naming. This revelation is not a human
initiative and has the capacity, through sovereign grace, to embrace, challenge
and transform our lives beyond anything we deserve or earn. The divine
Self-naming is gift and grace from beginning to end: in the ‘book’ of nature,
in the election of Israel, in the coming of Jesus Christ and in the Holy
Scriptures. In liturgical language, we are dealing with divine self-revelation,
not primarily engaged in our own fumbling attempts to name the incandescent,
self-communicating God. For Christians, this fundamental revelation is of a
trinitarian God—a doctrine that articulates the divine economy as transcendent,
incarnational and immanent.
3.5 For all
that, God is also graciously revealed within the structures of language:
through its capacities and even its ineptitude. The only adequate ‘speech’ is
the Word-made-flesh, a word not of our own making but clothed nonetheless in
the structures of a language, however feeble, that we understand from birth.
Only the divine Word reveals God to us, yet that Word paradoxically is bone of
our bones and flesh of our flesh. Divine revelation and human experience meet
harmoniously in this understanding of the incarnation. Divine kenosis
(‘self-emptying’) means that, though Self-naming, God also permits us to name
God in human symbol, metaphor and speech. In this sense, Jesus himself is the
archetypal Symbol or Icon of God, giving rise to the many symbols of the faith
to which he gives himself in beneficence and love. Within divine sovereignty,
we are giving a part to play in shaping a language fit for the God who lives
our life and dies our death. This is the very basis of the Church’s life and the
transfiguration to which we are called.
3.6 The
maleness of Jesus is a vital element in this theological schema, provided that
it is understood aright. On the one hand, Jesus’ maleness does not imply that
God is male. If that were so, women’s (and Gentiles’) salvation would be in
serious jeopardy. The early Church understood that God in Christ embraced all
humanity (and therefore all creation). However, God chooses to be revealed to
us within the structures of the flesh: Jesus is male, Jewish, located in a
specific historical and geographical context, belonging to a certain class,
etc. The ‘scandal of particularly’ is itself the guarantee that each of us, in
our particularity, is called into the family of God. Both the particularity of
Jesus and his universality need to be acknowledged in the liturgy. As in John
4:1-42, Jesus enters into conversation with a Samaritan woman as a male Jew; by
the end of the narrative, the Samaritans acknowledge him as ‘Saviour of the
world’. John shows us how we need the union of the (divine) universal and the
(human) particular if we are to discover the God who, in Jesus Christ, has
taken up and ‘recapitulated’ our humanity (Irenaeus).
4. Implications for Liturgical
God-Language.
4.1 What do
these essential principles mean for the actual images and symbols we use in
liturgical language? In the first place, the phrase ‘Father, Son and Holy
Spirit’ is part of the core of historic Christian faith (Matt 28:19). While
some have tried to argue that the maleness of the imagery makes its
unacceptable, there is a strong counter-argument (even in some feminist
theological circles) that divine fatherhood is a ‘deconstructive’ symbol for
Christian faith. In the Fourth Gospel, the ‘Father’ of Jesus Christ is not
dominating and overbearing, but rather self-giving, vulnerable and inclusive:
in effect, an anti-patriarchal figure who deconstructs human experiences of
paternal indifference, remoteness and abuse with life-giving love. Similarly
the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32) presents a father whose
benevolence and patience are extravagant by any standards, especially those of
the ancient world. In her commentary on the Lord’s Prayer, the Protestant
Reformer, Katharina Schütz Zell, speaks of the title ‘Father’ in similar terms:
What a
friendly, pleasant word it is, yes the most comforting and charming word
ever
to arrive on this earth! It procures us everything we need, brings all
friendship into being, turns away all punishment, yes softens every heart …
[Pamphlet
on the Lord’s Prayer, 1532, ET P. Matheson]
4.2 In
theological terms, ‘Father’ is primarily a symbol for articulating the
intimacy, yet distinction, between the first and second Persons of the Trinity.
Only in a secondary sense does divine fatherhood relate to human beings in
their relationship to God, the Fountain-source (cf. 20:17). Yet if we discard
this imagery, how else can we capture what is a vital theological dynamic? The
loss is surely too great. More important to reclaim the title, to give it fresh
content, to re-capture its transformative power and to educate the people of
God in the creative power of their own symbols. In certain designated parts of
the liturgy—for example, in baptism—the traditional ‘Father, Son and Holy
Spirit’ is the appropriate symbolic language to be used: it is revelatory,
biblical, theological, personal, non-modalist and succinct. This is apart from
ecumenical considerations that are also significant. To avoid such a metaphor
would be to lose something of the very core of Christian faith.
4.3
Similarly the title ‘Lord’ is important in its theological dimensions. Once
again it has a Christological focus: the title Kyrios in the Greek Older
Testament, used as a means of avoiding the divine Name, is the same title
daringly used of the Risen Christ in the New Testament (Phil 2:10-11) who
possesses divine sovereignty over all creation. The same title belongs also to
the Holy Spirit whose gift of freedom is itself the sign of a shared divine
being and authority (2 Corinthians 3:17-18). The title ‘Lord’ in the biblical
sense deconstructs all rival, human pretensions to ultimate power and
authority. Human beings cannot usurp divine sovereignty in their dealings with
each other—or, for that matter, the creation. Most replacements for ‘Lord’ lose
this metaphorical sense and do a great disservice to theology. What seems to be
gained in inclusive language is lost in other respects. We need the dynamic
weapons of the faith to challenge precisely the kind of destructive power that
has kept women (and others) subservient for centuries.
4.4 The use
of ‘Sovereign One’ is a useful alternative to ‘Lord’, emphasizing that divine
sovereignty is not gender-specific. For most Christians, however, the title
‘Lord’ has connotations of warmth and love, as well as sovereignty, regardless
of its political origins. Like monarchical titles (king, queen), it can only be
rejected by a kind of fundamentalism of language that sees the original
historical and political context as narrowly definitive of meaning. Yet there
are other dimensions to such titles: they may retain strong mythological
significance (for example, they belong within the genre of children’s
literature, even today) that relates more to the imagination than to any
external social structure, past or present. Like all language, the meaning
shifts with the context. A Quaker who refuses to use any titles, or engage in
any courtly behaviour before other human beings, can still acknowledge Jesus
Christ as Lord. There is no necessary conflict. Human beings have the capacity
to live in more worlds than one. Like metaphorical constellations, these images
abide within their own structures and resist being bound by a wooden, linear
form of logic.
4.5 All
this suggests that we need to think carefully about language for God in
liturgy. We need to become, in the best sense, both conservatives and
reformers. On the one hand, we conserve what is best and most precious in the
tradition—guarding the treasure-chest we have inherited. On the other hand, we
need also to be prepared to expand and re-form the tradition, without
uncritical acceptance. We are given, after all, a creative role in handing it
on to future generations.
4.6 Both
Scripture and tradition make some, though limited, use of female imagery for
God—mother, Wisdom (Sophia), midwife, hostess, housewife. Such language is not
nearly as common as male imagery, nor is it accompanied by feminine pronouns
beyond the immediate narrative. This is largely for cultural reasons. On this
slender yet solid enough basis, maternal images can be developed for liturgy,
either explicitly or implicitly, for all three Persons of the Trinity. In the
New Testament, the title of ‘Father’ must be read in an implicitly inclusive
way, yet needs at times, in appropriate ways, to become formally explicit.
Among other things, ‘Father’ is a way of speaking of God as the Source of all
being, yet modern biology (as opposed to Aristotelian embryology) is aware that
both father and mother share the same life-giving role. Indeed, the Father has
many ‘maternal’ characteristics within Scripture. This encourages us to find
ways of broadening our imagery, without detracting from the richness of the
tradition. ‘Our Motherly Father’ is a phrase suggested by Moltmann; another,
clumsier phrase is ‘Father-Mother God’. Other alternatives use similes to
expand and clarify this metaphorical language:
‘O God,
you love us as a Father
and care
for us as a Mother’.
4.7
Mediaeval theologians such as Anselm of Canterbury and Julian of Norwich used
the image of Christ as Mother, giving birth to the Church (cf. John 19:34) and
feeding them with the ‘milk’ of the eucharist. Similar imagery to that of
Anselm’s Canticle is found also in Katharina Schütz Zell: ‘he has given birth
to us in such cruel pain, has nourished us and given us life, breast-fed us
with water and blood from his side, like a mother stilling her child’. The
imagery has its basis in Scripture: Jesus is the mother hen lamenting the way
Jerusalem has rejected the protection of his wings (Matt 23:37-39/par.); from
his crucified side flow blood and water just after his Mother and Beloved
Disciple are given to one another at the birth of the Christian community (John
19:26-27). In a similar vein, the Holy Spirit has maternal overtones: for
example, in the imagery of John 3 (especially v. 5), where the mysterious
Spirit is pictured as labouring to give birth to believers.
4.8 Such
language needs to be developed with the same kind of care traditionally taken
with male language and symbolism. Christians are clear in what sense they can
speak of the Father-Son relationship and in what sense they cannot (‘begotten
not made’). There are undoubted dangers in the use of maternal imagery: we need
to be guard against pantheistic implications, because of the language of Mother
Earth (with its background in ancient female chthonic deities). We can be
encouraged to use the female imagery of Scripture and tradition, but only with
care and respect. If symbols are not mere decorations, then their power for
good and evil is enormous, especially since their impact is subconscious as
much as conscious. Here we are not engaged in the pursuit of ideological
decorum but rather in unfolding the dynamic revelation of the triune God.
Sensitive allusions that expand rather than contract the people of God’s
spirituality are most appropriate for worship.
5. Conclusion.
In the
end, the decisive questions of inclusive language are not about equality or
human rights, but rather the inadequacy of our language to bring to speech the
trinitarian God of Christian revelation. This deity is hidden and revealed,
transcendent and incarnate, utterly beyond us yet intimately close. Only the
language of poetry and icon—graceful, delicate, elegant, succinct—can
articulate the God who has already named us into being before ever we could
speak a word. Even so we will know that our words can never fill the gap; can
never be more than a stammering at infinity (Rahner); can lead us only to
silence. In this light, questions of gender, though important, are decidedly
secondary.
Dorothy
Lee
Uniting
Church Theological Hall
Queen’s
College
Parkville
4.9.00