Using Gender-Neutral Language for God

This month I am preaching each Sunday at the Rosedale Congregational United Church of Christ. The title of my sermon yesterday was “Good News of the Kingdom,” from Mark 1:15.

Updated terminology. In the first part of the sermon I had to take time to talk about terminology. The UCC does not usually refer to God with gender-specific words: as a rule, they do not call God “Father” or use masculine nouns in referring to God. I don’t have any trouble with that, for I adopted that same general approach years ago.

In addition, the UCC doesn’t like to talk about the Kingdom of God—for that implies there is a king, and we all know that kings are male. So the preferred term is “realm of God.” A section in “The New Century Hymnal,” the UCC hymn book published in 1995, is titled “Realm of God.”

While I see the point in that new wording and appreciate the consistency of it, I have had some trouble making that shift in terminology. Maybe “kingdom” doesn’t always mean there is a male monarch—it certainly doesn’t for the United Kingdom where Queen Elizabeth has been the monarch for more than 60 years.

Updated hymn. For the service yesterday, I chose the closing hymn from the “Peace and Justice” section. The title is “Lead On Eternal Sovereign,” and the words are attributed to Ernest Shurtleff. But the hymn that he wrote to be sung at the graduation service of Andover Seminary in 1888 began, “Lead on, O King eternal.”

Even though Shurtleff’s name appears at the bottom of the page, there are few words that are the same as those he wrote. Not only is gender specific language not used, military images have also been changed—for which I am grateful. The result is a fine hymn, but it is not really the same as what the author wrote.

Here are the words of the third verse to the updated hymn:

Lead on eternal Sovereign, till sin’s fierce war shall cease

    and all your saints together will sing a hymn of peace;

Then all in your dominion will live with hearts set free,

    to love and serve each other for all eternity.

Updated Lord’s Prayer. There are three versions of the Lord’s Prayer in the UCC hymnal. I was surprised to see that all three begin, “Our Father,” and all three use the word “kingdom.” So to be consistent, I thought there ought to be an alternative version without gender-specific language.

My Google search failed to find anything suitable, so I decided to write a paraphrased version myself. Here is what I came up with:

Creator God, Redeemer and Sustainer of all that is,

May your Reality be honored by us and by all creation.

May your will be done on earth as it is in your Eternal Realm.

Give us the food we need for our sustenance today.

Forgive our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.

Save us from times of trial and deliver us from evil.

For the glory and power of the Eternal Realm is yours forever.

Amen.

So, what do you think? Is it necessary to use gender-neutral language for God and for “his kingdom” as well as for the Lord’s Prayer? And if that is desirable for the latter, is the version I came up with satisfactory, or are there places that need to be changed and improved?

Can the Church Ever be United?

Last Sunday I had the opportunity to preach at the Rosedale Congregational United Church of Christ (RCC) in Kansas City, Kansas. As RCC is currently without a pastor, I was asked to preach each Sunday this month, and I much appreciate their invitation. (It will be the first time for me to preach at the same church four Sundays in a row in 50 years.)

As you may know, the United Church of Christ (UCC) was formed in 1957. It was the result of a merger of the Evangelical and Reformed Church and the General Council of the Congregational Christian Churches. RCC was formerly a part of the latter.

The vision of the UCC is a great one—but one that is unlikely to be actualized anytime soon. Of course, this is not the first time an effort has been made to unite the Church, doing away with denominations.

In the 1830s the vision of Thomas Campbell, along with his son Alexander and others, led to the formation of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). But now that Church, as well as the UCC, is just another denomination.

The history of Christianity is a history replete with divisions, great and small. The first major division occurred in 1054 when the Eastern Church, centered in Constantinople, separated from the western Church, centered in Rome.

The second great division took place with the Protestant reformations in the 16^th century—and then very soon there were divisions among the Protestants. In January 1527 Felix Manz, whom I wrote about here, was martyred in Zurich, the first Protestant to be punitively killed by Protestants.

Since the beginning of the 20^th century there have been attempts toward great unity among Christians. The 1910 World Missionary Conference, held in Edinburgh, was an important step in that direction.

Then after the disastrous divisions caused by two world wars, the World Council of Churches (WCC) was formed in 1948. And that ecumenical body, composed of Protestants only, has in recent years reached out to greater cooperation with the Catholic and Orthodox churches.

But, alas, the WCC has been largely rejected and is often criticized by conservative Protestants. The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S., has through the years remained aloof from the WCC.

Conservative Protestants formed the World Evangelical Fellowship in 1951, changing their name to the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) in 2001. While recently there has been some fruitful interaction between the WCC and the WEA, greater unity is highly unlikely.

The disunity of these two Protestant groups is largely between fundamentalist/conservative understandings of Christianity and moderate/liberal understandings, which differ seriously—and maybe irreconcilably.

Recently, referring to J. Greshem Machen who made a similar assertion in his book Christianity and Liberalism (1923), Al Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president, said, “Rather than representing two points on a spectrum of Christianity, evangelical Christianity and liberal Protestantism are different and competing religions” (see this article by Bob Allen).

As much as I hate to say so, I’m afraid he’s right.

While I hope and pray for Christians to move from the extremes (and errors) of both fundamentalism and liberalism and to the “radiant center,” as I propose in my book “The Limits of Liberalism,” I don’t see that happening anytime soon.

While in the years ahead there may be greater unity among conservative Christians and especially greater unity of moderate/liberal Christians, I think, sadly, there will be little movement toward or formation of a truly united Church of Christ.