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>>This also leads to questions about referring to God as "He". Sure, it feels comfortable because 'that's the way we've always referred to God'. But, if one is being theologically (and linguistically accurate) since God is a spirit and has neither a pee-pee or a woo-woo, then shouldn't we be using a 'tertium quid'? (Hebrew doesn't have a neither-masculine-nor-feminine alternative. Latin and Greek do. So does English: "It". German does; but French and Italian don't. Neither do Spanish or Portuguese. So, is God: "It"?<<

I think using �He� in reference to God might have more to do with divine revelation than with linguistics. Didn�t the SON become Incarnate as a MAN? Isn�t He eternally generated from the FATHER? Don�t we become SONS in the SON?

There�s more to this than linguistics, and there is (apparently) more to gender than primary sexual characteristics (i.e., Dr. John�s clinical expressions �pee-pee� and �woo-woo�) although since Christ became a man in the Incarnation then it could be argued that God now in fact DOES have genitalia.

It is my understanding from reading Liturgiam Authenticam that it's giudelines are to be applied to ALL languages, not just European ones.

Ignatius' post poses a conundrum.

"I think using �He� in reference to God might have more to do with divine revelation than with linguistics. Didn�t the SON become Incarnate as a MAN? Isn�t He eternally generated from the FATHER? Don�t we become SONS in the SON?"

The problem lies in the fact we have to use language to express our faith. And when using terms like MAN and FATHER, it becomes difficult to accommodate our other understanding of Who-God-Is. In the OT, when asked Who was present, the inspired writer said: "I-AM-WHO-AM", a nice metaphysical defining of God as the source of all that is. According to the OT, God has a personal name, the tetragrammaton, which was never to be uttered by Jews -- although many of our current scriptures and liturgies toss it around with wild abandon. (The misinterpretation of the Hebrew scriptures led to the unfortunate coining of Jehovah -- which certainly must have been a cause of amusement to early Renaissance Jews.) God is also referred to as Ha-Shemayim, literally One-Up-There-in-the-Heavens. Our Lord, in His prayer, referred to God as "Father", much to the chagrin of His contemporaries, who thought the term too 'familiar' for the Divinity.

My points are:

We are constricted by language, which being anthropomorphic, restricts us to gender labelling.

Second, our understanding of "God", ever widening, proposes to us a vast array of concepts that we use to understand Who God is. "Being", "Uncaused Cause" (Aquinas), "Ontos Oon" (Greek: "Being BEING!") inscribed on Greek icons, "King", "Ha-Shem", "Lord", "Master", "Creator", "Source" "Alpha and Omega", "Fortress", etc. The use of one term or another can hardly reflect a scintilla of God; our human minds are just too encumbered. And to reduce the concept/verbiage of "God" to one perspective like "Father" (though it, in itself is one of many terms used by Christ), is to fail to acknowledge that just one word can never be adequate.


Ignatius continues: "There�s more to this than linguistics, and there is (apparently) more to gender than primary sexual characteristics (i.e., Dr. John�s clinical expressions �pee-pee� and �woo-woo�) although since Christ became a man in the Incarnation then it could be argued that God now in fact DOES have genitalia."

No, I disagree since, unless we are talking about mystical experiences of the Divinity, we are forced to use language bound terminology. I.e., linguistics.

The last statement really puzzles me: "..
and there is (apparently) more to gender than primary sexual characteristics (i.e., Dr. John�s clinical expressions �pee-pee� and �woo-woo�)."

I don't understand how one can possibly talk about "MAN" and "FATHER" in human context without carrying along the 'primary sexual characterisics' of maleness. What more can there be to 'gender' except for 'primary sexual characteristics'?

If God indeed is a "Spirit", then how do we determine IF there is gender involved, and if so, which gender it is? And, in the absence of 'primary sexual characteristics', what is the meaning?

The fact that the Second Person of the Trinity appeared among us on earth as a male certainly validates the designation "Son" of God. And, in Jewish society of that time, certainly patriarchal, there would be a 'father/son' model that would be clear to His disciples. But I don't think it tells the whole story. (I find it interesting that our Jewish friends determine Jewishness if the MOTHER is Jewish, not the father. .. but that's another bulletin-board. Oy!)

(If I'm raving here, I must confess that I'm reacting to things I've seen and heard elsewhere through which the "man", "male", "father" etc. terms are used to deny womenfolk their legitimate status as Children of God -- and all that that implies, or worse: to subjugate female people to a lesser status. Somewhat like an ecclesiastical schoolyard where the boys won't let the girls play with them because they are 'only girls'. Sure, there are some women who are vehement about feminism, and who espouse all sorts of 'beyond the fringe' beliefs. But we shouldn't let these folks deter us from the basic Christian belief that every human soul is valuable in the sight of God, and that we as a community have the moral obligation to love ALL and respect ALL with equal fervor. So, if that means re-translating hymns about "Sons of God" to "Children of God", then, in imitation of Christ's unwavering love for people, we should do no less.)

Christ is Risen!

S
Brothers,
How interesting. Recently attended a graduation at Graduate Theological Union.
The language used was completely neuter and the liturgy could have been attnded by a jew, a moslem, bhuddist, hindu in fact it only seems that everyone but an atheist could have participated. I am sure they where working on trying to corrct that "problem"!

It was all that I could to refrain from laughing, especially as they all processed down from the altar swirling their rainbow streamers.

If this is where these future leaders of the Roman Church are trying to lead their people but that it should cease to exist from the face of the earth.

Stephanos

Stephanos' experience is, unfortunately, all too common among theological educational institutions. The reason? There is very little money to provide support to seminaries of the individual religious communities and so they are constrained to join with other groups to meet the accreditation standards for degree granting institutions. My own seminary training was conducted in a theological union that included Episcopalians, Roman Catholics, Reform Church, Harvard Divinity (mostly Presbyterian and Methodist), as well as the diocesan Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox seminaries. Apart from the latter two, there was a lot of cross registration, especially in scripture (Harvard was the best for scholars, quel surpise!) but the local RC and Greek seminaries were considered too parochial and oftentimes of lesser academic quality than some of the other schools. Also, the Greek seminary conducted its courses in Greek, a definite dis-incentive for cross-registration.

I propose that in a pluralistic academic environment, especially among people who are geared towards humble ecclesiastical service, there is a tendency to accommodate each and every variation that presented itself. Thus, the behavior tended towards the least common denominator, i.e., K-Mart liturgics. So, rainbow pom-poms, etc.

I would hope that the seminary experiences of pluralistic communities like the GTU will allow people to be open to the wide variety of people who come to churches seeking salvation, but that they also will begin to realize that regular parish lives are less pluralistic because the people are more homogeneous.

HOWEVER, we also have to realize that if we are to engage in evangelization, we've GOT to get outside the frameworks that are so 'comfortable' and 'acceptable' to the members of the congregation, and break the mold to reach the unchurched. But, at the same time, this is not a license to go nuts. The question for the clergy is: where does one draw the line?

I think that sometimes the hidebound nature of the institutional church frustrates the daylights out of the praying clergy who are haunted by their incredible responsibilities towards God for outreach to the unchurched, and their 'obligations' to the institution.

The creative ones are able to utilize the canonical frameworks and manipulate the forms and the structures to do the outreach. Liturgy is vibrant; music is great; preaching is on target; people become loving and concerned; the priest is omnipresent. The non-creative ones just follow the form and let the chips fall where they may. If the attendance decreases, well, "It's God's will. I'm doing what the books and canons prescribe."

While some people seem to have no understanding of what is 'appropriate' in their dealings with others, there are others who seem to be so terrified of doing anything outside the books, that the church suffers from petrification, and those who need to be evangelized DON'T hear the Gospel.

Sure, there are those who respond to 3 and 4 hour services, conducted in a mixture of living and dead languages, with a sermonizing that admits of one and only one interpretation. This ecclesiastical format will work for them. But what about the other 99% who cannot respond to this?

We Byzantines represent less than 1% of the population. The Jews are slightly more than 2%. Who has had the bigger impact upon American life? And why?

It's not the ICEL, though it's a convenient scapegoat. (And, as a linguist, I admit that their translations oftentimes stink.) But that's not the whole story.

What do we do for true evangelization?

Christos Anesti!

>>Brothers,
How interesting. Recently attended a graduation at Graduate Theological Union.
The language used was completely neuter and the liturgy could have been attnded by a jew, a moslem, bhuddist, hindu in fact it only seems that everyone but an atheist could have participated. I am sure they where working on trying to corrct that "problem"!<<

Yet another excellent example of why the Vatican has released new translation guidelines. By completely getting rid of gender specific terms and other such innovations the worship becomes something less than Catholic, it seems to me. After all, God revealed Himself using gender specific terms. They must mean SOMETHING. They must somehow reflect His nature. To get rid of them is to basically say, �Sorry God, we know more about You than You do.�

>>It was all that I could to refrain from laughing, especially as they all processed down from the altar swirling their rainbow streamers.<<

Well, that was charitable of you. I am unsure if I could have refrained, myself. I still get the urge to trip any liturgical dancer that gets too close to me (Not a real common experience, thanks be to God.)

Dear Ignatius,

As for liturgical dance, I really have no use for modern dance, but the Ethiopian Church does make extensive use of liturgical dance and it can be a beautiful experience.

I have also participated in First Nations dancing with the two-step to drums.

Perhaps liturgical dance has a place in some liturgical contexts, but I think the simple integration of secular dance into the liturgy does an injustice to this ancient spiritual art-form.

Alex

Much of the inclusive language mess is driven by the fact that the Christian God is an intimately personal God. It will not do to refer to Him/Her as "It". Somehow a personal pronoun is demanded.

I would argue for using "Him" in the liturgy primarily because Jesus did refer to his Father, not Mother. This, by the way, is less a sexual connotation than an appeal to certain characteristics of fathers in general: setting standards of character, calling forth his children to the adult world, the source of ultimate appeal. This is not to say that mothers can't or don't do these kinds of things; it's just that these responsibilities are laid at the feet of fathers. And if contemporary society has a real hard time with this, it reflects the weakened state of fatherhood in our times.

This does not prevent us from experiencing God as feminine. Our spiritual lives are (or certainly ought to be) a whole lot richer than just the liturgies. I have no problem with people saying "God our Mother" in this context.

In Christ,
Steven

>>I think using �He� in reference to God might have more to do with divine revelation than with linguistics. Didn�t the SON become Incarnate as a MAN? Isn�t He eternally generated from the FATHER? Don�t we become SONS in the SON?<<

>The problem lies in the fact we have to use language to express our faith. And when using terms like MAN and FATHER, it becomes difficult to accommodate our other understanding of Who-God-Is.<

??? It does? Then WHY did GOD reveal Himself using these terms? To confuse us? It seems to me that �Father� is a much easier term to understand than �I Am Who Am.�

>In the OT, when asked Who was present, the inspired writer said: "I-AM-WHO-AM", a nice metaphysical defining of God as the source of all that is. According to the OT, God has a personal name, the tetragrammaton, which was never to be uttered by Jews -- although many of our current scriptures and liturgies toss it around with wild abandon... God is also referred to as Ha-Shemayim, literally One-Up-There-in-the-Heavens. Our Lord, in His prayer, referred to God as "Father", much to the chagrin of His contemporaries, who thought the term too 'familiar' for the Divinity.<

>My points are:
We are constricted by language, which being anthropomorphic, restricts us to gender labelling.<

God could have easily revealed Himself to be, not our Father, but an It. In fact, He wouldn�t be an It He would be The It (or IT would have been The It ). But my point is that "Father" is inherently bound up with God's nature, it seems.

>Second, our understanding of "God", ever widening, proposes to us a vast array of concepts that we use to understand Who God is. "Being", "Uncaused Cause" (Aquinas), "Ontos Oon" (Greek: "Being BEING!") inscribed on Greek icons, "King", "Ha-Shem", "Lord", "Master", "Creator", "Source" "Alpha and Omega", "Fortress", etc. The use of one term or another can hardly reflect a scintilla of God; our human minds are just too encumbered. And to reduce the concept/verbiage of "God" to one perspective like "Father" (though it, in itself is one of many terms used by Christ), is to fail to acknowledge that just one word can never be adequate.<

Oh, I�m not saying one word can be adequate to express all of God�s nature. But it makes you wonder why He used the particular words that He did when revealing Himself to man, doesn�t it?

>>There�s more to this than linguistics, and there is (apparently) more to gender than primary sexual characteristics (i.e., Dr. John�s clinical expressions �pee-pee� and �woo-woo�) although since Christ became a man in the Incarnation then it could be argued that God now in fact DOES have genitalia.<<

>No, I disagree since, unless we are talking about mystical experiences of the Divinity, we are forced to use language bound terminology. I.e., linguistics.<

I didn�t say linguistics didn�t play a part in this. I said there was MORE to it than linguistics (at least from my perspective). I don�t think everything reduces to words (does it?).

By the way, isn't ALL terminology language bound? I don't think I'm following your last point here.

>The last statement really puzzles me: "..
and there is (apparently) more to gender than primary sexual characteristics (i.e., Dr. John�s clinical expressions �pee-pee� and �woo-woo�)."
I don't understand how one can possibly talk about "MAN" and "FATHER" in human context without carrying along the 'primary sexual characterisics' of maleness. What more can there be to 'gender' except for 'primary sexual characteristics'?<

Maybe I wasn�t being clear. I said there was more to gender than primary sexual characteristics because there are things which have gender that aren�t people (or animals, for that matter). A boat is a �she.� But she�ll never hear the pitter-patter of little boat feet. I�m sure people would disagree with me on this, but I think that things have gender (hence gender terms in languages) but that this gender is perfected in persons. In fact, I think the term �sex� is better than �gender� when referring to people. (Boats have a gender, but not a sex.)

>If God indeed is a "Spirit", then how do we determine IF there is gender involved, and if so, which gender it is? And, in the absence of 'primary sexual characteristics', what is the meaning?<

Simple. He reveals it to us.

As for the meaning of it with the absence of primary sexual characteristics, THAT is a great question. I can only surmise that somehow OUR primary sexual characteristics are a pale shadow of God's creative power.

(Interestingly, Hans Urs Von Balthasar basically says that in the procreative act man is called to image his creator while woman is called to fulfill her nature as creature perfectly. It's in God's nature to create and in human nature to receive from God. Of course, this isn't a perfect analogy, but I do find it interesting.)

>The fact that the Second Person of the Trinity appeared among us on earth as a male certainly validates the designation "Son" of God. And, in Jewish society of that time, certainly patriarchal, there would be a 'father/son' model that would be clear to His disciples.<

Exactly. He reveals Himself to us.

>But I don't think it tells the whole story. (I find it interesting that our Jewish friends determine Jewishness if the MOTHER is Jewish, not the father. .. but that's another bulletin-board. Oy!)<

I never said it tells us the WHOLE story, did I? I don�t think I did, at any rate.

>(If I'm raving here, I must confess that I'm reacting to things I've seen and heard elsewhere through which the "man", "male", "father" etc. terms are used to deny womenfolk their legitimate status as Children of God -- and all that that implies, or worse: to subjugate female people to a lesser status. Somewhat like an ecclesiastical schoolyard where the boys won't let the girls play with them because they are 'only girls'.<

Yes, this overlooks the fact that people of both sexes have an equal dignity before God (albeit, different roles).

>Sure, there are some women who are vehement about feminism, and who espouse all sorts of 'beyond the fringe' beliefs. But we shouldn't let these folks deter us from the basic Christian belief that every human soul is valuable in the sight of God, and that we as a community have the moral obligation to love ALL and respect ALL with equal fervor.<

Exactly.

>So, if that means re-translating hymns about "Sons of God" to "Children of God", then, in imitation of Christ's unwavering love for people, we should do no less.)<

Uh, well here I have to disagree with you. I think in the long run it would be better to simply educate people as to 1) the faith and 2) basic English skills. If they don�t want to accept reality because of a particular ideology that doesn�t mean we should compromise the faith, or even continue on in the ambiguous way we�ve been going for 40 years (frankly, I�m ready to stop wandering in the desert). Give me a call after the Byzantine Church starts using gender neutral translations in the Divine Liturgy and then we�ll talk about how great an idea it is and how helpful it is to spreading the faith and catechizing people.

Does anyone else think discussion of Roman liturgical issues on this Byzantine board is out of place?
(Granted a number of folks here have Roman backgrounds, but still...)

Maybe I'm just confused.

Dear Kelly,

I have no problem with the discussion of Roman liturgical issues on this board and you raise a legitimate question.

Apart from the interesting theological and liturgical comparisons that can be made through just such a discussion, it seems that Byzantine Catholics have forever been studying Roman liturgy and theology, if for no other reason than simply to be "armed" in order to defend their own legitimate heritage (and other reasons).

One finds this throughout much Byzantine Catholic theological writing. For example, Fr. Prof. Robert Taft often appeals to the Western tradition to demonstrate that what the East does is a continuation of the once Universal practice of the Church e.g. 3 Sacraments of Initiation.

Being Byzantine Catholic, we are more likely to be frequently asked the question, "If you are Catholic, why do you do this or that differently from Roman Catholics?"

One answer is to say that that is "our Rite or Church's tradition."

A better answer is "This is what the Roman and the whole Church of Christ did for the first 1200 years and we are still doing it."

I remember when the Novus Ordo took hold of the Western Church and a whole series of new perplexing questions grabbed my Latin Rite friends.

Why is our altar not "facing the people?" Why this and why that?

The study of Roman liturgical questions lays bare many myths Western Christians have about the Eastern Churches.

The great myth is that we are somehow the "odd men (and women) out."

The more we study Roman liturgical practice, the more we see that it is the Eastern Church that is keeping to the tradition of the Apostolic and Early Church and the Roman Church is the one engaging in innovations in contemporary (and medieval) times.

It is a great way to witness to Byzantine Christianity, I say!

Alex