Letters August 30, 2004 Issue

letters

with contributions from Deidre Michell, John Pickup, Laurel D. Marquart, Peg Harrold

I form part of a feminist movement that decries the continued reference to God using only the male personal pronoun. Of course, God is neither He nor She, but it is important either to strive for gender balance or to use language that is gender neutral. Either of these pronouns ensures that God-language becomes concertedly inclusive of women because it does not favour the masculine over the feminine.

It has been a feature of Christian Science publications over the century that even in a tradition that incorporates the feminine in the divine, God has almost invariably been referred to as masculine, although in more recent years I've seen an acceptance of more inclusive language, i.e., God is referred to as She. I've come to accept over the years that The Christian Science Publishing Society provides space for however correspondents wish to refer to God, i.e., as either Him or Her, or using neither of those personal pronouns. I've accepted that this is a good way of honouring an individual's experience rather than insisting on politically correct language.

However, it was very striking in the July 12 issue of the Sentinel ["Intuition—an exploration"] that the editorial column used only the masculine personal pronoun to refer to God. I feel that this is the one column where inclusive language should be insisted on, so that the Publishing Society models inclusive language even if it doesn't insist on it in other articles.

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