tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15178007.post1998493950725659532..comments2024-02-25T16:56:47.627-05:00Comments on Magdalene's Egg: Speak of the Devil. Inclusively.Father Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18170260624474428623noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15178007.post-88790328535250528382010-07-27T10:10:55.880-04:002010-07-27T10:10:55.880-04:00This comment has been removed by the author.Father Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18170260624474428623noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15178007.post-17522213821493369292010-07-27T10:10:52.199-04:002010-07-27T10:10:52.199-04:00I think you're right.
I finished seminary fai...I think you're right.<br /><br />I finished seminary fairly hot on inclusive language, although I never had (nor have I now) much patience with reconfiguring the Trinity and so forth. Then I went to serve an all-black congregation in the poorest US congressional district, and discovered that nobody gave a rat's ass. <br /><br />It wasn't that they didn't understand the questions -- they did. It was that those questions didn't address any of their spiritual needs at all. They didn't mind my dropping male pronouns out of my sermons, and they didn't mind if their next pastor dropped a few female ones in. <br /><br />They didn't care, because either way it wasn't going to get them jobs, get their kids off drugs, make the housing projects safe at night, mend their broken families or heal the gaping emotional wounds left by generations of poverty.<br /><br />So, without ever changing my convictions, I eventually stopped worrying about it. On those rare occasions when a sentence requires a pronoun, I use it. If there are educated white liberals in the room, I wink apologetically at them. Otherwise, I move on.Father Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18170260624474428623noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15178007.post-32204003918090846472010-07-27T08:52:05.058-04:002010-07-27T08:52:05.058-04:00I've given up on inclusive pronouns for God. ...I've given up on inclusive pronouns for God. It's just so awkward. And you lose any personal images for God. And in the parishes I've been I just cannot say "she" I read once that when you use gender neutral pronouns for God men imagine a man and women imagine nothing.<br /><br />Although I had assumed that most people understood that God is not a male. But I've discovered that's not true. I guess we do need to look at this again. I suspect reworking pronouns is not going to be the answer to problem that needs to be addressed with better religious education.Pastor Joellehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14212838423929588352noreply@blogger.com