God is not He
It is thirty years since Common Worship took the ‘him’ out of the opening of the Eucharist Prayer: “It is right to give (him) thanks and praise”. It was an incredibly bold and progressive decision - thirty years ago now - for a church traditionally defined by its liturgy: to remove the male pronoun for God. But somehow we didn’t manage to follow through on this bold liturgical precedent. Common Worship is patchy in its implementation of inclusive language, especially for God - it needs careful selection of Common Worship options to maintain inclusive-language consistency; and there is still no consistent inclusive-language translation of scripture. But thankfully there is, at last - newly published - a complete inclusive-language lectionary that finally allows the option of a complete and consistent inclusive-language Sunday liturgy.
Consider this, coming up as the Gospel reading on Trinity Sunday - bearing in mind that pneuma (Spirit) in Greek has no gender. This is the ‘inclusive-language’ NRSV:
‘I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.’
That’s eight male pronouns in NRSV. NIV has eleven:
‘I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.’
And this is the newly-published Sunday Scriptures for Reading Aloud, SSRA.UK:
‘I still have many things to say to you – more than you can know. But the Spirit of Truth will come to you, and guide you into all truth; honouring me, by taking what is mine, and making it known to you; disclosing to you the things that are to come. All that the Father has is mine; and the Spirit of Truth will take what is mine, and make it known to you.’
SSRA works by avoiding pronouns altogether for God, Lord, the Holy Spirit, the eternal Christ, and the eternal Word. The effect is so subtle that people would not even notice unless it was pointed out. The language is clear, timeless, dignified, and, where appropriate, even poetic. Nobody is going to complain that the male pronouns have gone missing.
Sunday Scriptures for Reading Aloud began as a project to encourage the appreciation of the public reading of scripture ‘in ordinary churches on ordinary Sundays’. But inclusive language was part of the translator’s DNA. And almost by accident, we have ended up with the only truly inclusive-language translation available. Incredibly, it also turns out to be the only edition of the three-year lectionary currently in print in the UK - apart from the much-criticised new catholic edition in ESV - which says something slightly worrying about how much we value scripture. Take a click around, at ssra.uk.
