It is a privilege for me to be able to include elements of the worship services that are provided to the denomination by the Presbyterian Outlook in our own worship services. We do not use all the elements, oftentimes rewriting the Call to Worship to reflect the Scripture of the day (which is not the lectionary). But the Confession, Prayers of the People, the call and response to the offering, those we use quite consistently.
As do we use
the response of faith. The majority of the time, these are drawn from the
Confessions of the church, which are an excellent reminder of who we are and where
we come from. This past Sunday, we used a selection from the Confession of 1967.
Something struck me, not the theology, but the language.
It was not
inclusive, as we understand that today. I believe it was inclusive for the
time, when the male pronoun and masculine lead were generally accepted as being
inclusive, but that understanding has progressed. Being a historic document (and
it causes a little pang of something that a document written in my lifetime is ‘historic’),
it is understood that the language is also historic (or archaic). But this is
often the case with reading the Bible as well, even in the most recent
translations.
I followed
the written text for awhile, maybe halfway through. But then I found myself
switching into an automatic mode (or subconscious if you like) of updating the
language as we shared the text together. ‘Mankind’ became ‘humanity’ and so
forth. That is where I was comfortable once again in my language of worship.
The language
of theology and church that I grew up with were male dominant. I came with a
certain crankiness to accept inclusive language-deliberately gender neutral-as
is practiced these days. It came from the belief and life experience that older
practice of inclusivity built into male dominant language. I got it, in my
mind, but the heart can be more fickle.
Until the day
I was reading some more conservative reformed theology (that in which I was
raised) and the author made the argument that male gender-specific language was,
in fact, proof of male exclusivity in the name of our faith to church
leadership. Male dominant thinking was given theological weight in the
grammatical construct of pronouns…
That is where
the knowledge of the heart synchronized with the head. I could argue from
within about inclusiveness being a grammatical construct of inclusive language
(I grew up with that). I did not believe there was that sinful streak of hierarchy
built into the present-day understanding and expression of the theology on
which I was raised.
So as we spoke
these words from the Confession together, the automatic updating began. If I could
tolerate watching myself on the live feed, I would be tempted to go back and
watch to see what could get picked up on our Youtube channel.
What does
this say about me? That I can, in fact, be taught? That being a life-long
learner has deep implications about how the Body of Christ is defined? That sin
can nest in the theological creativity of the most devout?
I found
myself reflecting on the need to fix this problem, to update the source
material. Yes, to update C67. That was the intent of this morning’s post till I
found out it has already been done by people with far more training and
experience than myself. Years and years ago. For this I am very grateful.
Makes me
wonder about the rest of our confessional history. As with each generation (or
two or three), we revisit the Bible in its original languages to make the best
translations we can in the language and grammar of the day, I wonder if there
is some work in our confessional history as well.
Pastor Peter
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