Godself by the Rev. Richard H. Schmidt

Father Schmidt is the editor of Forward Movement, the folks who bring you Forward Day by Day. He writes a column called "The Back Page" for their seasonal newsletter, Odyssey. The Pentecost 2007 "Back Page" is entitled Godself, and I found it quite helpful in light of three years of conversations over gender specific language and suffering through ridiculous sermons about God, Godself. The people at FM have given me permission to reprint it here, please read, enjoy (or hate it), and add your two cents.

I received a letter recently asking why we use masculine pronouns when referring to God in Forward Movement publications. The writer said in part:

“I am offended at the implied suggestion that God is a male, something I thought we had put behind us. This usage not only trivializes God, but has contributed to the suppressing and oppressing of women and other minorities for most of Christian history. It is unconscionable for the Episcopal Church’s official publisher of devotional material to continue to use such language.

“No pronoun is needed when referring to God. I urge you to stay with the word ‘God,’ which implies no gender. When the reflexive case is called for, the word ‘Godself’ meets that need.”

I regret that our references to God offend some readers. We do not seek to offend. Rather, we aim to communicate about God clearly and faithfully. If we were to do as the writer asks, we would err in two ways:

Literary style. Consider the following paragraph:

Jennifer loves to swim. When Jennifer’s friends saw Jennifer at river’s edge, they urged Jennifer to swim across. Jennifer dived in, kicked Jennifer’s legs and plied the water with Jennifer’s arms. When Jennifer reached the far bank, Jennifer patted Jenniferself on Jennifer’s back and said to Jenniferself, “Well done!”

This will not do. Whether one is talking about a swimmer, God, or a haystack, it will not do.

The problem with the paragraph above (as with any unusual usage, vocabulary, or punctuation) is that the reader is distracted from what is being said by how it is being said. At Forward Movement, we want people to think of God, not ourselves or what’s in our editorial style book. Effective writing requires pronouns.

Theology. But what pronouns should we use to refer to God? The English language (and we don’t see redesigning it as Forward Movement’s mission) allows but four choices: they, it, she, and he. None of these was conceived with God in mind, and each, alas, falls short in some way.

We are not polytheists, so they is out. And since God is not a thing, it must go as well. That leaves she and he, both affirming the basic Christian conviction that God is One and personal. Either would suit me. Since the use of the masculine personal pronoun is biblical and has been the universal practice of the church, Forward Movement will stick with it.

I doubt many will mistake this for a suggestion that God is a male. As a young child, I never heard God referred to in any but masculine terms, but I often envisioned the deity as my grandmother. There is no need to invent awkward grammatical constructions to solve a problem most people have long ago put behind them.

But misunderstandings are possible. Hence we at Forward Movement try to minimize our use of masculine words when referring to God, even re-writing entire paragraphs on occasion to get rid of them. Anyone, female or male, who has known an abusive, absent, or unreliable father may cringe when God is addressed as “Father.” Such persons deserve our understanding and empathy. We help them move beyond their pain not by writing bad prose, but by loving them and conveying the love of God to them. That’s our aim at Forward Movement.