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The War on Pronouns, cont’d

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(one in an occasional series highlighting ridiculous inclusive-language overkill, without regard for the scansion, meaning, or music.)
 
Today’s example is a relatively mild one, yet with important philosophical ramifications. This week’s lectionary includes Psalm 149, whose fourth verse begins as follows:
For the Lord takes pleasure in his people…
at least in the distant past, say 20 years ago. Now that “his” is a four-letter word, however, it’s been changed, in my church anyway, to
For the Lord takes pleasure in the people…
This change transforms the meaning of this passage. “His people” are the elect, while “the people” means everyone. (Of course, to Christians the elect is a club anyone can choose to join, but it’s not all 7 billion people in the world.) Either God’s favor is on everyone, or only on some, and changing this meaning, while not the biggest deal in the world, undermines the main point of the psalm; this isn’t really worth the elimination of one pronoun.
 
I can’t help noticing that in verse eight they kept this formulation intact:
to bind their kings in chains and their nobles with links of iron
Every other use of the word “king” has been pretty much excised from the Politically-Correct Church, including renaming Christ the King Sunday to The Reign of Christ, as if there was some doubt about Jesus’ gender. Generally “king” gets replaced by “ruler” or “sovereign” or something. But I guess as long as it’s something bad happening to them, then it’s okay to use a male-specific word. Didn’t bind any queens in chains, I guess.
 
I’m comfortable with the fact that God has no gender, and in many cases the original languages of the scripture had gender-neutral formulations which weren’t as impersonal as “it”. But English doesn’t. And if eliminating every gender-specific word takes precedence over transmitting the meaning of the scripture, we’re all in trouble. Happy All Saints’!

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  3. Allen,
     
    Thanks for opening this box. May I add?
     
      In a Psalter Hymnal (don’t be impressed by the lofty sounding name) the following are among changes a committee made, violating poetry.
     
         God of Our Fathers, Whose Almighty Hands transmuted to God of the Ages, Whose Almighty Hands. (Be happy it is not “Awsome Hands.”)
                     Where does time have hands other than on a clock or Evolution’s theory? Or on my hands and you in my…..etc.?
     
         Here I raise my Ebenezer is now Here I raise my greatest treasure in “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.”
                      The wonderful symbolism of spiritual growrh and blessing is reduced to mammon. I Samuel 7:12
     
    Amen, Allen, and thanks again!
     
    Ed Palmer
     
     
                    

  4. Inclusive language related to familiar hymns and choral music is tricky because you are balancing very legitimate theological considerations (God is not male or female) with aesthetics, linguistic challenges, the composer’s/poet/s intent, the comfort the singer and listener have with the familiar, and the discomfort we may feel that there isn’t always a satisfying solution.
     
    All that said, anything worth agonizing over is also ripe for satire. While singing in an Epsicopal church choir at a bastion of liberalism in Pasadena, which shall remain nameless to protect the innocent – and the guilty, a few fellow singers and I would engage in a bit of projecting the Logical Extreme when the inclusive language efforts fell short. One such example was: He’s Got The Whole World In His Hands, which had been changed to God’s Got the Whole World In God’s Hands.
     
    It only seemed fair that if we were going to take a beloved children’s song and apply inclusive language, we should make sure there was not a hint of exclusivity in the song.  The following was the result:
     
    God’s Got the whole World in God’s Hands
    (Wait – Let’s don’t be so earthocentric. What about any non-earthly creatures yet to be discovered?)
    God’s Got the whole Universe in God’s Hands
    (Uh-oh – That would exclude anyone without hands, so perhaps we should find a more inclusive word…)
    Ah – Body parts.
    God’s Got the Whole Universe, in God’s Body Parts
    (Body parts implies only the anthropomorphized expression of beings, material or spiritual. Change that.)
    God’s Got the Whole Universe, in God’s Being – okay, that’s not too bad.
    (Oops. What about the Have Nots. Why does God GOT the whole universe. Perhaps there’s a way to identify this relationship without requiring God to be the owner. An ownership nuetral word… Ah!)
    God’s Recognizes the Whole Universe, in God’s Being
    (Except that there are folks who have a problem decoding certain information and might not be able to recognize any number of things. Here’s an alternative:
    God acknowledges the Whole Universe, in God’s Being Okay, next verse.
    God acknowledges the Wind and the Rain…
    (That leaves out a whole host of other weather related conditions, hmmmm)
    God acknowledges all meteorlogical phenomenon in God’s Being.  (Brilliant – on to verse three)
    God acknowledges you and me brother (of for goodness sake – just skip this one)
    God acknowledges the sun and the moon (hey – heavenly orbs have feelings too…)
    God acknowledges all astrological objects and matter in God’s Being. (Great. One more.)
    God acknowledges the itty bitty baby…(Pro-blem. Not all babies are itty bitty. And not all of us with a childlike heart would be called babies. And besides, baby doesn’t automatically mean human.)
    God acknowledges the one size fits all ageless creature in God’s Being.
     
    Job done! Enjoy teaching this to your Sunday School. Love to see the hand motions that go with this version.
     
     

  5. Psalm 149
     
    Praise teh Celling Cat! sings to Ceiling Cat new toonz, and haz props in front-a all teh kittehs.
    2 let the chilluns getz happy from Celling kitty.
    3 prayz Ceiling Cat and dance, dance, dance!
    prayz Ceiling Cat and dance, dance, dance!
    play teh tunes, yeah, dance, dance, dance.
    4 Celling Cat digs teh kittehs. He makes you pretty and dance, dance, dance.
    5 Let the kittehs getz happy n chill.
    sing, dance and jump on the bed n dance, dance, dance.
    6 They sing Ceiling Cat wit der moufs and wit svord.
    7 Good kittehs look 4 bad kittehs, and seek venjenz upn heeeeethns kittehs,
    heeeethns kittahs not aloud to dance, dance, dance. no can haz cheezburgrs.
    8 Heeeethns kittahs can has bondij and no memer safwurd.
    9 Ceiling kitty sees you do wha he toll ya: all kittns haz onher. Lemme herye sez: All hale teh Celling Cat! Srsly!

  6. The inclusive language issue that  I lament most is in Christmas Carols.  Early in my career i could tout Christmas Carols as the only songs that grandparents, parents and children could all sing together by heart.  Now in church, the inclusive versions of carols cause people to stumble and then stop singing with the energy they had started.   Why change “Good Christians Men Rejoice” to “Good Christian Friends Rejoice”?  Why not just have someone write new and awesome carols with modern uses of pronouns.  Then we could still sing the old standards together as a community while learning the new carols.  To address this problem I have set 1976 as my arbitrary date for inclusive language.  If a song or choral work was written before our country was 200 years old, I will program it with old-fashioned text.  If after 1976 i will only program it with inclusive text.  There are some exceptions.  I think of the older texts like Aaron Copeland thought of the western style music he used in Rodeo.  It was just musical scenery to give a feeling of place.   The older texts give a connection to our extended community.  
     
    Sorry Allen to take a tangent from your original post.  I believe that inclusive language does reflect the present, but there are times where it gets in the way of prayers and texts.  The ELCA doxology changed recently from “Praise God from whom all blessings flow, Praise Him all creatures here below, Praise Him above ye heavenly hosts, Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost” to “Praise God from whom all blessings flow, Praise God all creatures here below, Praise God above ye heavenly host, Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost. ” .  Changing the first three stanzas but leaving gender intact in the last makes no sense at all to me.  Why not just scrap the prayer and start over?

  7. Do you ever wish that editors of hymn books would at least let us see the original words that they then amended? That way we could either appreciate the original poetry or see how much more enlightened we are now, depending on point of view.

  9. Several years ago, I suggested initiating a new series of pronouns, designed just for the God head. It included words like ges and gis and gim. Didn’t catch on, but it seemed like a good solution to the problem.

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