by Greer Anne Wenh-In Ng

Is inclusive language really a non-issue for the Asian churches of the United States and Canada? Or is it rather an example of these churches’ “null curriculum,” the part of the educational program that teaches powerfully by not being taught?1 In this paper, I propose that we take an exploratory look at the thorny area of inclusive, in the sense of non-sexist, language, an area which seems to have been on the whole neglected, ignored, or avoided by most bilingual Asian laity and clergy in North America. Why is this so and what are some of the pastoral and educational consequences of such neglect! avoidance on individual faith life, communal witness, and ministry action? My aim is a modest one: not so much to offer solutions as to start a con-versation. In this exploration, I will use examples from the Chinese language since Chinese is my mother tongue and the one I know best apart from English.

“Let us make ren (people) in our image.. .“:

The Issue of Inclusive Language

My friend was right: those of us who are privileged to be able to work in East Asian languages (Chinese, Korean, Japanese) actually have a genuine generic term for humans/humanity that is neither female nor male, but inclusive of both as indicated in Genesis 1:26 above. Demonstrating another characteristic of an uninflected language, the third person singular pronoun in Chinese can indicate either male, female, or neuter genders.2 Seen from this perspective, the offense surrounding gender-exclusive Language in language about God and humans in scripture and worship (prayers, hymnody) can indeed be regarded as irrelevant, a non-issue.

Where English translators of the Bible have employed the term "man" or "he" even in cases of the Greek anthropos (human) rather than andros (man), the translators of the Chinese Bible have consis-tently rendered these terms into ren (person, persons, people, human). In Mark 3:1, for instance, the “man who had a withered hand” is trans-lated “there was a person, [with] a hand withered.” To indicate the person’s sex, the term “male person” would have to be used, which is often not idiomatic no matter which dialect one speaks. When read-ing Psalm 8 together, Chinese-speaking Christians say “What are hu-man beings (ren) . . . world’s people (shiren), that you care for them?” (Psalm 8:4). We can see how Chinese, Korean, or Japanese female Christians do not, therefore, necessarily feel excluded from biblical ac-counts week after week as their English-speaking counterparts might feel in a church not using gender-inclusive language.

By the same token, the language of liturgy and hymnody is gen-erally much more gender-inclusive compared to English. The term ren (people) would automatically be used whenever the hymn writer 5 in-tent is generic: “humankind” is always used for the English term “mankind.” In that cluster of English hymns notorious for their male language - “Rise up 0 men of God,” “Once to every man and nation,” and “O brother man, fold to thy heart thy brother”-- the Chinese titles are, respectively, “Rise up people of [the] Lord,” “Hymn of decision” (with “Whether nation or individual, sooner or later there’ll be a day” as the first line), and “Hymn of loving [other] people” (with a mixed “O brothers, open wide your hearts [literally: chests] to love [other, or-dinary] people” as the first line).3 Given such transpositions, can one wonder why bilingual Asian Christians sometimes have difficulty appreciating the concern over gender-exclusive language brought forward by English-speaking feminist theologians and liturgists?

Furthermore, the Chinese language has long employed gender-inclusive terminology for functions and occupations such as mail-carrier (yuocai), old students’ association (jiushenghui, thus doing away with the clumsiness of alumnae/i for mixed groups), and spokesper-son (fayanren). Although, as in English, one still comes across refer-ences to “woman doctor” and “woman lawyer” with their implied perception that males are still the norm in such prestigious profes-sions, there is much more in the way of “common gender” terms in the Far Eastern languages than in English. As far as language for humans is concerned, there is good reason why original language speakers have not felt any need to discuss the matter.

And yet, lest we become too complacent or self-congratulatory, we must not remain unaware of some problematic areas, especially concerning the devaluing of women in our language. This unwelcome awareness surfaces when we begin to examine the etymology and for-mation of Chinese characters which incorporate the radical “female.” Let us look at some classic examples: (1) The character for slave originally refers to female slaves and shows pictorially “women under the hand of a master.”4 (2) The ancient character for quarrel shows two women side by side, indicating that when two women live to-gether, there is often “difference of thinking/decision [my own trans-lation]. (3) Even more damaging is the character denoting illicit sex-ual behavior showing three women together which originally re-ferred to “amours and intrigues among and with women.”5

These are certain evidence of sexist and classist oppression of a society in which women’s place and behavior were often determined and evaluated by those more powerful than they, usually men. This ambiguous hei’itage, then, is also part of what Asian Christians have to deal with as they struggle with matters of language about humans and how it affects their life in worship and in the community.

“Our Father, who art in heaven ...“:

Language, Metaphor, and Concepts about God

Language about humans, however, is only part of the picture. When we come to consider language addressing, referring to, or trying to describe God, much more than language is at stake. Chinese Korean, and Japanese Christians have adhered fairly closely to the traditional biblical ways of referring to God in almost exclusively male images -- father, Lord, king. There has not been much discussion about the effects this has had on believers’ ways of conceiving God. Is this simply an indication of self-chosen theological isolation, even deliberate ghetto-ization? Is it, as Asian-speaking Christians have so often been accused, simply another instance of reinforcing Confucian pa-triarchy with biblical sanction? Or is the matter not as simple as it appears?

I would like to suggest that this last is indeed the case -- that there are factors which complicate what might be perceived by non-Asian language speakers as a rather straighfforward state of affairs. Among such complicating factors which will be discussed here are: (1) historical and cultural influences on how the Chinese conceive of the divine; (2) the function and power of image and metaphor in theol-ogy; (3) the current extent of patriarchal arrangements in most Asian homes and churches; and (4) the variety of theological stances govern-ing biblical interpretation in relation to all three factors in (1), (2), and (3) above.

(1) Historically, Chinese religious thought did not conceive of the divine primarily in anthropomorphic terms or imagery, but in cosmographic and “nature” terms. In her fascinating study of the con-troversy over Chinese terms for the Christian concept “God” en-gaged in by Protestant scholars and missionaries in the 19th and early 20th centuries6, Kwok Pui-lan has shown how the comparatively an-thropomorphic term shangdi (supreme lord) finally gained acceptance over tian (heaven, as in tiandi, heaven and earth) out of the Western-ers lack of understanding of the holistic nature of Chinese thought and over shen (gods) out of their fear of polytheism, although shen is now the term preferred by evangelical Christians. She points out how, steeped in Daoism, Chinese religious thought has always included cosmological, not merely anthropomorphic, dimensions. The valid-ity of her research and observations are confirmed by my friend, a Chinese Canadian pastor, who once declared that the Father image of God should not prove a problem because traditional Chinese persons relate to “the ground of their being” in a trans-personal sense, more as the dao or the ultimate.

Kwok’s research indicates that for the early converts to Protes-tant Christianity in China, in particular women converts, the image of the father with its connotation of sternness and distance needed to be supplemented by a more caring, more humane image of the mother. References to God as being like both father and mother could be found in letters and catechetical material in evangelism. On the other hand, God as the father of all humanity could have a liberating effect. Women converts in those days were able to fasten onto the image of a heavenly father to argue for a more egalitarian way of living on earth. If Christians are all children of the same father/progenitor, then distinctions of class and sex should no longer hold -- an argument we have seen being successfully employed in the immediate apostolic and Pauline era.

(2) My own suspicion is that in contemporary usage the image of the father for God, or “abba” as an address to God (neatly paralleled, incidentally, by the Chinese ah ba), may be too closely associated with a predominantly, if not exclusively, male experience of parenthood to allow for much ambiguity. Women and children whose ex-perience of their earthly fathers is positive are empowered in faith; those who have suffered or are suffering abuse at the hands of a father or spouse/partner will not be. The same applies to substituting “parent” (in Chinese fumu, father-mother) since our actual experiences of par-ents can vary greatly.

As for the disclaimer that the lather image is only a metaphor, since we all know God is a spirit and beyond gender, there is every indication that anthropomorphic images run the danger of turning literal, especially for those whose ability to function with symbols has not yet been developed. Anyone who has tried to add or substi-tute “mother” to the Lord’s Prayer or any prayer knows the prob-lem. The fury unleashed should leave no doubt as to the very concrete gender bias of those who “protest too much.” From our own experience, there is every indication that metaphors work both ways. Humans are also influenced by the metaphors they employ. If we think of God as predominantly male, human males become associ-ated with God-like qualities. The issue, therefore, goes beyond the wording in liturgy, hymnody, and biblical translation.

One of the serious consequences, even if unintentional, of main-taining male, hierarchical, and dominating images for the divine has been the sanction of similar tendencies in our world perpetuated on the creation and on humans. Theologian Sallie McFague, in her sustained work on metaphorical theology, makes the case for alternative images of God such as that of friend, mother, or lover.7 Her devel-opment of an innovative theological method is not only valid in it-self, but was also aimed at helping to halt the Western world’s proven tendency of destroying itself by condoning domination and violence.

Taking McFague and other feminist theologians seriously, English hymn writer Brian Wren whimsically coins the term “Kingafap” (King-God-Almighty-Father-Protector) to expose the dominant meta-phor system in British hymnody, declaring that “to select one image and bow down to it is idolatrous.”8 Wren advocates a variety of ‘strong and vivid” biblical images, especially those which are non-traditional, non-male-oriented, and have the shock value of forcing believers to struggle with the doctrine that God is beyond gender. We might add, too, that freeing persons from exclusively male images also frees males from having to suppress their yin or gentler, more traditionally “feminine” sides of themselves and thus begin to become more whole.

It seems that there is no getting around it. Human understanding of self, world, and human ways of behaving towards self, others, and creation are very much influenced by the language humans use. In her study on the implications of inclusive language for religious education, Shannon Clarkson concludes that “language, thought and cul-ture are interrelated and for that reason the language about God and the people of God should be attended to with care.”9 There is, however, a tension between those linguists who hold that our language and our metaphors influence our thinking and those who contend that language is not “deterministic,” but instead reflects prevailing social mores and conditions. These latter would advocate a more root or “radical” approach by directing energy towards attacking sexist, racist, and other unjust systems rather than simply hoping to bring about greater justice by reforming the language and the metaphors we use.10 Perhaps the Asian genius of the yin and the yang could contain both of these approaches rather than having one exclude the other as we continue to explore the need to attend to the way language and meta-phor are used in our faith communities. This becomes eminently clear when we consider existing gender relations in our churches.

(3) Even a cursory look at Asian faith communities in North Amer-ica will reveal predominantly male-dominant structures and congrega-tional life. Ministry personnel are still either solely or predominantly male, especially in the ordained stream. Female personnel, reflecting that of society, cluster around secondary (and therefore often second-class) ministries - religious/Christian education, youth ministry (although here many still prefer males), church secretary, occasionally choir di-rector, and less frequently, organist. Most of them are stereotypically female occupations.

Laity, especially in the more recent immigrant churches, tend to divide along gender lines --all-female volunteer kitchen teams/servers and bazaar organizers, but predominantly-male and occasionally still all-male official boards, sessions, and elder ordination. Much of this phenomenon of gender-distinct roles, greater respect, and control be-ing accorded to male members of the community, etc., we recognize is merely a reflection of the social and cultural values Asians have brought over with them, values which still govern many of their atti-tudes and behavior individually and communally, thus extending it to later generations.

A similar situation obtains in our homes, although it varies ac-cording to the extent to which a particular family has embraced egali-tarian principles in governing gender roles. In immigrant families, it will also depend on the length of the family’s stay in North America and the stage of cultural adaptation the family has reached -- going by the broad generalization that Western society gives more opportuni-ties and choices to females than Asian ones tend to do. Individual family members, of course, will be at different places, often leading to generational and other conflicts over women’s role and young people’s autonomy.

Steeped in Confucian social mores consciously or subconsciously as we all are, not one of us is so naive as to cast all or even the major responsibility for current patriarchal practices on the androcentric heritage- of the Christian faith we have adopted or grown up in. Neither should we be so naive as to think that uncritically following an androcentric Christian heritage has not reinforced our cultures’ patriar-chal tendencies. Rather, the question is this: in today’s context of greater egalitarian treatment for all persons irrespective of race or ethnicity, religion, ability, or gender, how tenable is it still to defend sexist practices on the premise of cultural custom or religious tradi-tion? What about gospel values and their requirements of justice and liberation?11 The gospel promises “life abundant” for all God’s people. If the way we use language about God circumscribes and oppresses over half of God’s people, how can we in good conscience claim to be faithful followers of the one who made that declaration?

Furthermore, cultures are not static, but continually evolve. In our countries of origin in Asia, things do not stand still. Our sisters in Asia have been struggling to claim a place in theological circles and ecclesial structures, struggles, we in North America, have been privileged to share through women’s regional gatherings and through publications such as In God’s Image. Language use and imaging God form part and parcel of that struggle.12 By paying attention to similar concerns and making explicit this part of their “null curriculum,” Asian churches in the diaspora can provide a space for their own soul searching and, in addition, stand in solidarity with their sisters in Asia.

(4) One crucial consideration in ‘all this searching, however, is the influence stances assumed in biblical interpretation have on our God-talk and worship. It is probably more possible, for instance, for those who have moved away from a literalist interpretation of the scriptures to entertain the idea that the symbols for God may very well be culturally defined and historically determined. They may also be more willing to take the risk of trying a variety of ways of ad-dressing God without feeling guilty, or worse, heretical.

The possibility of reclaiming our Asian ways of understanding God, of integrating it into the “orthodoxy” instilled into us by West-em Anglo-European missionaries and their followers, is a tremendous chal-lenge to those among us whose fear of relapsing into “paganism” is real. Persons who hold fast to traditional prepositional, doctrinal theologies with no room for contextualization of the experiences of women, third-world Christians, and the marginalized minorities of North America (blacks, Hispanics, aboriginal/natives, as well as Asians) will also find it difficult. The language issue, therefore, is not only a linguistic, social, cultural, and justice issue, but also a theologi-cal issue.

As in all emotionally charged cases, merely trying to bring about change by reason or factual argument is not sufficient. On the other hand, some basic clarification of what does lie within the scriptural text is essential to correct misinformation or lack of information. This is especially important in offering choices for women. It could be very liberating for those yearning to hear a word of good news to know of the possibility that their womanhood is biblically not a cause for condemnation, but for celebration and responsibility (based on alternative ways of interpreting Genesis 1-3) or that in the words of Isaiah and Hosea the God of Israel has more than once been imaged as a woman in labor, giving birth, and teaching a toddler to walk.

Those of us who, as clergy a’nd educators/teachers, have tried to open up such opportunities have indeed seen~ more such hunger and readiness than has generally been recognized or acknowledged. While leaders in the Asian faith community have an obligation to those who fear, they have no less responsibility to those who hunger and thirst for a word of liberation. This will hardly be an easy or risk-free activity since to invite anyone to re-image the divine is to disturb tenets of faith long and firmly held. Yet not to begin doing this is to decide to abide by the existing status quo of gender relations within our churches and how faithful to a God of compassion and justice would that be? Perhaps the route to go is to engage in prayerful attendance and waiting in order to discern when and where and with whom to engage in acting for change.

“When your children ask you in time to come ...”

For the Sake of Coming Generations

It is not only for our own sakes (in order to be a more just and faithful community), but for the sake of being in solidarity with our sisters in Asia or even to facilitate greater justice and humanity for sisters in our own churches that it is urgent to break the silence around language use in Asian North American churches today. It is, furthermore, for the sake of generations that come after us.

Our younger, English-speaking generations no longer live in an Asian-language-only world, but one in which English is the usual medium of communication. The subtlety of much of what an Asian language might imply, obvious to a native speaker of Chinese, Korean or Japanese, is not easily accessible to them and therefore not directly helpful in their faith and worship life. For such speakers, “man,” “he,” and “spokesman” in daily conversation and writing really refer to only male members of the human race. For such speakers, “God the Father” could hardly contain subtle undertones of the yin as well as the yang available to those familiar with Daoist cosmogony. In-stead, what they have to deal with are the realities of the contempo-rary world, including the way that world uses language.

At the same time, in that world there has arisen an awareness about the problems caused by using language in sexist, racist, classist, and other discriminatory ways against those whom society marginal-izes. As a generalization, we may say that by now, on the threshold of passing from the twentieth into the twentieth-first century, speak-ers of English have a right to expect gender inclusiveness as well as other types of inclusiveness in public speech and writing outside the church. Publishing houses, government departments, and academic centers have issued guidelines on inclusive language use. People have come to expect fewer gender stereotypes, more racially and culturally diverse representations in graphics and content, and greater espousal of gender equality in the school and workplace, at least in principle.13 Would it not be natural for them to expect the same of their churches?

As members of an Asian North American society, they need the help of their church leadership in fighting against silence and in-visibility on account of being women/girls as well as being part of a racially-oriented margin. To continue to ignore issues of language, to continue in the present “null curriculum” is to teach them that gender- justice and visibility do not matter, that the still predominantly patriarchal status quo within their congregations is acceptable, and that they are not really made in the same image as their male siblings and friends. Or, which is equally deplorable, that their church is simply out of touch with “real life” and therefore irrelevant to them as growing, thinking, and striving human beings.

Some major Christian denominations have indeed tried to pay attention to this concern and have issued their own guidelines and even tried to adhere to them in their latest hymn books and liturgical resources.14 The National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. has published a complete three-year cycle of the Inclusive Lan-guage Lectionary, as well as the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible. The question is, do Asian churches in North America pay at-tention to them? Do they even want to adopt their denomination’s up-to-date, more inclusive, and globalized hymn books or liturgical re-sources for fear of resistance from the more traditional, but influen-tial first-generation members and ordained/elected elders?

The anomaly is that often immigrant parents will push their daughters as well as sons to excel in academic work and career paths, but still expect them to remain docile and obedient children at home, willing to carry on the family’s socio-cultural values and customs. This dichotomy needs to be examined from a faith perspective. It is one thing to try to manage in two spheres (be “socially amphibian,” as United Methodist bishop of Los Angeles and Hawaii Roy Sano sug-gested in the 1970’s) in order to live in two cultural worlds at once. It is another to assume that similar requirements are consistent with Je-sus s declaration “that they might have life, life in its fullness” John 10:10) when young people bring up awkward -or innocent - questions about these contradictions.

Another reason for paying attention to what kind of images of God we present to young children, Clarkson points out in her study, comes from the insights provided by recent faith development theo-ries concerning how persons at various “stages” of their developmen-tal journey function. In the beginning stages (“intuitive-projective” for stage 1 and “mythic-literal” for stage 2), children are first imagina-tive and then literal and concrete.15 Generally speaking, before the age of six or seven, they can accommodate and indeed need a wide range of images to build a rich foundation for their spiritual life. For the next few years, they tend to be very literal-minded and are great fact-gatherers and collectors, but they are not quite able to see the symbol behind the thing itself. For example, God addressed in church solely as “Mother,” whether in hymn or prayer or Bible readings and sto-ries, will be seen only in female form. The same’ applies to “Father” and “warrior.”

At children’s baptisms, parents and concerned adults in the church commit themselves before God to bring up the infants and youth of the community in the love of God and to nurture their faith. For the sake of their spiritual health, therefore, it is im-portant not to limit children to only one gender or gender-typical God images, nor to restrict their experience of role models. The lat-ter means making an effort to provide experiences of both male and female care-givers, church school teachers, worship leaders, and preachers. In this way, their “experienced faith,” a concept developed by religious educator John H. Westerhoff to denote the way young children attain faith by simply being part of their parents’ prayer and spiritual life and of their faith community at worship and in social interactions, is built up and strengthened.16

To adopt such a direction in Christian nurture presupposes ade-quate understanding on the importance of these matters by parents, church teachers, and church members. Elders with the powei to fa-cilitate or block changes will need to be “brought on board” to see the significance of these endeavors for the faith life of the children whose spiritual welfare is under their care. They need to be invited to see that what they feel they may not need for themselves should not be withheld from their children and grandchildren. The next step will be to provide parents and leaders with education in these understand-ings and experiences so that they can share them with their children and learners.

“Finally, brothers [and sisters]...”

Given that such is the situation in our churches with their unique gift and burden of praising God and thinking and talking about God both in our ancestral languages and in English, what can we do to maintain harmony in our communities, yet, at the same time not fail in faith and justice to those members who need liberation or rele-vance? The use of inclusive language in Asian and Asian Amen-can/Canadian churches is an emotionally charged issue that is not confined to language use alone. It is rightly perceived to be a questioning of age-long patriarchal attitudes and behavior which many of us have become accustomed to and live with comfortably.

Generally, those who benefit most from the present arrangement of power structures in the church (including faith structures), home, and society are most reluctant to disturb the status quo. It is not rea-sonable to exp’ect those who feel threatened by the implications of introducing volatile issues to take the initiative unless they have had their own consciousness raised via some kind of ‘conversion’ (turning around) experience. It may, therefore, be up to the rest of a particular community to take that first difficult step.

One shape of that step suggested by Keith Watkins in Faithful and Fair: Transcending Sexist Language in Worship is to employ gender inclusive language in hymns and prayers without first making a big fuss about it. He observes (and it has been confirmed by the experi-ence of those who have tried this strategy) that most people do not seem to mind such language when it is crafted skillfully into prayers and hymns without prior explanation, but tend to get upset when any attempt is made at naming and reflecting on the practice.17 On the one hand, this shows the effectiveness of an inductive as opposed to a deductive approach. On the other hand, it shows that educational efforts at raising consciousness and sorting out reasons often involve struggle of some sort. This should not surprise us given the fact that learning, by its very definition, involves change and change, as Ge-stalt psychologists have shown, takes place at the edge of pain. This is a good reminder to exercise great care and compassion when deciding to introduce such language and images into our various ministries. At the same time, it is important not to shy away from making the ef-fort when we discern that the time is ripe and a “teachable moment” arises.

Ruth Duck, long experienced in creating and reconstructing “in-clusive” hymns, suggests three concrete strategies to address the issues surrounding inclusive language for English speakers. One is to alto-gether avoid “terms referring to gender, color, or ‘disability’.” The second is to balance male and female terms. The third, advocated by lit-urgy scholar Marjorie Proctor-Smith, is to intentionally use “emancipatory” terms that question the existing discriminatory connotations of the English language or the confining notions of the divine.18

To Asians familiar with language containing the both! and of things, these strategies need not be self-contradictory, but may be adopted alongside one another. Our cultural religious heritages have also long embraced alternative notions of the ultimate such as Wisdom or Great Ultimate which we can reclaim. Seen from this perspective, Asian Christians in North American enjoy resources not as easily available to their English-speaking-only sisters and brothers. We should be generous enough to be more sensitive to different needs.

It has been the suggestion of this paper that in order to promote more healthful, more wholesome faith communities that foster a richer and wholesome relationship to the divine as well as among their own members, Asian faith communities will do well to ac-knowledge gender-inclusive language as a valid issue and to start ex-amining how both our original and our adopted/birth languages function in our faith life. Will anyone join the conversation?

A Selection Of Useful Resources

Bennett, Robert A. “The Power of Language in Worship.” Theology Today 43:4 (January 1987): 546-551.

Bird, Phyllis A. “Translating Sexist Language as a Theological and Cultural Problem.” Union Seminary Quarterly Review 42:1 (1988): 89-95.

Cameron, Deborah. Feminism and Linguistic Theory. London: Mac-millan Press, 1985.

Clarkson, Shannon. “Language about God.” Studies in Religion 18:1 (Winter, 1989): 37-49.

Clarkson, Jeannette Shannon. In the Beginning Was the Word: Implications of Inclusive Language for Religious Education. Ann Arbor: University Micro films International, 1989.

Eichler, Margrit. Nonsexist Research Methods: A Practical Guide. Winchester, MA: Allen & Unwin, 1988.

Eisner, Elliott W. The Educational Imagination: on the Design and Evaluation of School Programs. 2nd ed. New York: Macmillan, 1985.

Katz, Wendy R. Hers and His Language of Equal Value. A Report of the Status of Women Committee of the Nova Scotia confederation of University Faculty Associations on Sexist Language and the Univer-sity. With Guidelines.

Halifax, NS: Nova Scotia Confederation of University Faculty Asso-ciations: Status of Women Committee, 1981.

Kwok, Pui-lan. Chinese Women and Christianity, 1860-1927. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1992.

______. Discovering the Bible in the Non-Biblical World. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1995.

LaMadeleine, Joseph. “caution! Inclusive Language May Change Your Life!” Sojourners (Summer 1992): 42-43.

Lebans, Gertrude. Things Too Wonderful: A Manual for the Study and Use of Inclusive Language. ed. Dundas, Ontario: Artemis Enter-prises, 1994.

McFague, Sallie. The Body of God: An Ecological Theology. Minneapo-lis: Fortress, 1993.

______. Metaphorical Theology: Models of God in Religious Language. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982.

______ Models of God: Theology from an Ecological, Nuclear Age. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987.

Miller, Lynette P. “What’s That You Say?” Touchstone 1:2 (May, 1983): 25-29. Miller, Patrick D. Jr. “The Translation Task.” Theology Today 43:4 (January 1987): 540-545.

Milne, Pamela J. “Women and Words: The Use of Non-sexist, Inclu-sive Language in the Academy.” Studies in Religion 18:1 (Winter 1989): 25-35.

National Council of Churches of Christ in the U. 5. A. An Inclusive Language Lectionary. Readings for Year A. Atlanta, GA: John Knox, 1983.

Routley, Erik. “Inclusive Language: A View from a Distance.” Worship 53:1 (January 1979):
2-11.

Russell, Letty M. “Inclusive Language and Power.” Religious Education 80:4 (Fall 1985): 582-602. (Also Mary Elizabeth Moore,

“Inclusive Language and Power: A Response.” Religious Education 80:4 (Fall 1985): 603-614)

Sawicki, Marianne. Faith and Sexism: Guidelines for Religious Educators. New York: Seabury, 1979.

Thislethwaite, Susan Brooks. “Inclusive Language and Linguistic Blindness.” Theology Today 43:4 (January 1987): 533-539.

United Church of Canada. Daughters and Sons of God: A Primer on Inclusive Language in the Church. Toronto: Interdivisional Task Force on the Changing Roles of Women and Men in Church and Society, The General Council, United Church of Canada, 1980.

United Church of Canada. The Words we Sing: An inclusive Guide to the Hymn Book. Toronto: The Working Unit on Worship and Liturgy, Division of Mission in Canada, United Church of Can-ada, 1984.

Watkins, Keith. Faithful and Fair: Transcending Sexist Language in Worship, Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1981.

Watley, William D., ed. The Word and Words: Beyond Gender in Theo-logical and Liturgical Language. Princeton: The Consultation on Church Union, 1983.

Withers, Barbara A., ed. Language About God in Liturgy and Scripture: A Study Guide. Philadelphia: The Geneva Press, 1980.

________,,ed. Language and the Church: Designs for Workshops. New York: Division of Education and Ministry, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., 1984.

________ “Inclusive Language and Religious Education.” Religious Education 80:4 (1985): 507-521.

Wren, Brian. What Language Shall I Borrow? God-Talk in Worship: A Male Response to Feminist Theology. New York: Crossroad, 1989.

1. First formulated by Stanford educator Elliott Eisner, the concept of “the null curriculum” has gained widely accepted usage among both secular and church educators. It is Eisner’s thesis that “what schools do not teach may be as important as what they do teach. . . ignorance is not simply a neutral void: it has important effects on the kinds of options one is able to consider, the alternatives that one can examine, and the perspectives from which one can view a situation or problem.” See Elliott W. Eisner, The Educational Imagination: On the Design and Evaluation of School Programs (New York: Macmillan, 1985), 97-107.
2. There does exist a third person singular, coined by Christians, that refers only to the divine with the radical indicating ritual (in place of the usual one indicating humanity) on the left of the Chinese character.
3. Numbers 315, 312, and 318 in Hymns of Universal Praise (Hong Kong: Chinese Christian Literature Council, 1978) widely used iii both its Chinese and English versions in mainline Chinese congregations in North America and Southeast Asia as well as in Hong Kong.
4. L. Widger, Chinese Characters: Their Origin, Etymology, History, Classification and Signification: A Thorough Study from Chinese Documents (New York: Dover Publications, 1965), 169.
5. lbid., 170.
6. See chapter 2, “The Feminization of Christian Symbolism”, in Kwok Pui-lan, Chinese Women and Christianity, 1860-192 7 (Atlanta, CA: Scholars press, 1992), 29-64.
7. Introduced in her Metaphorical Theology: Models of God in Religious Language (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982), McFague worked out its implications in her Models of God: Theology for an Ecological, Nuclear Age (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), and carried the image further in her brilliant creation-as-God twist in The Body of God: An Ecological Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993).
8. See Brian Wren’s What Language Shall I Borrow? (New York: Crossroad, 1989), 132. The science-fiction research activity of a visitor from outer space which produced the hypothesis about “kingafap” is found on pp. 115-22, but the whole volume is worth studying.
9. In the conclusion to Jeannette Shannon Clarkson’s thesis, In the Beginning Was the Word: Implications of Inclusive Language for Religious Education (Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International, 1989) 266, Clarkson examines the field of social linguistics in depth before proceeding to look at feminist linguistics and educational implications. Her work is a “must” for anyone intending to do serious work on the present topic.
10. In addition to linguistic theories dealt with by Clarkson, above, see also the discussion in Deborah Cameron, Feminist Linguistic Theory, especially chapter 5 “Making Changes: Can We Decontaminate Sexist language?” (London: Macmillan, 1985), 72-90.
11. This matter is discussed more fully in chapter 4 “Asian Socio-Cultural values: Oppressive and Liberative Aspects from a Women’s Perspective,” in People on the Way: Asian North Americans Discovering Christ, Culture, and Community, ed. David Ng, (Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 1996), 63-103.
12. Begun by Korean feminist theologian Sun Ai Lee Park and others in the Christian Conference of Asia in 1982, In God’s lmage has been the first and longest continuously existing theological journal drawing on Asian women’s experiences and perspectives. Numerous articles have dealt with the issue of feminine images of God both in the Jewish and Christian tradition and in the tradition of Asia’s great religions and their implications for both Christian and non-Christian sisters. This is the focus of the June 1989 issue with, among others, Dulcie Abraham’s “Feminine Images of God, 3-7, and Ann Wansbrough’s “Feminine Images of God in Traditional Western Christianity --What has happened to them?,” 22. In more than one place, inclusive language is singled out as an issue in empowering women’s faith and ministry--by Sun Ai Lee Park as one of the items for study to “overcome androcentric imageries in the biblical language and liturgies” (December 1986, 23), by Stella Fans in her article “On Language and Sexism” (December 1988,52-55), and in Sr. Pauline’s introduction to the Ecumenical Decade: Churches in Solidarity with Women 1988-98 (December 1989, 24). Gender-exclusive language was named by church women of Bangladesh as one of the “stones’ to be rolled away during the Ecumenical Decade (June 1989, 49).
13. See the volumes by Eichler and Katz in the Resources Section, plus Words that Count Women Out/In by the Ontario [Canada] Women’s Directorate, revised edition, 1993.
14. The Task Force on Educational Strategies for an Inclusive Church, Division of Education and Ministry of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. issued a statement with guidelines in 1980. The United Church of Canada developed theirs at about the same time --see Resources section.
15. James Fowler’s Stages of Faith (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1981) gives a pre-stage of undifferentiated faith (stage 0, infancy), followed by intuitive-projectiVe (stage 1, usually early childhood), mythical-literal (stage 2, primary school years), synthetic-conventional (stage 3, mainly adolescence but also many adults), critical-individuative (stage 4, young adult and adult), paradoxical-reflective (stage 5, mid-adult and later), and universalizing (stage 6).
16. John H. Westerhoff III created the concept of faith styles, like the rings of a tree expanding outward as a person grows, in his Will Our Children Have Faith? (New York: Seabury, 1974). These are: experienced faith, affiliative faith, searching faith, and owned faith.
17. Keith Watkins, Faithful and Fair: Transcending Sexist Language in Worship (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1981). See the Resources section for other titles providing a variety of educational guidelines and strategies, as well as articles dealing with aspects of the issue in mainstream and English-speaking contexts.
18. See under the entry “Inclusive Language” in Dictionary of Feminist Theologies, ed. Letty M. Russell and Shannon Clarkson (Louisville, KY: Westminster, 1996).