www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy Feminism and the English Language

It is the influence of the secular world that gave you, "for us and for our salvation"!

So you must also be quite disturbed that the commission did not go far enough when they revised the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts. At Psalm 103 we read:

You make the grass grow for the cattle
and the plants to serve man's needs,
that he may bring forth bread from the earth
and wine to cheer man's heart.

I must admit that I find myself completely confused by the logic behind this statement.

How does that the fact that it is "feminized" mean it is "secularized"? As I have repeatedly shown, to be a feminist does not mean you do not believe in God. It does not mean that you are secular. This is one of my basic points. Logically, the two don't connect.

I am 44 years old. I was a child during the 1960s. I came to political awareness during the triumph of the conservative movement. I was raised by a very conservative set of parents. I received multiple graduate degrees from very conservative theological institutions. In my Christian life, I have only studied Orthodox theology in the last 14 years. And, in my secular life, I am a trained historian. I took one feminist course in college and I couldn't stand the negative preoccupation with "maleness" in the class.

Nothing about me is secular. I am not a product of the "1960s Latin renovationists", I am not a product of the feminist movement. I am simply a person who has tried to drink deeply from the fount of the Gospel. And, I am a person who has tried to learn something about the struggles women undergo from listening to and observing my wife and her perceptions. I am also a person who spends his life trying to communicate with the under-educated and under-church youth of today.

So to continue to equate any support for horizontal inclusive language with a "secular agenda" is (to use your word) "absurd" in my case.

You can disagree strongly with me -- and you do But please do not continue to insist that I have been secularized. Do not continue to insist that somehow I have been "deluded" by the secular feminist movement from the time period of my youth. Such is not the case.

A long time ago, I was encouraged by a very faithful Orthodox priest to adopt one rule in my theological, liturgical and ethical life: "Judge everything by the Gospel." Since I am from Kansas, this is an Orthodox take on Charles Sheldon's "What Would Jesus Do?"

As I read the Gospels, I am consistently confronted with the fact that Jesus challenges the prevailing patriarchal structure of Jewish society to embrace and include women among his followers. It is this challenge that has led me to re-examine my own patriarchal way of thinking and acting.

Once again, you can disagree. But please give me the courtesy of accepting my own testimony of faith and do not impute to me motives or agendas that are not mine. Thank you.

I have not seen the revision of the Liturgy of Presanctified Gifts. I did not know that it had been promulgated.
To answer your question, I am not "quite disturbed." Change is always uneven and it always takes time. If the changes are of God, they will stick and things will continue to move in this direction. If they are not, then they won't.

A long time ago, an orthodox monastic took me aside and shared with me an interesting (if somewhat literal) perspective. He said, "Don't get too upset by what you see in the Church. Remember the Holy Spirit. He is the ultimate laxative -- whatever is not from Him will wash right through the Church. Only that which is truly from God will remain to nourish the Body of Christ."

So "quite upset"? Not hardly.

In my experience teaching college students--including an annual "writing intensive" course, they would have no problem recognizing the universality in "mankind." They probably would not use it, especially in essays submitted to me, because they think that they should write things like Nelson Mandela is African American. But no, college students would not be thrown off by "mankind."

I think they would recognize lowest-common-denominator pandering though, and probably sleep in on Sundays if offered watered down doctrine. Or maybe I'm projecting.

The educational system must be better in Ohio than in southeastern Kansas. But then again, southeastern Kansas is often called "the appalachia of Kansas."

I hope you remind them that Nelson Mandela is African but definitely not American

That's a good one. But I've got to ask, how would you say it to, for instance, a mixed gender group?

It would not be correct to recited the Creed with an incorrect formula (one that removes the term �anthropos� / �man�) but it would be correct in a homily to start with the correct wording of the Creed and break it down to teach. If, in a homily, the priest was to say: �Who for us men and our salvation He became man � what does that mean? It means that Christ came for us men � all men � and by all �men� the Church speaks of everyone from Adam and Eve to the last child conceived before the Second Coming." Etc.

The Churches teaches that it is the job of the homilist to teach the proper understanding of the sacred texts:

Again, the Church calls us to educate those who might not understand the sacred texts. A suggestion that the people of Kansas cannot be educated to level of those in Ohio (to understand Standard English) sounds rather insulting.

This morning on the drive to work the news played a portion of a news conference by presidential candidate Senator Obama in which he was defending his friend, Tony Rezko, who is currently on trial on corruption charges. Senator Obama referred to him as an outstanding "businessman". No one present seemed to be unable to understand his reference. And, as I noted before, we can see that terms like "man" and "mankind" are integral parts of Standard English and used everywhere. As the author of the original article in this thread noted, among other things politically correct English is clunky. The demand of some to use "his or her" constantly (and etc.) is fading. That is why the gender neutral language in the Ruthenian Divine Liturgy sounds so 1970s.

A very good point. If we look at the Protestant churches that have embraced politically correct language in worship we can see that they are loosing people rapidly. Yes, there are many factors involved, but people can spot it immediately when they see the truths of their faith being repackaged to conform to the demands of the politically correct. And we have the witness of the Roman Catholic Church, which had some experimentation with gender neutral language and found it did not work and has now abandoned it.

Just to expand and clarify, the liturgicon is also the deacon's book, and the context is not the Quote above but:



I had considered the page 73 text, but it is not a "change" since it is also in the previous liturgicon. So, if I may, your example is a response to "What is not perfect with the RDL?" Your answer then is that more gender-neutralizing fixes are needed beyond those in the RDL.

Dn. Anthony

And as I have pointed out to you, "true feminism" accepts inclusive words such as "for us men" and "mankind". But radical feminism attempts to eradicate these words because of some perceived and secular driven offence.
Well then, we have much in common. I am only a couple years older than you with a BS degree--raised in a conservative family. I have exclusively studied only Orthodox theology for the past seven years.
But with all due respect, intentionally or not, you support the radical feminist cause by supporting the neutralization of the language of the Liturgy (and Sacred Scripture).
Is this why you support the feminization of the Liturgy--because of your wife's perceptions? AS I stated earlier, my wife was appalled by the feminized Liturgy as are many (if not all) of the woman I know in the Byzantine Catholic Church.
That is commendable.
I'm sorry. And it is not my intention to offend you. But every instance throughout my lifetime where horizontal feminized language has been instituted, it has always been intimately connected to the radical feminist movement--a secular agenda. One can look at the Roman Catholic Church to see the damage that has be done--and the so-called "Catholic" new age retreat centers.
Yes. I strongly disagree.
I do not say you are secularized. And I do not say that you are deluded. But somehow, you have adopted and championed the very movement that you claim to not support. It puzzles me.
Absolutely. And it was two women who were the first to see Christ's Resurrected Body! And the Panaghia is the most venerated and sinless example for mankind! But this does not mean we must take the pen and neutralize the reverent and poetically inclusive language of the Liturgy and Sacred Scripture. There is no need!!!
???
I am trying very hard to understand your perspective. But when your conclusions fall into line with the secular feminist agenda, it is difficult for me to see the difference.

Sadly, brothers, this is exactly the problem that was predicted for our communication process when the whole issue of feminist language, whether horizontal or vertical, came on the scene in the late 1960s and early 1970s when I was training to be a teacher of English. The problem has become that we cannot even agree how to communicate with each other. And translated to the area of the Church, we have the problem that we cannot teach the Faith because we cannot agree how it is to be communicated. The issue is more than words; the issue is how we perceive the Faith that is to be communicated. In another portion of this forum, the issue of Baptism is being debated and how we are to baptise, using what words, or if the words may be altered to fit some cultural idea that is specific to the English-speaking world.

As an aside, and not meant to stir up this issue even more, I remember one of my professors once stating that "English is the language of heresy." Where French is the language of diplomacy, Spanish is the language of mysticism, and Latin was the language of the law (at one point), English has the distinction of being the language of heresy since it has the genius of being so easily altered in meaning via its constantly accepting new words and meanings for exisiting words from outside sources.

I trained during the period (I'm 57) when this issue first came up and saw firsthand the battles that took place among the academics of the day. It was a "no holds barred" battle and no one took any prisoners in the English department. At the time, those who advocated for feminist language insisted that their goal was to re-engineer the culture and abolish any thought of "patriarchy"--something assumed to be universally bad, wrong, and evil. On the other side, people insisted that the language had been inclusive since the time Beowulf was written and no one had ever excluded anyone by the use of the langauge then considered standard English.

I'd like to add a few observations from my own experience as one trained strictly in standard English. These come from lessons my professors actually taught prior to 1970.

"For us" is a construction that leaves the meaning open. For us "what"? Donkeys? Tree limbs? Rocks? Jelly jars? Chimpanzees? The point to be made is that the construction asks for a completion in the deep structure of the grammar--Noam Chomsky's approach to grammar. It is something that the English language begs for. Now, we can ASSUME that it means "men" or "human beings" but it is still open. And you know what happens when we "assume."

Another point to be made is the economy of language. Wherever we can use a compound sentence, we should substitute a compound complex to shorten the expression and add power to the expression by choosing words that convey the same meaning with less words. The same holds true when we have an adjective modifying a noun. We strive to find a word that expresses the same concept with one word instead of two. In English, we have done that for many years with one word--generic "man"--being substituted for "human beings." Until, that is, the advent of feminism. With that advent we have been challenged to either drop the single word "man," or add "women" or write "(wo)man" or substitute "human beings" or go to using some other construction that violates accepted principles of grammar and syntax. The use of two words "human beings" to substitute for generic "man" is an example of the violation of the economy of language principle.

Another example is "humankind" that was panned by the Vatican . While "humankind" may have a history going back some centuries, it didn't seem to catch on in the language because the shorter "mankind" served the purpose. One can search the literary offerings of both secular and sacred texts and find little use of that word. While it may appear once in a great while, it still "clunks" in the head of the native speaker of the language.

Another thought that comes to mind is that we don't usually have two words that are intended to be interchangeable. Mankind is how we refer to ourselves when talking about who we are. The other might be better suited to situations where one is speaking about many species, not all human. Nevertheless, the word "humankind," though having a longer history than we might think, is still an example of words passing out of common usage simply because they are more cumbersome than another that becomes the standard of usage. It's the same principle as the letters in the word "eight" being no longer spoken. We slide over them as we slide over words that are too cumbersome. That is the genius of the English language.

The problem has become, as I see it and heard it predicted, is that we become so burdened by the politics of language that we forget what language is supposed to be and to do: to facilitate the transfer of meaning from one person or persons to another person or persons. When we can no longer communicate, we devolve into fights that quickly become ad hominem. In the Church, when we can no longer communicaste, we can no longer pass along the Fatih as we have received it neither adding to it or subtracting from it as we are mandated to do by our Baptism.

BOB

No you do not understand me correctly. Why recite the Creed to the secular world? Preach to the pagans in the language that will draw them to the Gospel. But until they are ready to accept the mysteries as embodied in the whole Creed and the true Liturgy, remind them of the doors, the doors!!!!