The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada has developed some inclusive language guidelines to help it proclaim the “good news” in “an increasingly pluralistic context”.
What is the ELCIC’s “good news”, you may be wondering. After plumbing the theological depths of the insights buried in this document, I am compelled to conclude that it’s the fact that the ELCIC has decided to use inclusive language.
For example, whatever you do, don’t refer to God as “He”; it may not upset Him, but it surely will upset the ELCIC:
It is preferable, then, to reduce to a minimum the use of gendered pronouns when referring to God, and to use ‘God’ as the pronoun for God. While this may cause some awkward phrasing, it keeps us mindful of how God transcends human gender. Avoid pronouns like ‘He’, ‘His’, ‘Him’ when referring to God. Consider varied and diverse pronouns as an alternative.
Getting around the inconvenient fact that Jesus was a man is a bit trickier, but it can be done:
In regards to the Second Person of the Trinity, while Jesus’ body was male in gender the incarnation’s significance is God’s connection to our humanity. It is preferable to minimize the use of the male pronouns for the Christ, so as not to connect the incarnation to maleness, but rather use names or titles when referring to the Second Person of the Trinity, e.g., Jesus, Christ, the Messiah, Saviour, companion or kin.
The document contains a helpful glossary of terms to enlighten those of us who hitherto have rested comfortably in a cocoon of indifference to the varieties of sexual deviation being gleefully explored by the ELCIC. Not all are new, of course: for example, promiscuity has been relabelled “polyamory”. It won’t be long before committed polyamorous ménages are pronounced “holy” and worthy of church blessings because promiscuity is now an orientation:
Polyamory (Polya): a term that describes a spectrum of people who have an orientation towards consensual non-monogamous relationships.
Thanks to this document, no one has the excuse of pleading ignorance to the meaning of the “+” in “LGBTQ2+”: it means “unnamed identities”. Anything you can imagine and probably some things you can’t.
LGBTQ2 +: an abbreviation or umbrella terms for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and/or Questioning and Two-spirit peoples. The addition of the + recognizes the diversity of unnamed identities the abbreviation often comes to represent.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church and the Anglican Church of Canada are in full communion; there are plans to hold joint synods and parishes are combining. Both denominations have the same understanding of Christianity and both are withering away at much the same rate.
As the trend to merge these two offerings of Plato’s Retreat re-imagined accelerates, I look forward to enjoying the spectacle of precision synchronised withering.
I think that the ELCIC should get rid of the “E” as evangelism must surely be considered offensive by them.
They’ll idiot-dance until the money runs out.
I like to refer to them as the ELCIC with the silent ‘E’.
Tragically this shows how many of the previous Christian churches including the ACoC have changed their allegiance from the God of the Scriptures to that detestable ‘god of political expedience”. They are definitely falsely advertising when they call themselves “evangelical”. They might well be but not in any way Christian.
Okay. In the italicized first paragraph, the initial “then” essentially means “therefore”. Is there a reason behind that “therefore” that won’t either cause me to lose my lunch or hurt myself laughing?
One of my former ACoC colleagues (presently a bishop somewhere in Canada) once said to me, “The revealed name of God in Scripture is ‘Father, Son and Holy Spirit’ “. I have quoted it several times. Get over it.
We need to start adding “Dear Jesus,” to these pronouncements. E.g., “Dear Jesus, It is preferable to reduce to a minimum the use of gendered pronouns when referring to God, and to use ‘God’ as the pronoun for God. While this may cause some awkward phrasing, it keeps us mindful of how God transcends human gender. Avoid pronouns like ‘He’, ‘His’, ‘Him’ when referring to God. Consider varied and diverse pronouns as an alternative.” Because Jesus Christ can always benefit from solid tutoring from woke 21st cc. thinklings.
An essentially English-language folly and conceit. Other languages either have grammatical gender systems that do not permit such nonsense or no genders at all.
In French, every noun/pronoun must be either masculine or feminine (it cannot be both and it cannot be either). Even more deliciously ironical – since this lunacy is coming from Lutherans – you can’t “hide” gender in German either.
And what to say about Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek, none of which permit fudging grammatical gender the way English does?
Horror! Does this mean the original scriptural texts in those languages are now actually theologically deficient?
What about grammatical verb tense ? Surely, since God is eternal or timeless, any utterance of the form “God said .. “, “God is ..”, or “God will ..” is (need a neologism here) temporalist, imposing on He/She/It a solecism as bad as an attribution of gender.
What on earth are we going to do about
“Our Father who art [present tense] in Heaven ..” ?
While brutally persecuted Chinese Christians (v. ‘Christian Post’), both Roman Catholics and Protestants, are being subjected to the CPP Sinacization (not Sinaiazation) of The WORD of GOD, and, indeed, of all things truly Christian, Father Marx and his acolyte, Cultural Marx, claim another anti-Scriptural victory in the Lutheran Communion in Canada; Lutheran in name only.
Of the Infallibility of The WORD of GOD, on pain of Divine ‘excommunication’ + Deut. 4:2, The Revelation of Jesus Christ 22:18,19, the thrice excommunicated Luther, by his Order, his Pope and his Emperor, undertook the following in his condemned winter of 1521,
seeking refuge in the Wartburg, there to translate The Holy Scriptures into the vernacular:
“Faith in The WORD of GOD had made Luther free. By it he felt emancipated from the dogmatical authority of The Church, from its hierarchy and traditions, from the opinions of the Schoolmen, the power of prejudice, and from every HUMAN ordinance. Those strong and numerous bonds, which for centuries had enchained and stifled Christendom,
were snapped asunder…and he nobly raised his head, freed from all authority except that of The WORD. This independence of man, this submission to GOD, which he had learned in The Holy Scriptures, he desired to impart to The Church.” ‘D’Aubigne, Hist.Ref., p. 320
“Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus it is HE, LORD Sabbaoth by Name, from age to age the same…one little WORD will fell him (the prince of darkness)…”
‘Ein Feste Burg’, Martin Luther
so who does that leave … the Baptists? among the big churches?