Sara about inclusive language
Barbara: Hi, everyone. Welcome to 40 minutes of faith. Today's topic is language. How we talk about each other and God, our guest is Sarah Funkhouser. I met Sarah at Wartburg theological seminary in Iowa. She's a lifelong Lutheran and there's an expression called pipeline, which is a student who goes straight from undergraduate to graduate school.
She has a degree in English, literature, religion, and a minor in interfaith studies. She's from the twin cities in Minnesota. And she's going to be moving to Seattle this summer for her upcoming internship. She's still in the discernment of her call, whether it's to parish, ministry, hospital, chaplaincy, or teaching theology. How are things in Iowa these days?
Sara: they're going really well. It's been beautiful and sunny around here for the most part. It was a few storms and it's been fun to hang out with our classmates and see them outside of the classroom setting .
Barbara: I suspect that the twin cities area is on your heart.
Sara: it always is but especially now with everything that's been happening with George Floyd and Minneapolis, knowing that I have friends and family close to the area and people that are on the front lines out there, protesting.
Barbara: We're keeping everyone in our prayers.
Sara: Thank you
Barbara: Today's Bible passage is short. So I'm going to read it from a few different translations during our conversation. Matthew is the first gospel in the new Testament. You'll find it about three quarters of the way through your Bible. Matthew chapter seven, verse 12, from the message.
“Here is a simple rule of thumb guide for behavior. Ask yourself what you want people to do for you. Then grab the initiative and do it for them. Add up God's law and profits. And this is what you get.”
Sarah, I don't usually ask icebreaker questions at the beginning of episodes, but I really liked this one that we heard at our school this year.
If talking about challenging topics were a soup: Why would you prefer to either
a) add spices and stir it up
b) politely declined even though you're still hungry
c) eat it and deal with the stomach cake later, or
d) serve it cold, like revenge
Sara: I'm someone who doesn't like confrontation at all, but I like to think that, especially with some of these challenging topics, I want to add spice and stirred up, because I think it's really important that we talk about these things in church.
If we can't talk about it and how they relate to our faith, I think in many ways we're doing a disservice to ourselves and to others. Because they're important. It helps us understand who God is and how we interact with God as well.
Barbara: I would rather run in the opposite direction from confrontation yet.
I agree with you that it's important to talk about topics that might make some people feel uncomfortable. I don't think that any of the podcast episodes so far have felt controversial to me, but maybe they were for some listeners, but this one I'm pretty sure it will be. And that's okay. So what is inclusive language and what's expansive language?
Sarah, I'm wondering if you ever felt like the image of God that our churches tends to have was too small?
Sara: I absolutely think that our understanding and the image of God is too small. I think we have tended to ascribe the image of a straight white male to God based on the language that we're using and the images that we use.
Even the fact that Jesus is often depicted as a blue eyed, blonde hair, white guy. and I think that has done a lot of harm to our church.
Barbara: Here's an example from our Bible verse. See if anything jumps out at you while you listen, Matthew chapter seven, verse 12, from the new King James version: “therefore, whatever you want men to do to you do also to them for this is the law and the prophets.”
In an upcoming episode, our guest speaker is going to talk about different translations of the Bible in general. Did it bother you in the past when you heard Bible passages about men, God being a father figure or hymns where we sang about mankind?
Sara: It definitely has. When I think about it, it feels too limiting and it also feels like I'm not included in that. it feels especially that it's men performing actions for other men, but where are the women involved? And I think it also leads to us only talking about what men have done throughout history and throughout the Bible, forgetting that Jesus had many powerful women following him as well.
Barbara: That's a great example. Thanks. How do you think inclusive language sounds?
Sara: think that's a tricky one because it can be different for all people. But I think it, especially in relation to how we understand God means being willing to use God or God's self, instead of saying he all of the time. Which can be tricky, especially when we read the Bible and it's so full of he's.
And then trying to distinguish between, is this he talking about God the father, is it talking about Jesus the person, but it's being willing to at least have those conversations and look at what does it mean if we just refer to God only as he all the time.
Barbara: Thank you for saying that inclusive and expansive language might sound differently to different people.
The Trinity is often referred to in mainline churches as father, son, and Holy spirit. And there has been alternative language proposed even for hundreds of years, such as creator, Redeemer, and sustainer. How did those feel different to you in your gut?
Sara: so I'm actually, I'll admit, one of the people that really likes father, son, Holy spirit, especially given the argument that Jesus refers to God as father. But I think it also means that we then are completely ignoring all of the other references to God throughout the Bible, especially in more feminine or non-gendered examples.
I think it's interesting. With creator, sustainer Redeemer. It talks about the actions and it defines God based on what God does rather than just an identity point. But I also hesitate a little bit if I'm being honest, because I think it can be really easy for us when we talk about creation to talk about only God, the father, so to speak as the creator, when in reality, the entire Trinity is a part of the creation and recreation process that is ongoing.
Barbara: I really appreciate you being honest about having a wide variety of feelings because I do too. And one of the things that I'm looking to face is that I attended a liberal women's university and I believed myself to be a welcoming person and hopefully an ally to people who feel excluded from church or quote the mainstream.
I didn't personally have a problem with thinking of God as father, but I very much wish to honor and welcome people for whom that concept could be traumatic based on their earthly experience. So that's a challenge for me. When I think of say the Lord's prayer, I'm really comfortable saying our father in heaven, but I also know that for some other people that might not be comforting at all.
Sara: I think we need to honor and value people's histories that they have and that they bring to the table. One of the important things that we can do as church is really to throughout our services and conversations, bring up these different images because I think for some people they're okay using father.
But I also don't think that we can use that as the only language that we're using then, because everyone is going to have different relationships with parental figures or other figures in their life. And I think it's hard because we always want to anthropomorphize God and project our human understandings and feelings onto God, but that's not who God is. That's our understanding of God. Looking back at scripture and tradition to see these other ways that we can refer to God, I think is really important for creating that space that is going to be more open and comfortable to all people.
Barbara: So by offering a variety of different images or names for God, hopefully that is welcoming. But what I think I'm hearing you say is that we're not saying today, you can never, ever for the rest of your life refer to God as he again, is that fair to say?
Sara: I choose not to refer to God as he, but I think that for some people that is where they're comfortable. And we need to recognize that and meet them where they're at within that as well. and then challenge each other to start looking at some of these other options that we can use. But I do think by having multiple understandings of this imagery, that's happening within scripture and tradition, we can keep our tradition, continue to grow from that and not just completely toss it out the window.
Barbara: And even though today's theme is language, we've also been talking about images. And at the beginning, you specifically mentioned that many churches have portraits of Jesus as a blue eyed blonde haired male with fairly pale skin, if not pure white, and that's really improbable given that he was born in the middle East. So one of the questions that I like to ask of guests is where is the fear in this conversation that we're having about language and image?
Sara: I think it really comes back to our rootedness in the patriarchy and in white supremacy as well- just in the systems that we've been ingrained in because we've become comfortable with these images and this language for God. When we start talking about how we can do it differently, it almost feels like it's an assault on our own belief systems, but also then on the beliefs of our grandparents and great grandparents and the people that raised us to think about faith this way.
Once we start to imagine God is not just a white male, that means that we're shifting power in a sense of who gets to define who God is and what God looks like. And we're giving other people a chance to say, actually, no, this is how I understand God and relate to God- and that's scary for us.
And I think it's even harder because the Bible doesn't give us this description of, this is exactly how God looks. And so it goes back to the projecting onto God our ideas of the images and this understanding of who we believe God to be.
Barbara: How might practicing inclusive and extensive language improve life rather than making it worse?
Sara: I think it will improve life based on the fact that we have other understandings, we're getting to know other people and listen to different perspectives.
I have done this activity many times in my interfaith days, but I am the person that will make people mix Playdo colors. I know that's really hard for people to do or believe. but it's this activity where each person gets a color of Playdo and they make something that represents themselves out of it.
And then once they've gone around the circle and shared, we come together and we squish it into a Plato ball and in the process of doing so you start to see a blending of colors as there's that connection, but you also still see pockets of who that person is individually. And I think that's really what our communities can do we can continue to.
Maintain our individual identities but see ourselves as a more full community, as a broader expanse of who this is. And I think it goes to this idea of how can we be welcoming as the church. So it moves us away from just, well, in order to be part of this church, you have to think and look, and act and sound just like us too.
This is our community. You're a part of it. How can we continue to grow together based on who we all are?
Barbara: one thing that some churches are dealing with is a decrease in membership, which certainly is not applicable universally. And when we talk about welcome, I suppose that's a whole other conversation, but it's really part of what we're talking about today: are you going to come to my church and fit into what my church is about?
And there's lots of nuances to that. Even the images that you were talking about of a white Jesus, how welcome would I feel walking in? Would I feel oppressed or what are my reactions to the language and the images that I'm seeing?
Sara: I think when we expect people that come into fit into those languages and those images that we're talking about, we create the system of making it hard to have new people join us because then we feel almost like a club as opposed to a church that is welcome and open. And we don't always want to hear those other perspectives and hear that someone might imagine Jesus differently, because that changes the entire way that we understand our church and heaven forbid we have to change the mural or the stained glass, to depict something different.
Barbara: What I heard you say also is that we want to honor our ancestors say our grandparents but does honoring them mean that we have to do everything the same?
Sara: that's something we get stuck in, in the church, honestly. We feel that in order to keep the tradition going, we have to do it exactly the same way.
And I don't think that's what we're supposed to do. And I don't think that's what our grandparents did, even. if you look at the people that immigrated to the United States and started these churches, things are obviously going to be different. The fact that we no longer have services in Norwegian or Swedish or German means that things have had to change over the years.
And so I think there's a way that we can still honor the tradition, so that have been passed onto us, but continue to grow and learn from them as times change as discussions change. And as we're willing to have some of these conversations that they maybe weren't in a place to have 50 to a hundred years ago.
Barbara: One of the things that I wonder if some people struggle with and I'm gonna include myself because I don't want to point any fingers- are we saying that the church has to be everything to everybody in terms of how are we balancing saying, okay, we don't have to do things the way we've always done them a hundred percent. We want to be welcoming, but is there a line anywhere to be drawn?
Sara: especially when people have different expectations about who the church is and what the church is doing. But I think what we can do is talk about Missio DEI. And so my understanding of this mission of God is that we are in relationship with God.
Other people and all of creation as well. what we can do as a church is find ways that we can authentically do that, and engage more on a ground level of conversations with people without necessarily saying, well, I talked to you, why aren't you at my church now? But just talking to the people around us, as people created in the image of God,
Barbara: Thanks. I have one more reading of our passage out of Matthew chapter seven, verse 12. And this time it's from the voice. “This is what our scriptures come to teach. In Everything, in every circumstance do to others, as you would have them do to you.”
One question is something that our professors asked us: whose voice is missing? We've started to address that today. Is there anyone's voice missing from this conversation right now?
Sara: I think the biggest voices that we're missing are people of color. We also, especially in the churches that I've grown up in, tend to miss out on people that are not of a middle to upper social class. As a church we're missing out on queer voices as well, and female voices. I love studying systematic theology, which is looking at what we believe and why we believe it. But most of the textbooks that we read are written by either old or dead, straight white men. And they're the voices that tell us what tradition is and the way that we go about it and why we do so and why we have to keep going on that same path. I think we're actually missing a lot of voices. In the church, but also just in this conversation about what does it mean to have inclusive and expansive language?
Barbara: Thanks for bringing up those different voices. And I know that there are a lot of books out there. There are some clergy people, or theologians who may or may not be ordained and people who write blogs.
I think of Nadia Boltz Weber as someone I admire. And she, to the best of my understanding has experienced a great deal of judgment. She has tattoos. She doesn't mind talking with teenagers about sex and has gotten a lot of pushback from that. So I want to honor that we're seeking to lift up the voices of people who may be sharing a message that sounds jarring sort of in our ears.
I'd like to think that they don't sound jarring to my ears, but I can only throw myself under the bus first that that's a struggle, I believe to be a voice crying in the wilderness, if I can quote Isaiah.*
Sara: even still, we have this idea as a society of what this cookie cutter pastor is, and what they're going to think and preach and how they're going to look and it's of no surprise to most people that I talk to that as a female, going into ministry.
I have to fight harder to have my voice heard in the same spaces, or I have to wear a clerical to be taken seriously and recognized; it also doesn't help that I am frequently told I look 12, but having to fight for my right to be in the space where my male colleagues who might be of the same age, or even younger than me, don't always have to justify that.
Barbara: We're facing a lot of isms. And I would really like to think that we're making strides. And then sometimes it's just feels like a slap in the face that there's two steps forward, two steps backwards, but that there are good people on the world that are willing to listen and just have a dialogue about it, too.
I don't want this to sound like we're saying, well, everything you've ever done is wrong and. Things like that. Maybe some things we need to do differently and urgently.
Sara: that's one of the biggest things that we can do about this is have a dialogue with people. It means being willing to hear what other people have to say and genuinely hear that in our seats, it means listening actively without just thinking about what next defensive point you're going to make, but really being open and trusting that the spirit is going to help guide those conversations and be present in that. It comes down to what Dr. Sam Giery talks about it as viewing people from the lens of Christ and not from our human lens, because it's really easy to look at someone and say, well, you did X, Y, and Z wrong.
And how dare you? But that's not how Christ has redeemed us sees us. And so being willing to approached conversations that way, I think it's going to be really important moving forward.
Barbara: It's a comfort to me to remember that in our Lutheran faith tradition, there's the saying that we're all saints and sinners, so we can't be perfect, but we're redeemed and yet we still sin. So it's not fair for me to point the finger at other people and say, Oh, you're such a sinner.
Sometimes people seem to be more willing or less willing to listen, but also, I don't feel like we have to keep kind of hitting people over the head. Maybe we can extend grace and welcome. Have you ever kind of seen people change over time? Sometimes people don't change really quickly, but they might eventually change their point of view or their thoughts on something.
Sara: I've seen quite a bit in my life actually. Part of that is just being willing to have those conversations and meeting people where they're at and growing slowly with them, instead of going straight for where you want them to be. Because we're not all at the same point in talking about inclusive language or racism or sexism or any of that.
And that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's partially just a product of how we were raised in, in the society that we live in. Change doesn't happen overnight. It definitely is a process.
Barbara: I did a Google search for inclusive and expansive language. And I know that not everything you see online is true, but I found a really neat list of non-gender metaphors for God. And I'm going to read a couple of them. And then I'll say what website I found them on. Because I could have gone through my Bible page by page and tried to find these by myself, but it was nice to have this list pop up.
And I looked at a few of them and I said, Oh yeah, that's in there. That's in our Bible. in Psalm 18 verse two, God is referred to as a rock and a fortress. And that's really familiar to a lot of people. Psalm 23 verse one refers to God as a shepherd.
Hosea chapter 14, verse eight, a Cypress tree, and the list goes on and on, and I'm going to put it on the blog post for this episode on www.40minutes of faith.com
There are passages in Deuteronomy, Isaiah, and Genesis that talks about even the role of God as a mother Eagle, a comforting mother, and women and men created in the image of God, and God compared to both the master and the mistress in Psalm 123. The reason I wanted to save the name of the website for last is that I wonder if it's going to sound wildly comforting or perhaps fearful to some people who are listening. The website is queer grace.com.
And what brought tears to my eyes is that the website header includes phone numbers for groups that can help people who may be in distress, who may feel rejected or even hopeless because of their feelings of rejection from society and even from churches. I'm wondering if you've. Ever heard of that website before, or if there's other websites that you can think of that really take a look at inclusive and extensive language.
Sara: if I'm thinking of the right one, I've definitely heard that. And I've looked at that for many of their book resources as well when it comes to LGBTQ plus stories and inclusion in the church. One of the creators of that is actually an ELCA pastor out of the twin cities. It's an amazing resource and probably one of my favorites to use for various things, also extraordinary Lutheran ministries has some wonderful things (www.elm.org ). They are for LGBTQ plus inclusion as well within the church, but they have a lot of different resources and they have some videos called clunky questions. And one of those is about what it means to say all are welcome and why that isn't always enough.
I highly recommend that site as well for checking out some of those resources. Especially people that have been largely excluded from the church because of the language that we're using and the way that we talk about God.
Barbara: We've spent a bit of time talking about different ways we can think of God or pronouns for God, but there's also something to be said for pronouns for each other, for human beings. For me growing up, it was like he or she, and that's your only choice. Now we have people identifying in different ways. That's another example of welcome: to not assume when you look at someone, “Well, that looks like a he, that looks like a she, or I can't really tell, and is that okay?”
Why do I have to assign someone a role based on what they look like? The minute I first meet them, is there room for just letting someone be who they are and using pronouns like they?
Sara: that's one of the things that we can do as church is create space where people can be comfortable, expressing who they are. One of the ways that people can do that, especially people that identify as cisgender (identifying with the sex that they had at birth). One of the things that we can do as people, especially in ministry is model our pronouns for other people, because we often don't think about it.
If everyone in the room identifies as he or she, it doesn't seem like a big deal, but it can help normalize it in the event that there's someone who doesn't, and then we're not asking them to come to us and tell us that it's different. Well, we're just creating space where everyone is going around and saying, these are my pronouns. This is how I like to be referred to. And so when we do want to still ascribe those labels, cause we do that as humans, we can do that in a way that makes it more comfortable.
Barbara: I'll never forget the story that someone told us at school last year, that the first time they heard anybody referred to God as anything other than a male father figure, they just cried because they had never felt safe with that.
And that it was so welcoming and kind of blew their mind. And I haven't had that experience myself, but I'm willing to speak in an inclusive and expansive way so that other people don't feel shut out or threatened. It doesn't matter what I'm comfortable with. I want to make things safe for other people.
Sara: I have many people that I know that have had similar experiences, really feeling that they were safe in that space. and knowing that the church was willing to have conversations about gender and pronouns and talk about things that other churches or just society in general tend to shy away from because they are deemed as more challenging.
But it creates a space for other people as well, when we're willing to discuss them.
Barbara: One of the churches that I attended started a process right when I was moving to a different location. I'm wondering if you could speak for a minute about what does it mean with reconciling in Christ? That's a program that the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has that you can see on church websites.
So if you know what it means, then you get a little bit of insight into this congregation. Have you ever been part of that process with the church?
Sara: I have not necessarily with a church, but I did attend an RIC church in Fargo when I lived up in Fargo Morehead for college, but I also did help with our campus ministry.
I went through building an inclusive church training. it's an all-day training where you talk about different things , because to become an RIC church, it's a process. It involves a lot of conversations and discerning and education. It's something that's really important and necessary because to be an RIC church, you create a public statement of welcome for people in the LGBTQ plus community and to do so, know that it can sometimes cause some tension in congregations to have those conversations, but it's really a process of listening and hearing people's stories and talking about why it matters. Because for me, especially, seeing that a church has RIC, I automatically feel more welcome going there.
I don't have to spend part of my time in church sitting in the Pew wondering if people would still accept me. If they knew X, Y, or Z about my life.
Barbara: that's a great question that I believe applies to many different situations. Maybe someone has served a prison sentence and they're not in prison anymore. Although I wonder if. Parts of our society kind of keep people in a prison metaphorically, even once they're out.
in terms of just judging people or being afraid of people or the color of someone's skin or whether they have skin art or their family situation, if they're a single parent. The reconciling in Christ is that symbol, a heart that's colored, like a rainbow.
Sara: a heart in several hearts colored like a rainbow with a cross as well.
Barbara: I imagine that for some faith communities, that could be a really intense conversation- this might not come easily to all communities.
Sara: It's something that churches don't always talk about until they're in that process. the pastors might have one view of it and congregation members might have another. But it really, in many ways comes down to the money issue because we're afraid to talk about it because if we talk about it, then people who donate might get uncomfortable and leave.
I think it's something that I would encourage churches at least consider doing, because it creates a space for other people to also be involved in the community. And it isn't open sign saying you are wanted here. You are a beloved child of God, and that's not always the case of what people are hearing. And I think you're right, that many people feel that way going into church. I think part of this inclusive and expansive language conversation is recognizing what ways are we unintentionally excluding people or making them feel that their full selves are not welcomed in this space?
Barbara: Possibly even inadvertently. I believe that there are many well-meaning people who think, I'm perfectly nice to this young woman. Even by thinking that thought, assigning someone a particular role, that they don't even know if it's true. So it could be a matter of educating people. They might not even realize that this is what they're doing, even though it might seem obvious to other people.
I am glad that you brought up the elephant in the room. I'm going to have to add that question to future episodes- good for you. Because if some people say, I'm giving money every week to this church. And this is crazy talk I'm out of here. Are we bold to donors who say, I don't agree with this, I'm not interested in this conversation. Let's just keep doing things the way we always did things
Sara: one of our hopes as well is that. Those people that want to just leave at the first sign of conflict that we can create a space where they feel that they can stay and at least listen and be heard as well. Because I think that's also one of our issues that we have is that whenever we feel any sort of slight discomfort we want to leave, it's easier at that point to just find a different church that preaches the way we want to preach. But is that really what God is calling us to do?
Barbara: Another example that I learned about this year is using the word siblings instead of brothers and sisters. I have participated in many women's Bible studies, so I'm used to kind of saying my sisters in Christ, but is that okay? Limiting because that also kind of opened my eyes about talking about our siblings.
Sara: it can be limiting for us to say brothers or sisters, if there's people that don't identify that way. By saying siblings, we automatically create this space because I think we mean, well, when we use brothers and sisters, it's like, when we look at Hebrew or Greek, And there's a group of people and it automatically is just ascribed to the masculine, but we're like, well, women could be there too.
We're not excluding them per se when we say this. But what would it mean to just create that space and say no, like just siblings, who we need to specify brothers and sisters/ do we need to have that binary in that category? Or can we just say siblings? Because that's really what we're talking about. And it's less words to say.
Barbara: That's great. And I feel like we might be stretching our own minds. We might be asking other people to stretch their own minds to think about, again, I grew up with binary. That was it. Like, no question about it, but I am a hundred percent certain that there were people when I was growing up that they may have been questioning their own identity. So how can we welcome the children of God into our faith communities without saying, we need to vote, you need to vote, or you need to vote the way we think the voting has always gone, in terms of gender identity?
Is there anything I haven't asked you, Sarah, that you'd like to share today? Any other thoughts on your heart about this topic?
Sara: I think largely just knowing that this is a hard topic to talk about, it's changing the way we think about the language that we've been using for decades, for centuries, even of how we think about and relate to God.
But I think one of the things I think about as well, when it comes to this is we talk about in seminary being called, by God and the fact that most people that I knew when they talked about being called by God only heard it as a male voice, which was something that I hadn't thought about until one of my campus pastor said, well, absolutely God could have a female voice.
And so I think it's something to think about as well is how do these images that we have in church then extend into our daily lives, into our lives of faith. and how do they impact this in ways that we don't even realize?
Barbara: That's really neat. I actually had not considered that. I know that some people have had the experience of hearing a voice that they say, okay, God is communicating with me really quietly. And then there's also passages in the Bible that talk about his still small voice** or people say sometimes they just have a feeling in their hearts, but that's really neat that it doesn't have to be a man's voice, which probably most movies about God have had that. I'm trying to think- I'm not the biggest movie buff- have there ever been any movies? The Shack, that was pretty wild with different genders in the Trinity.
Sara: when we ascribe maleness to God, the father, then we want to ascribe femaleness to the spirit. And I don't think that that is our answer either to find that balance. I think it's just, how can we look at being more inclusive and expansive for all persons of the Trinity?
Barbara: Thank you so much for your time and your wisdom, Sarah. And thanks for explaining what systematic theology is because you made it sound really nice that normal people can understand it.
Sara: thanks for having me on this was a lot of fun to be able to discuss, and I hope we can do more of that in the future as well.
Resources:
Bible passage: Isaiah 40:3
A voice of one calling: “In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Psalm 18:2
Psalm 23:1
Hosea chapter 14:8
1 Kings 19:12
After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.
Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries https://www.elm.org
https://www.reconcilingworks.org/
Author & speaker Nadia Bolz-Weber https://www.patheos.com/blogs/nadiabolzweber/books-by-nadia/
Sara advocates for all voices to be heard