wfn.org | NCC group to discuss words we use to talk about God

["Philip Jenks" <pjenks@ncccusa.org>]

>NCC group to meet in Chicago August 9-11
>to discuss the words we use to talk about God

Chicago, July 26, 2010 -- A diverse group of Christians will gather here  
August 9-11 to talk about the language people use to talk about God and  faith.
 
The National Council of Churches symposium, "Language Matters," will  discuss 
how to talk about God and faith in ways that respect the  sensibilities of 
people from a variety of Christian traditions and  viewpoints. 

The conversation will focus on the language, images, and symbols used in  
worship and everyday life to talk about faith and God.

 

Initiated by the NCC's Justice for Women Working Group, this  conversation is a 
first step in a larger project designed to create  resources for congregations 
and groups to assist their own  conversations. 

The term "expansive language" has been used in some circles to describe  
respectful language that honors all of God's people and is more than  just 
"gender inclusive."   

As communions seek to become genuinely inclusive as well as multiracial  
communities of faith, planners say, the conversation about the use of  language 
in churches becomes more critical, and more challenging. 
  
"When women in the United Church of Christ and Christian Church  (Disciples of 
Christ) held a joint event, we prepared guidelines around  expansive language 
which asked preachers, speakers and workshop leaders  to bring consciousness to 
the language they were using out of the  traditions from which they came," said 
the Rev. Loey Powell, executive  for Administration and Women's Justice in the 
UCC. 
"This helped us all 'stay in the room' with each other," said Powell.
 
Sensitivity to gender inclusive language, particularly religious  language and 
metaphor, emerged in the 1970's with the advent of feminist  theology and 
feminist biblical exegesis and hermeneutics.  Many  denominations began the 
process of developing gender inclusive worship  materials, protocols for 
publications, and even biblical translations  that offered metaphors and names 
for God and humanity that reflected  this inclusiveness. 
 
In 1988 the General Convention of the Episcopal Church first approved  
Supplemental Liturgical Texts, now known as Enriching Our Worship, as an  
alternate to the Book of Common Prayer for Episcopal worship. 
 
Part of the impetus to have a meeting on language is the impression of  some 
observers that the use of gender inclusive language throughout our  NCC member 
communions has declined.

 

Furthermore, new insights have emerged within our churches about  language that 
reinforces harmful stereotypes around the realities of  race, disabilities, 
sexual orientation and gender, planners say. 

The August gathering will explore dimensions of language, images, and  symbols 
for God through multiple approaches that reflect the diversity  of the group.  
The 30 participants, both lay and ordained, come from a wide diversity  of NCC 
member communions and religious traditions.

Co-Facilitators are Aleese Moore-Orbih, an ordained minister in the  United 
Church of Christ and director of training and consulting for  FaithTrust 
Institute, and Virstan Choy, a minister of word and sacrament  in the 
Presbyterian Church (USA), a church consultant and member of the  adjunct 
faculty at McCormick Theological Seminary.

>For Additional Information Contact 
>Rev. Ann Tiemeyer
>Program Director Women's Ministries
>National Council of Churches, USA
>475 Riverside Drive, Suite 800
>New York, NY 10014
>atiemeyer@ncccusa.org
>212-924-2605
> 
>Meagan Manas, MDiv
>Women's Ministries
>National Council of Churches, USA
>475 Riverside Drive, Suite 800
>New York, NY10115
>212-870-2738
>mmanas@ncccusa.org
>                         

Since its founding in 1950, the National Council of the Churches of  Christ in 
the USA has been the leading force for ecumenical cooperation  among Christians 
in the United States. The NCC's 36 member faith groups  -- from a wide spectrum 
of Protestant, Anglican, Orthodox, Evangelical,  historic African American and 
Living Peace churches -- include 45  million persons in more than 100,000 local 
congregations in communities  across the nation.

NCC News contact:  Philip E. Jenks, 212-870-2228 (office),  646-853-4212 
(cell), pjenks@ncccusa.org