In Fuller’s Biblical Division, we have a requirement that students use a gender-inclusive translation of the Bible (NRSV or TNIV) as their English translation. My students often ignore this, despite my desperate pleas, so I have to find ways of compelling them against their will. *ahem*
This spring a student asked some good, pointed questions about this requirement, so I figured I would answer him here, perhaps in hopes of getting some discussion going.
To the overall question, why require a gender-inclusive translation? My overall answer is this: to keep transforming the culture of the church until we actually believe (and therefore act like) that women and men are equal members of the body of Christ, equally addressed by the word of God, and equally empowered by the Spirit to serve in it (and therefore lead it).
My non-theological answer to why gender-inclusive language is essential: I am raising a daughter. At the age of 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 gender identity is one of the key ways she’s making sense of the world. She counts boys and girls (and whether the presence of a female dog ups the ante on the girls side so that they win). And, when she hears masculine language, she automatically excludes herself from the addressees.
As a man, this is something that experientially I will never be able to relate to, but as a dad I know that I want my daughter to hear the words of the Bible and know that they are expressed to her as much as they are to her brother. I don’t want girls or women who pick up the Bible to think that they are only members of the family of God by implication or by necessary consequence.
My student asked specifically about requiring the now defunct TNIV and the NRSV that was sponsored by the World Council of Churches and has not been well received in evangelical circles.
This is a crucial question. In my estimation the reason that these gender inclusive translations have not caught on in evangelicalism is precisely because 
conservative churches are theologically opposed to gender equality. It is because they are guarding against the sort of transformation that I think needs to take place that they choose to preserve and further language of masculine hegemony. In resisting even gender-inclusive language for humanity, however (e.g., not allowing α͗δέλφοι to be translated “brothers and sisters,” but instead insisting on “brothers”), the English translation expresses an exclusivity that was not there in the Greek. This is a case where “more literal” is not equivalent to “more accurate.”
The final couple of questions from my student were along the lines of who cares? and why bother? Why not use “mankind” and “man” rather than human? In addition to what I’ve outlined above, the reason I care is that women who are learning to locate themselves, as women, in the world, need to be told and have reinforced from every angle that they do not have to become male (or approximate maleness) in order to fully realize their humanness, to become who God desires them to be as restored image-bearers of Christ.
The church has been shackled by the idea that maleness is ontologically superior to femaleness. This has ramifications for how the church thinks about Jesus and how it thinks about gender among us humans.
With respect to Jesus: the ESV gives some hints as to the necessity for certain people to hold onto Jesus’ maleness as a sine qua non of salvation. A translation that prides itself on rendering words consistently and accurately translates ἄνθρωποι as “people” in 1 Timothy 2:4, “…desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” With this desire for all people as the set-up, however, the ESV simply cannot bring itself to say that a human is a sufficient category for a savior. No, it has to be male: “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men [!, ἄνθρωποι], the man [! ἄνθρωπος] Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5).
We need to embrace gender-neutral terminology for humanity so that we can start to disentangle ourselves from skewed notions about
maleness and salvation. And if you think I’m just making up the idea that the maleness of Jesus is an essential part of conservative evangelical theology, then maybe you can drop a note to Paternoster Press and ask why, after printing Neil Williams’ new book The Maleness of Jesus, they canceled the contract and are refusing to distribute it.
Of course, as soon as being male is required to represent humanity before God, then being male is required to represent God before God’s people. The continuing deafness of the evangelical world to the biblical passages that give counter-testimony to 1 Timothy 3 from the early church is another lingering effect of gender-exclusive Bible translation. So long as we think that to be truly human is to be man, and so long as we think that a man must be the mediator between God and man, women will never be able to participate as full, co-equal partners.
So yes, I care. And as a man I think it’s more important for me to champion this cause than it is for women to champion it themselves. Because the call of the gospel isn’t to spend all our time getting worked up over our own rights, but to spend all our time getting worked up over how life can come to the other.
“Of course, as soon as being male is required to represent humanity before God, then being male is required to represent God before God’s people”
Yep!
1 Timothy 2 is just as important
Brilliant post, and what a passionate perspective! Thank you!
(Some time ago, several of us bloggers posted a good bit on ἄνθρωπος and its English translation:
http://speakeristic.blogspot.com/2009/09/novel-daughter-man-of-1st-century.html
)
thanks for posting this. well said. as a woman, it’s encouraging for me to see men taking up this fight. i have attempted discussing women’s roles in Christianity at my previous church and been told that i am being “oversensitive,” “shrill,” and “bitchy.” i’ve been told i need to get over it; that i’m making a big deal out of nothing. when my husband attempted the same discussion, he was “whipped” and everyone knew “who wore the pants in that family.” the situation was beyond discouraging. i did not have the ear of anyone of power in that church, particularly because i was a woman. knowing there are men who are not related to me in any way but through Christ who care about the treatment of women by the body of Christ is a blessing to me.
Just to clarify on the “Paternoster” book. This book appears to originate from the US office of Paternoster rather than from the central office in the UK (which I ran for nine years until the end of April). They operated as separate companies like IVP US and IVP UK.
I do not know the story behind this book (indeed I had never even heard of the book until just now) but my suspicion is as follows:
When the main UK office of Paternoster was bought by Koorong they bought the right to the name. The US company (which only originated a tiny number of titles per year) ceased to be Paternoster (they had no choice about that) and rebranded as Biblica Publishing. As part of that move they completely reinvented their list and moved away from the theological field. I suspect that this book was one that no longer fitted with the company that they now were.
Thanks, Robin. Just out of curiosity: it seems a bit odd that they would sit on a thousand copies of a book in a warehouse rather than distributing it to get the inventory off their hands, at least?
Yes it does. I am going to follow up with them about that.
But I can tell you that it has nothing to do with any disagreement with your analysis in this article or fear of a conservative backlash. The chap who ran the US commissioning (indeed who still does) is committed to the view that you defend and published two or three other books before this one going down the same egalitarian route.
I suspect that the problem with this one was that (a) it was printed as a Paternoster book and then the company was no longer allowed to operate as Paternoster, (b) it was a theological book and the company was reinvented as a non-theological publisher in the past few months. I guess that this book no longer fitted.
But I am still surprised so I’ll ask.
I use the NET, which it appears at many times to be gender inclusive.
For example, Romans 12.1
Therefore, I exhort you, brother and sisters…
Also while this doesn’t pertain to this post, I like how it translates Romans 3.22,
“namely the righteousness of God through the faithfulness of Christ for all who believe…
Thanks, Donnie. I often refer to the NET when I’m on the ‘net, and often find it compelling. I’ll need to do a bit more research to see how it balances out the gender language. The NRSV is far from perfect, and at times I do think that the gender-inclusive languages stifles the translation (like Ps 8 as cited in Hebrews 2). Gender inclusive language needs to keep getting worked out.
Daniel, I appreciate your perspective on this, and largely agree with your overall trajectory. Though I love the ESV in a thousand ways, I think Carson’s voice has not been heeded enough compared to Piper, Grudem and Poythress on this issue.
That said, as someone who perhaps doesn’t have as much of a grudge on his shoulder regarding conservative/reformed evangelicalism (just a guess:), I think it a bit unfair how you paint so broadly and caricature those who use more traditional language on these issues. When you write that you require gender-inclusive translations:
“to keep transforming the culture of the church until we actually believe (and therefore act like) that women and men are equal members of the body of Christ, equally addressed by the word of God, and equally empowered by the Spirit to serve in it (and therefore lead it).”
I wonder if you realize that 9 out of 10 Christians I know in these circles would fully embrace and celebrate these realities? I realize it is easier for both sides to just lob hand grenades from afar and simply portray the opposing side as embodying all of the most extreme logical conclusions one could draw from certain positions, but in the end that method only ends up preaching to the choir. As someone already in your choir, I’d love to see you make an argument that would stand half a chance of appealing to someone starting a priori from another ideological position.
Also, though perhaps you hint at it at best, I think we should be careful not to follow the lead of American politics and create only two extreme, “one size fits all” theologies here: gender-inclusive language is not logically or biblically connected, at least not in any direct way, to leadership/eldership issues. I would hold to male eldership in the church, but also to gender-inclusive language. Make sure there’s a spot for guys like me on your team!
I’d tend to take exception, Nick, to the idea of a disconnect between biblical translation and church behaviour. We, as children of the Reformation, are going to strongly affirm scripture as a guide to practice across the board. Yes, there’s some tradition in there, too, but we can’t elude the fact, at least in the PC(USA) that we found our offices and liturgy on the witness of scripture. If the Bible that I hand to a new elder or a nominating committee member doesn’t assume some level of equality in leadership, they (being Presbyterian rules-lawyers) may well quibble right then and there. Some of the core work of biblical scholars is still to translate and interpret the Scriptures for the Church at large.
In essence, I guess I’m wondering why you would hold out for gender-inclusive language if not to affirm the fundamental equality of both genders in the work of the Church. Can you enlighten me?
Doesn’t the ESV show its hand by not having any women on the translation committee (as it seems from the webpage)? And accuracy goes out the window if are unwilling to even footnote the “faithfulness of Jesus Christ” if you translation was done in the last 10 years. Just a thought…
ah i thought the ESV was ok on this- sounds like just the NRSV and TNIV?
The ESV is basically just an update of the RSV. For the most part it retains masculine vocab, even in clearly gender-neutral contexts. The fact that it updates the RSV could also account (in part) for why “faithfulness of Christ” is not footnoted under pistis christou passages. Another reason is simply because it’s a wrong interpretation:)
I think an honest translator would have to admit it is at least reasonable translation (even the King James translated it that way, so its not new.) If the ESV billed itself as the reformed (more) literal translation I would be fine with them leaving it for theological reasons, but they don’t admit the theological basis so it is frustrating.
What is more frustrating is the Study edition comes with ready made answers stapled to the back, one of which writes off the pacifist readings of the Bible. You know just in case the Holy Spirit was leading someone that way they could look it up in the back and be saved from it.
I’m sorry I diverted the topic off of gender and language. IT was not what I intended.
Sorry as well. I reading comments sometimes makes me forget the point of the post. I’ll let this one die Dr. Kirk.
No no. You guys are doing great. I’m happy to have the comments go off in a couple different directions.
It is important to realize that the theological commitments of translators makes a big difference in what you read in your English text. That’s an issue for gender and other questions, such as one’s willingness to submit to the salvation that comes from recognizing and embracing the subjective genitive…
I love your basic premise and being able to separate the idea of “Savior” from “man”; however, in doing so, what would be the implications related to Jesus’ title “Son of God” and the relationship within the Trinity? Do we lose something inherent and vital in separating the two aspects? I know PCUSA has at least toyed with the idea of including the metaphors “mother/child/womb” and “Creator/Redeemer/Sustainer” in its vocabulary instead of “Father/Son/Spirit.” Is a relationship dynamic lost in changing the language?
I will admit that though I find Dunn, Watson, Silva and others’ defense of the objective genitive entirely convincing, I would be happy to see footnotes for the subjective included in Romans/Galatians/Philippians!
And I, for my part, would be happy for the objective genitive to be made known in the footnotes as well!
How might one render a translation that does justice to gender inclusiveness while at the same time retaining gender-specific language when appropriate?
For instance, the TNIV’s treatment of Psalm 34:20 seemingly obscures the Messianic undertones that are specifically drawn out in John 19:36.
Would it be beneficial to retain the masculine pronoun here? What about in Proverbs? Does the change from “son” to “child” improve the reading, or does it make it nearly impossible to notice the connections with Israel’s own sonship?
Perhaps I don’t fully grasp the intricacies involved, but is there a point where gender specific language isn’t necessarily “exclusive”?
Yes, Ben, I think it’s complicated and sometimes going in either direction can foul things up. I don’t like how the NRSV sometimes uses “neighbor” or “dear friend” for α͗δέλφοι (lit. “brothers”) because it loses the family nuance. In the Sermon on the Mount they do this in the passage on judging (ch. 7), and I think the nuance of the passage is lost. “Neighbor” doesn’t capture the fact that Jesus is regulating family business–and that the then gives a different standard for dealing with “outsiders”.
Also, I think that calling Abraham “father” rather than “ancestor” is okeydokey! It’s gender specific language, but the point is to refer to a man, so that seems o.k. to me.
Proverbs is tricky: I think it really was written with males in mind, but that’s not who we’d see as the audience today. Maybe keep it male to underscore that in order for any of us to have it apply to us, it has to come to us through Christ. Leave it masculine and then preach it inclusive? This stuff is complicated…
Dead on.
As someone who has served in a completely gender-inclusive church I can testify first hand to how it shapes a community. In every other congregation I’ve been a part of, women – in large ways and small – were considered 2nd class citizens. Female participation in leadership and worship shapes the way both men and women see themselves, the church and their place in the world. In short, in gender-inclusive churches, women are respected more. Their voices are not marginalized. Churches I’ve been a part of that were male-exclusive just naturally marginalized women in ways they never considered. And, I think, one can only appreciate the joy, meaning, and blessing of inclusion once they have seen and lived it.
Daniel – do you have a post anywhere that describes how you came to these views?
Alas, no. I’m not sure I could come up with one. Leaving the PCA helped. Sociological pressure is an often unrecognized theological force.
I really appreciated this post, Daniel. At one of the spring events I co-sponsored as VP for Women & Gender on the All-Seminary Council this year, a woman shared that her daughter (about 7 yo, I think) asked her recently if a certain Bible passage was talking to her too or just the boys. The woman was shocked and horrified–she had no idea before then just what a huge difference language could make in shaping how we think about gender! No girl should have to ask these kinds of questions. I’m bummed that Zondervan wussed out of publishing the TNIV. I hope the new revision that is “replacing” both the TNIV and NIV is gender-accurate, but I don’t know much about it yet. I’m afraid it won’t be, though, if they’re replacing the NIV, gender accurate language in the revision could push a lot of conservatives out of the NIV camp and over to another “evangelical” translation…
Having studied Greek and Hebrew in seminary and having a good understanding of the range of meaning that the words have, I tend to use the “more literal” translations (RSV, NASB) because I’ll have a better idea of what words the originals use.
For example, I know α͗δέλφοι can be rightly understood “brothers and sisters,” but sometimes “and sisters” will also be in the Greek (e.g. Luke 14:26). Gender-sensitive translations will also pluralize nouns that are singular in the original (e.g. Psalm 1). These translation methods put up a pretty major barrier for serious study. So at least for seminary study, I prefer the more literal ones.
The NRSV is literal except when it comes to gender, in which case it will do things like pluralize. This makes it a good liturgical Bible, but I don’t like the inconsistency. I prefer the TNIV because gender-sensitive translation is more consistent with dynamic equivalence.
I’m not entirely certain why it’s important to be able to tell more about the Greek through an English version (whether you’re a seminary student or just engaged in deeper personal study).
First, I think as far as general interp/app goes, most of the time you’ll get better results assuming the passage is inclusive vs. exclusive, so it seems to be of no detriment to use a “less literal” translation in this regard.
Secondly, if you’re using the Bible for something beyond devotional or liturgical purposes, shouldn’t you just be looking at the actual Greek or looking at commentaries that make reference to the Greek? Even if you’re in an English-based exegesis class, any good academic commentary is going to highlight important aspects of the text verse-by-verse, giving even English-only students a lot of information about what is said in the Greek without doing their own Greek translation. If there’s any question about who’s being referred to by anthropos, etc. in the specific passage, any good commentator will note it, and certainly at least one out of several sources referenced will be fair enough to the text to do so, right?
I’ve been reading from non-inclusive versions long enough that I mentally make inclusive translations and applications in my head. All readers have to do this to a certain extent anyway. None of the books of the Bible were written directly us, but we appropriate it to ourselves. The book of Proverbs is written as instruction to a young man, but surely older men and women are to apply the wisdom to themselves as well!
As far as “better results,” as mentioned in other comments, NT appropriation of OT quotations referring to Christ often get mangled in inclusive language when the OT quotations get pluralized. Dr. Kirk mentioned Hebrews 2 quoting Psalm 8, which came up in class, as a prime example of that, and he had to spend a good amount of time in class explaining what the inclusive translations did.
Psalm 1 if particularly close to my heart, and one of the draws is that the righteous man is in the singular, versus the wicked who are in the plural. The singular makes it more personal, highlighting the singular pursuit of righteousness amidst a world filled with wickedness.
It has been said that all translators are traitors. If you go inclusive on Psalm 1 and pluralize, you lose the individual aspect of the Psalm and the contrast with the plural of the wicked. If you don’t go inclusive, you risk alienating some of the readers for using a man.
Of course I look at the Greek if I’m doing an in depth study. But if we’re going to talk about using the Greek and major commentaries … well, then it really doesn’t matter either way whether I use inclusive or non-inclusive.
But for quick reference in class, having a literal translation puts me closer to the Greek. If I’m looking up something up in the Greek during class, I can quickly check the RSV to make sure I parsed the case, gender and number properly for my nouns and participles.
I’m not against inclusive language translations. I plan to do Bible translation overseas some day, and dynamic equivalence is the preferred method of Bible translation as far as communicating Biblical truth clearly. Using inclusive language is an important part of that. But as far as an in-class translation, I’ve found the non-inclusive ones to be more helpful.
I was startled, the first few times I used the NRSV, by how much more immediate it felt to read a text that didn’t require me to do the mental gymnastics to read myself into language that was exclusively male. I had gotten so used to those gymnastics that I did them without even being entirely conscious of it, and would have been slightly offended if anyone had suggested that I *needed* a gender neutral translation to tell me that I was included in the Bible’s teachings — and yet, I founded it surprisingly liberating to be able to skip that step.
I’m still not sure what to make of having such a text be a requirement for seminary-level study, given the translation issues that accompany some gender-inclusive renderings already mentioned in these comments. (“Mortal” for “son of man” in the NRSV is another notorious rendering.) I have strong preferences for gender inclusive translations in devotional and liturgical contexts, but am less comfortable with them (or at least, with using them on their own) in an academic context. But of course, a seminary can’t tell students what Bibles to use in worship or personal reading; it can only tell them what Bible to use for their coursework (and apparently, even then, not so much).
Ah well – I suppose it’s a good thing, Daniel, that we can find something, amidst all our hearty full agreements, that we utterly and vehemently disagree about. This being one of the few issues you go beyond persuasion to exercise coertion over adds more spice to the debate, of course.
I would be willing to go so far as to admit that feminist marxism has triumphed to the point where the language has been politically changed, such that the subsequent generations find (what should be and what once was) natural language misleading. Thus, N. T. Wright, in his latest book, has to use “Human” as a proper noun. I’m a sucker for language that isn’t cumbersome and ugly, and so this is something I regret. I’m even more so when this is something that was done, not as a natural evolution of the language, but as a political statement – a way of forcing people to choose sides and prove their feminist credentials. But what’s done is done, I suppose. The feminist movement did achieve some real gains in justice for women, and though we might quibble about how many steps forward and back have really been made, some of those 50′s era advertisments do indeed temper even my zeal a bit.
So, OK, we’ve got to bend over backwards to call men “man-like thingeys” (human beings) – even though it still has that wonderful, concise, root english word “man” in it anyway. We’ve got to give up the poetry of talking of “God and man” or “man and beast” when we’re dealing with people who don’t understand such English. ‘Tis a shame, but I suppose there are bigger fish to fry. It’s even a bigger shame when we obscure the christological ambiguity in the psalms and act as if death was ever the defining ontological characteristic of man in the Judeo-Christian tradition (mortals??!!!). But we’ve got to deal with modern English – more’s the pity.
But here’s where I really start protesting. I get a bit testy when this unfortunate linguistic spin off of 20th century feminism gets coopted by Christians as the boundary markers of which group is or isn’t oppressing women. It’s an unfair characterization of our forefathers, and it reeks of that marxist view of history that sees all things through the lens of a struggle for power.
Though the conservatives may be just defending the status quo, or even entrenching it to something even worse than the previous status quo by way of reaction, I remain thouroughly unconvinced that egalitarian notions of equality are the most helpful ways of healing our fractured human sexualities in our culture. But even this is utterly beside the point – the point is that there is absolutely nothing objectivly wrong with the traditional language even if we take marxist-style feminism on board! “Man” is the root word. The word “Woman” refers to a “female man”. The word “man” takes on the meaning of “male man” if we say “men and women” just as “pig” takes on the meaning of “adult pig” if we say “pigs and piglets” (the same with “men and officers” or “bulls and cows”). English is no more inherently oppresive to women in favor of men as it is oppressive of bulls in favor of cows. Labelling people who use the word “man” inclusivly as “sexists” has nothing to do with true inclusion and everything to do with shibboleths.
Oh well. I guess I need to cool off and go watch that scene from the life of Brian…
Thanks for this post, Daniel. I have copied it on my blog. This needed to be said.
Even the NET, although it is gender inclusive, has guarded very carefully against any leadership by women. The NET translation pioneered the notion that Junia was not an apostle, and this has subsequently been borrowed by the HCSB and the ESV. Also I have read the notes in the NET on 1 Cor. 14:34, and 1 Tim 2:15. That one nearly made me barf. I read the notes online but can’t help but notice the bias against women.
I completely accept older Bibles which use the generic masculine. However, the preface of the ESV says that masculine words are used to indicate “males.” This is perhaps why Driscoll was convinced that only men were told to provide for their families in 1 Tim. 5:8 and he went so far as to say that a mother who worked outside the home, or a father who stayed home with his children, was going against the scripture.
I know Dr. Packer, and he was able to help his church move from an egalitarian position to a complementarian position. I left his church, but my daughter still attends to be with friends. It is a tragedy.
Regardless of the former commenter, I know for myself and for many other female bloggers, that leaving complementarianism was the first step towards physical and emotional health.
just stumbled over here from a link, so you may have addressed this many times in your blog (and I’m going to go look for it) but which gender neutral translation do you recommend to your students? Thanks, and thanks for this fantastic post.
Dr. Kirk, I really loved this post. As someone who cares deeply about gender inclusive language and gender equality, this post was very refreshing. I could write more, but really all I have to say is thanks for writing this, great stuff!
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/purity.html
is a very witty satire by Douglas Hofstadter. It should be read by all who think language is inherently neutral but can be enjoyed by anyone.
Wow, Don. Thanks for that link. It’s fantastic.
Daniel,
Thank you so much for this post. It is so good to have a man making this kind of statement, rather than leaving it to women to say “I don’t feel included by this kind of language”. And Don, if it’s important to know what the Greek or Hebrew says, there is no substitute for reading the Greek or Hebrew. Otherwise, you need to check quite a few translations, not just one.
Daniel, I’m on the same page with you about a lot of things, but I must admit I don’t really understand your concern here. It seems to me it’s quite a modernist, Westernized luxury to worry so much about gender-inclusive language. It’s also very English-centric in that many other languages don’t even have a hope of escaping their “sexism”.
As a final comment on this thread I’ll sort of answer Alex’s and a few other people’s question, in a not-really-answering it sort of way.
First, I think it’s telling that the only people who have told me they think this is wrong-headed or irrelevant are men. Maybe that’s because a great preponderance of my readers are men, or maybe it’s because men have not had to perform the mental gymnastics to include themselves in a text that is written in language that does not naturally include them.
It’s never a luxury to make known in the work of the church that the cross of Christ eliminates the social hierarchies that define our society. The ancient baptismal formula that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, etc. tells us that at the heart of the gospel is an undoing of the world’s antinomies of power and servitude, of privilege bearer and outsider. For men to decline to include women in our speech about humanity and about the people of God is as much a denial of the gospel as the Corinthians splitting in favor of a “greater teacher,” as the Corinthians getting arrogant because they have a few really cool people from the community in their church, as the Corinthians excluding poor people from the Lord’s supper. In each case, the church is denying the unity of the body that is the heart of our Gospel identity in which our one identity marker is the crucified Christ. Baptizing male hegemony through our use of language (or otherwise) is just as serious an offense.
If you still don’t really understand, check out the link that Don provided above. It’s really helpful.
If you still don’t really understand, check out the link that Don provided above. It’s really helpful.
No, Daniel. It’s actually really lame. “White” has never included “black” – the word exists to distinguish itself from black (and other colors). “Man” is to “woman” as “cow” is to “bull”, NOT as “white” is to “black”.
Obviously the semantic domain of words shift over time, and clearly “black” and “white” have a different history in that area than “man” and “woman.” Still, using “man” to refer to human beings will always require at the very least a millisecond of consideration before deciding which meaning it is supposed to have in a given context. At worst, it makes many people seriously question their own value in the eyes of others. If making a minimal effort to change our speech is all we have to go through to help others feel more cared for, what harm could it do? Isn’t it just simple compassion, even if it feels annoying sometimes?
We don’t have to say that people 300 or 100 or even 50 years ago were sexist jerks to use “man” for humanity or that “God and man” doesn’t have some catchy ring to it. It doesn’t need to be about pointing fingers or pretending this is the worst thing that ever happened to women (it’s definitely not!). It’s just seeing a very small way we can be kind to others in today’s context—a way not everyone will appreciate at all, but some will appreciate a lot.
Um, it’s satire, Wonders. It’s not supposed to map a historically parallel set of developments, but to put the argument into a different set of considerations where you can more clearly see the effects of what we’re numb to in daily life.
What do you mean by this – “The church has been shackled by the idea that maleness is ontologically superior to femaleness.” Are you saying that historically this has been a problem for the church or that complementarians today actually believe that?
Yes.
Daniel, I received the following email from Koroong — the Australian company that bought Paternoster (email@koorong.com.au) :
Hi Ann
Thanks for your email.
I’ve checked out our database and we have a order pending with the supplier.
This should have been available mid June but we are still waiting on this item.
You can place a backorder at any time and one will be held as ‘purchased’ from the quantity we’ve ordered.
Kind regards,
Tanya
Koorong Customer Service
*************************************************
** Contacting Koorong By Phone? Details Below:
** http://orders.koorong.com/info/store/