Using ‘they/them’ for God might help people respect others’ pronouns

Is God a man or woman?

God is neither but for over a millennia, people have used masculine pronouns to refer to the deity. It looks like it’s about time for a change.

The Church of England, headed by King Charles III, is considering using gender-neutral terms instead of “He/him/his” and “Our Father” to refer to the being in prayers as part of a project.

“Christians have recognized since ancient times that God is neither male nor female,” a statement acquired by the Washington Post from the church read. “Yet the variety of ways of addressing and describing God found in scripture has not always been reflected in our worship.”

A similar move has been done before by the church and theologians in part of efforts to adapt the institution’s language around gender and sexuality to modern times. But this kind of decision would need “extensive legislation” before any changes would be made.

Not everyone is happy about the proposal—some conservatives aren’t as onboard as the English church.

“The fact that God is called ‘Father’ can’t be substituted by ‘Mother’ without changing meaning, nor can it be gender-neutralized to ‘Parent’ without loss of meaning,” Rev. Dr. Ian Paul told the Telegraph.

“The use of male pronouns for God should not be understood as implying God is male—which is heresy. God is not sexed, unlike humanity,” he said.

Pronouns and the queer community

But changing to gender-neutral pronouns can do so much for the LGBTQ+ community. If people will respect and be wary of pronouns that they’ll use to refer to their God, they might be more careful, too, about misgendering trans and gender non-conforming people.

Using a person’s preferred pronouns is a sign of acknowledging someone’s gender identity. While some people don’t mind what you call them, misgendering someone may cause others to feel invalidated, dismissed, and dysphoric.

It doesn’t take a lot to respect someone’s preferred pronouns because everyone has them (like they do SOGIE), as some conservatives may forget.

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Source: we the pvblic