444 - A Non-Sexist Style Guide

A Non-Sexist Style Guide
By John M. Mulder

IN recent years, the editorial staff of THEOLOGY TODAY has made an effort to edit all articles and reviews to eliminate sexist language and use more inclusive terminology. At first, these changes were made quietly and without a policy announcement, but in 1975, Editor Hugh T. Kerr publicly indicated the change as part of a series of guidelines on "How to Write an Article" for THEOLOGY TODAY.¹ What has been particularly interesting is that with only two exceptions, authors have never complained and perhaps not even noticed the changes that were made in their essays. This may suggest that the adherence to a particular linguistic usage concerning God and "man" may not be as crucial or fundamental to meaning as some have argued.

There are many dimensions to the discussion of sexist language-theological, philosophical, linguistic, psychological, sociological.² I do not propose to argue why these changes should be made, except to offer two observations. First, the argument that the word "man" is generic and denotes both men and women is contradicted by the changing attitudes of many people and may be erroneous per se. Today many individuals, both men and women, simply do not accept the word "man" as generic, and insisting that it remains generic is ultimately self-defeating. Words are effective only in so far as they communicate meanings that are accepted both by the speaker and the hearer, the writer and the reader. In addition, some interesting studies have been conducted to determine whether the word "man" carries with it generic connotations, and the findings indicate that both men and women associate "man" with essentially male roles and male activity.³ All meanings are both denotative and connotative, and to ignore the contemporary connotations of "man" is to perpetuate a stereotype of women and a misconception of humanity.

Second, it seems to me that the issue of sexist language has particular urgency for people in the church and academic life, especially religious studies. The fundamental task is communication, and if sexist language offends and inhibits people from acquiring knowledge, increasing understanding, or hearing the gospel, we are failing in our essential purpose. In the church, where nearly every congregation

John M. Mulder is Assistant Editor of THEOLOGY TODAY and Assistant Professor of American Church History. He is the author of Woodrow Wilson: The Years of Preparation (forthcoming from Princeton University Press) and co-editor with John F. Wilson, Religion in American History: Interpretive Essays (1978).

¹ THEOLOGY TODAY, XXXI (January 1975), 289-91.
² Casey Miller and Kate Swift, Words and Women: New Language in New Times (Garden City, N.Y., 1976); Letty M. Russell (ed.), The Liberating Word: A Guide to Nonsexist Interpretation of the Bible; for a negative though very confused argument, with references to many participants in the debate, see George H, Tavard, "Sexist Language in Theology?" Theological Studies, XXXVI (December 1975), 700-24.
³ See Miller and Swift, Words and Women, pp. 21ff.; see also the chapter, "The Language of Religion," pp. 71-82.

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consists of a majority of women, a sensitivity to this issue seems basic to any pastoral relationship.

In discussing sexist language with people, I have often been struck by the fact that many would like to make their language more inclusive, but they are bound by deeply ingrained linguistic patterns and do not know how to break out of them. There are several excellent manuals that are now available and should be consulted,⁴ but for the readers and potential contributors of THEOLOGY TODAY, I thought it might be helpful to outline some of the "tricks" we have acquired in eliminating sexist language while still preserving (we hope) a graceful prose style.

(1) Man: There are many synonyms that can be substituted very easily. These include: human beings, persons, people, individuals, humanity, humankind, men and women, women and men, figures, personalities, etc. When in doubt, a good thesaurus is helpful. Personally, I object to the excessive use of the word "person" or "persons" in nonsexist writing. It may be a matter of taste, but there are several other ways of referring to people.

(2)One common difficulty, particularly in theological literature, is "the nature of man" or various expressions of "man's" attributes or characteristics. One convenient way to avoid this usage is simply to use adjectives: human nature, human fallibility, human insensitivity, etc. This is equally true of references to the attributes of God. "His mercy," "His love," "His power," can be translated into divine mercy, divine love, divine power.

(3) The most frequent linguistic knot in writing and conversation is the use of pronouns to refer to a singular antecedent noun. For example, "A student must ask questions if he expects to learn." Usually, people try to get around this by using the clumsy formulation of "he or she," or even worse, "he/she." I have even heard presentations in which the speaker will refer to "a child," and then alternate the pronouns, sometimes using "he" and sometimes using "she." In virtually all cases, this problem can be solved by simply changing the antecedent noun to the plural. "Students must ask questions if they expect to learn." There is an interesting side benefit to resorting to plural usage, for I have discovered that I have begun to think less in terms of solitary individuals and more in terms of groups and communities. Perhaps one way of resisting the rampant individualism of American religious life and culture is to think and talk in terms of plurals, not singulars.

⁴ The best of these is the Macmillan Company's Guidelines for Creating Positive Sexual and Racial Images in Educational Materials (New York and London, 1975). Others include: Guidelines for Equal Treatment of the Sexes in McGraw-Hill Book Company Publications, available from McGraw Hill; "Linguistic Sexism," Journal of Ecumenical Studies, XI (1974); Guidelines for Screening Bias for Writers and Editors, Office of Communications, Lutheran Church in America, 231 Madison Avenue, New York 10012; Alleen Pace Milsen el at., Sexism and Language (National Council of Teachers of English, 1977), Ouida Clapp (ed.), Responses to Sexism (National Council of Teachers of English, 1977).

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To illustrate how sexist language can be avoided in theological writing, I have chosen a section from Reinhold Niebuhr's The Nature and Destiny of Man.⁵ This passage from "The Christian View of Man" raises both the problems of referring to people and to God without using sexist language. I am not suggesting that Niebuhr was a benighted, sexist theologian or that the history of Christian thought, indeed western thought, should be rewritten in this way. But Niebuhr's work is a classic of modern theological writing and may serve as an example of how these changes can be made felicitiously and unobtrusively. The first paragraph is Niebuhr's; the second paragraph is the "revised standard version."

God as will and personality, in concepts of Christian faith, is thus the only possible ground of real individuality, though not the only possible presupposition of self-consciousness. But faith in God as will and personality depends upon faith in His power to reveal Himself. The Christian faith in God's self-disclosure, culminating in the revelation of Christ, is thus the basis of the Christian concept of personality and individuality. In terms of this faith man can understand himself as a unity of will which finds its end in the will of God. We thus have in the problem of human nature one of the many indications of the relation of general and special revelation, which concerns theology so perennially. The conviction that man stands too completely outside of both nature and reason to understand himself in terms of either without misunderstanding himself, belongs to general revelation in the sense that any astute analysis of the human situation must lead to it. But if man lacks a further revelation of the divine he will also misunderstand himself when he seeks to escape the conditions of nature and reason. He will end by seeking absorption in a divine reality which is at once all and nothing. To understand himself truly means to begin with a faith that he is understood from beyond himself, that he is known and loved of God and must find himself in terms of obedience to the divine will. This relation of the divine to the human will makes it possible for man to relate himself to God without pretending to be God; and to accept his distance from God as a created thing, without believing that the evil of his nature is caused by this finiteness. Man's finite existence in the body and in history can be essentially affirmed, as naturalism wants to affirm it. Yet the uniqueness of man's spirit can be appreciated even more than idealism appreciates it, though always preserving a proper distinction between the human and divine. Also the unity of spirit and body can be emphasized in terms of its relation to a Creator and Redeemer who created both mind and body. These are the ultra-rational foundations and presuppositions of Christian wisdom about man.

God as will and personality, in concepts of Christian faith, is thus the only possible ground of real individuality though not the only possible presupposition of self-consciousness. But faith in God as will and personality depends upon faith in the divine power of revelation. The Christian faith in God's self-disclosure, culminating in the revelation of Christ, is thus the basis of the Christian concept of personality and individuality. In terms of this faith people can understand themselves as a unity of will which finds its end in the will of God. We thus have in the problem of human nature one of the many indications of the relation of general and special revelation, which concerns theology so perennially. The conviction that people stand too completely outside of both nature and reason to understand themselves in terms of either without misunderstanding themselves, belongs to general revelation in the sense that any astute analysis of the human situation must lead to it. But if people lack a further revelation of the divine they will also misunderstand themselves when they seek to escape the conditions of nature and reason.

⁵ (New York, 194 1), one-volume edition, pp. 15-16.

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They will end by seeking absorption in a divine reality which is at once all and nothing. To understand themselves truly means to begin with a faith that they are understood from beyond themselves, that they are known and loved of God and must find themselves in terms of obedience to the divine will. This relation of the divine to the human will makes it possible for people to relate themselves to God without pretending to be God; and to accept the human distance from God as a created thing without believing that the evil of human nature is caused by this finiteness. Humanity's finite existence in the body and in history can be essentially affirmed, as naturalism wants to affirm it. Yet the uniqueness of the human spirit can be appreciated even more than idealism appreciates it, though always preserving a proper distinction between the human and divine. Also the unity of spirit and body can be emphasized in terms of its relation to a Creator and Redeemer who created both mind and body. These are the ultra-rational foundations and presuppositions of Christian wisdom about humanity.

Correcting and revising sex-exclusive language can never be completely satisfactory. It is much more to the point that from now onwards those who write do so from an inclusive perspective. In other words, we need, especially in theology and the church, not only a new awareness of sexist terminology, but an altogether new way of writing. In one sense, the argument for trying to change sexist language is based on the simple assumption that other words will communicate the same meaning more effectively without any change in the thought itself. On another level, I am convinced that changing our language will also change how we think, act, teach, preach and minister-in ways we don't as yet know or realize. The change is not easy, particularly in conversation, but in awareness that we should not place stumbling blocks before others (Romans 14:13), let us try.