432 - What Language Shall I Borrow? God-Talk in Worship: A Male Response to Feminist Theology

What Language Shall I Borrow? God-Talk in Worship: A Male Response to Feminist Theology
By Brian Wren
New York, Crossroad, 1989, 264 pp. $18.95.

Brian Wren is an English hymn-writer in the Reformed tradition, He characterizes himself as a "hymn-poet," a "weaver of words." He has written an important and helpful book, reflecting his long work and disciplined reflection on what words do when uttered in public.

Wren's book is concerned with theological language in hymnody as it

434 - What Language Shall I Borrow? God-Talk in Worship: A Male Response to Feminist Theology

relates to gender- inclusiveness. The book is divided into three parts, though the first two parts are closely related. Indeed, I have found the first two parts to be among the most helpful and thoughtful discussions of the subject I have seen. The first part concerns the freight that is inevitably carried in our culture by notions of masculinity. In a well -constructed argument, masculinity is shown to bespeak control, coolness, dominance, toughness, and the scornful subordination of femaleness. Wren suggests that the sense of male superiority carried in our cultural assumption not only regards femaleness as subordinate, but also inferior, available for control, and subject to use. That is, inherent in masculinity "as we know it" is the propensity and warrant for oppression, abuse, and violence toward women.

I find most startling his evidence that Francis Bacon, "progenitor" [sic!] of modern Western science, made extensive use of sexual metaphors, whereby the scientist is masculine and nature is feminine. Nature is therefore available for discovery, understanding, penetration, and utilization. Moreover, Bacon cast his argument in this rhetoric while at the same time urging that science must be objective and value-neutral.

It is a long way from Bacon to Edward Teller; nonetheless Wren shows that the recent pursuit of nuclear science was characteristically expressed by scientists, such as Ernest Rutherford, Niels Bohr, Stanislaw Ulam, and Edward Teller in sexual metaphors, the language of begetting and birthing, with unmistakable sexist overtones. The pursuit of destructive technological power was profoundly "manly" among the "fathers" of nuclearism. In the use of such power, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon all used language saturated with male domination. Wren's argument that our society is dominated by machismo rhetoric is stunning and compelling. It is then an easy move to see how this same language works when applied to God. The outcome of Wren's argument is that a change in the theological-liturgic language and rhetoric of the church is urgent, for our conventional masculine language is overladen and saturated with assumptions that contradict the claims of the gospel.

The second section of the book considers the ways in which words matter and what language does in its utterance. Wren's urging is that theological language, specifically trinitarian language about God, when understood as language, functions like all other language. It arises out of experience. That is, all language including theological language is "borrowed" from concrete human experience. Wren intends to refute the common conventional argument (here voiced by Donald Bloesch) that trinitarian language is special, "revealed" language, and is therefore not derived from experience and not subject to the critique made of experiential language. Wren states clearly and compellingly this key issue in current discussion. If language comes of experience, then the language of "almightiness" reflects experiences and claims of almightiness. Wren will, of course, not convince those who defend an escapist transcendentalism, who want to protect their favorite language from criticism; he will, however, be profoundly helpful to those who really

435 - What Language Shall I Borrow? God-Talk in Worship: A Male Response to Feminist Theology

want to understand and learn what we are doing in our public theological utterances. Because language is indeed rooted in experience, the utterance of "almightiness" does indeed reenforce patterns of domination and toughness. Once it is conceded that language arises out of experience, then we can proceed to investigate the social experiences that have produced trinitarian language and patriarchal God-talk in general. Wren builds on the work of George Caird and Sallie McFague in making the most understandable case I have seen on this vexed subject.

The third part of the book is a quite practical exploration of how one addresses the problem of language in hymnody. Wren presents a brief but useful critique of our usual hymnal practices. He then proceeds to present alternatives. Here Wren utilizes much of his own work, expositing his poems and hymns, showing why he did what he did, and what the outcome of his new language use is. Not everyone will agree with all that he has done and proposes. The important and helpful matter, however, is that his work is fresh, daring, and suggestive, and at the same time informed, critical, and disciplined. Wren will not settle for the avoidance of interpersonal language, and he understands that the now familiar, "creator, redeemer, sustainer" is inadequate and boring modalism. His suggestive poetry mediates a kind of imaginative freedom and majesty that is appropriate to the great themes he seeks to voice. He proceeds with great intentionality and, in doing so, pushes and invites readers and listeners to new fields of perception. There is nothing hackneyed, familiar, defensive, or aggressive here. There is only an effort to voice what matters without the destructive contradictions offered in our usual formulations.

Wren has combined an exceedingly thoughtful theoretical presentation of the linguistic problem and a step-by-step practical walk-through of the issues. The argument is cast so that even the most urgent and serious theoretical matters are available. The clarity and irenic mood of the book will make this a helpful guide for discussion and conversation in the church. Faithful to his poetic vocation, Wren has no meanness of spirit. The book will address not only the "already convinced" but those who care but are bewildered by our current dilemma. Leaders of worship will find practical help and suggestions for how to think and speak differently. The tone of the book, while critical, finally arrives at doxology. Language from our experience serves well the mystery revealed in our faith, for it was mystery and not formulation that was revealed. It takes a poet, however, not a clerk, to voice what has been disclosed by God. Wren is such a poet; he invites us to fresh evangelical cadences that will themselves liberate.

Walter Brueggemann
Columbia Theological Seminary
Decatur, Georgia