Transgender and Non-Binary God
ALMIGHTY God, who by thy blessed Apostle hast taught us that there is none other name given among men whereby we must be saved, but only the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ: Grant, we beseech thee, that we may ever glory in this Name, and strive to make thy salvation known unto all mankind; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Collect: On the Name of Jesus
I prayed in this language for over 20 years. The Canadian Book of Common Prayer was last published in 1959 and is based on the 1549 Book of Common Worship from the Church of England. Yes, you read that right.
1549.
I don’t know when women and non-binary people started translating the exclusively male language for humans in their minds, but every one I have ever known has. We look at the context and replace “he” with “they” or “we”. We replace “men” with “us” or “people” or, if we’re really progressive, “humankind” or “humanity.” All while praying the words on the page aloud with the congregation around us and the priest in front of us so we are all praying with one voice.
By the time I was ordained, most Anglicans had silently agreed on the mental translations and priests used those translations when presiding, even though they differed from the words on the page. Why not just rewrite the book, for crying out loud? Well, it has been tried. Several times. Rewriting this liturgy has constantly met with so much objection, we gave up and just wrote a new prayer book. But there are still many who love the old book, so we still use it.
With this much conflict and confusion over language for humans, you can imagine the outrage over suggesting that exclusively male language for God perhaps needed to be reexamined. The defenders would cry out, “We all know God transcends male and female, so why do we have to change the pronoun? We all know that ‘He’ is gender neutral.” Yeah. The closest we got was to use “God” as a pronoun. Anything to keep us from using “She.”
For those of us whose pronouns are those established at our birth, they do not seem like that big a deal. But if they are not a big deal, why do people experience outrage about calling a transgender God anything but “He”? Because pronouns are, in fact, a big deal.
God has never shared Their pronouns with us, so perhaps God is not worried about the images we create to relate to Them. I give God She/They pronouns. I still use capitals. The prayer book has not quite left my bones.
When my non-binary friends started coming out and becoming more able to express and describe their gender, I could not avoid seeing the parallels to God, our Creator, both and neither male or female. Some of my enby (N-B, non binary) friends also use a male or female pronoun. God does the same in the Scriptures. Sometimes She is a mother hen. Other times He is a destroyer. And, then, They are the sacrifice for the whole world. All and none.
Consider the pronouns you use for God. When did you first hear those pronouns? How do the pronouns you use reflect how you visualize God? What would happen if, for one week, you used a different pronoun for God?
