Why I No Longer Use Gender Neutral Language

English professor, Louis Markos, has an article on this subject on his website and I've borrowed his title for this post. His article begins as follows:

"It has now been nearly a decade since the news leaked out that the foremost Evangelical translation of the Bible (the New International Version) was planning an updated, American version that would conform itself to the “rules” of gender-neutral language. The resulting grass-roots resistance movement thankfully (if temporarily) nipped that project in the bud, but it has proven powerless to stop the slow but persistent encroachment of the gender-neutral agenda. Most of the Bible translations that have been released over the last 15 years (from the New Revised Standard Version to the Contemporary English Version to the New Living Translation) have carefully and systematically eliminated “sexist” language from the pages of God’s Word. Simultaneous with this revamping of the Holy Scriptures, the mainline Protestant denominations have so retranslated and/or reworked their hymnals, prayer books, and creeds as to remove every trace of “gender-specific” language from the Sunday service. And they have been quite thorough in their gender-neutral overhaul. Where once the believer boldly proclaimed his belief that Jesus Christ “. . . for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became man,” he now is expected (well, forced) to proclaim that “for us and for our salvation . . . [Christ] . . . became human.” With astonishing speed and success, most liberal mainline denominations have constructed for their parishioners (whether they wanted it or not) a space that, if not particularly sacred, is at least blissfully free from all that “sexist” and “insensitive” language of the past: by which is meant the language of Homer, Plato, Virgil, Augustine, Dante, Chaucer, Luther, Shakespeare, Milton, and the Bible.

Meanwhile, in schools, colleges, and, yes, churches all over the country, students and parishioners have been indoctrinated into using gender-neutral language by professors, school teachers, pastors, and administrators alike. Often the “rules” are not formally taught; they are just taken for granted. Just as the basic tenets of Freudianism have been absorbed by millions of people who have never read Freud and may in fact be strongly opposed to his teachings and his worldview, so the “rules” of gender-neutral language have so assimilated their way into society as to be almost invisible. The champions of gender-neutral language have been remarkably successful at disseminating their agenda throughout almost every strata of society. Scan through almost any academic journal (including faith-based ones) and you will find nary a word or phrase that deviates from “non-sexist” language usage. More disturbing, flip through almost any textbook (K-12) used in the public school system, and you will find exactly the same total surrender to an agenda that was initiated by the radical feminists but which found its way (as homosexual marriage is slowly doing) into the mainstream.

Worse yet, over the last five years, the almost total capitulation to gender-neutral language on the part of liberal mainline pastors and theologians has spread into the evangelical world. Thus, while many of our finest evangelical writers (I will not “name names”) bend, and at times distort, their prose to accommodate gender-neutral usage, a number of our best evangelical magazines move closer, with each issue, toward the total elimination of gender-specific language. Of course, not all segments of society have so capitulated. The great American heartland (including many who sit in mainline pews) has not fully embraced it; neither has most of the media (including and especially Hollywood) nor most of those great writers (like Thomas Cahill) and periodicals (like Touchstone and The New York Review of Books) that truly care about style. Still, the gender-neutral agenda has been quite pervasive in its penetration."

So what does Markos think of this trend? He is against it. He sees it as an example of accommodation to the spirit of the age.

"When the leaders of the mainline denominations decided, early in the 20th century, that they would become more relevant and exert more societal influence if they liberalized their doctrinal beliefs and practices, they really believed that the “people” were hungry for such liberalization and would accept it as more “natural” than the teachings of traditional orthodoxy. They proved, of course, to be dead wrong in their predictions of what the people really yearned for and of what they considered “natural” and “proper.” In seeking to be relevant, they became profoundly irrelevant; in seeking to accommodate the gospel to the culture, they lost the gospel without winning the culture. It is my contention (and my fear) that the widespread use of gender-neutral language in the church represents another form of accommodationism."

In the rest of the essay, he goes on to explain what he sees as the problem with gender-neutral language. He argument, (which I encourage you to read for yourself), can be summarized as follows:

1. When Paul says: ""if anyone be in Christ, he is a new creation," everyone knows that he means all people, not just men. To suggest that the problem is one of communication - as if one cannot communicate clearly using the masculine pronoun for all humankind - is spurious.

2. The tremendous pressure exerted on writers of all sorts - including university professors, teachers, government bureaucrates etc. - amounts to censorship. The language can and does evolve naturally in response to felt needs. Yet, despite two decades of censorship, gender-neutral language does not "feel more natural" to most people. I notice this in my students' papers all the time - equally so in men and women, I might add. But this is different; it is a form of social engineering being imposed on society by an activist, minority, radical group.

3. Gender neutral language can be vague and ugly and often is both at once. Markos quotes this paragraph from the Preface to the Contemporary English Version:

"In everyday speech, “gender generic” or “inclusive” language is used, because it sounds most natural to people today. This means that where the biblical languages require [an important concession that!] masculine nouns or pronouns when both men and women are intended, this intention must be reflected in translation, though the English form may be very different from that of the original. The Greek text of “Matthew 16:24 is literally, “If anyone wants to follow me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” The Contemporary English Version shifts to a form which is still accurate and at the same time more effective in English: “If any of you want to be my followers, you must forget about yourself. You must take up your cross and follow me.”"

I find the translation "If any of you want to be my followers, you must forget about yourself." to be a disaster from a communication standpoint, from a theological standpoint and from an aestethic standpoint. This is Scripture. There are severe warnings against making God's Word obscure. First, I can't read this obvious confusion of singular and plural and simultaneously pay attention to the meaning: "any of you" - "followers" - "yourself." Shouldn't it be "yourselves"? As communication it fails because the ideological imposition on the text gets in the way of the natural meaning. Second, Jesus spoke in the singular. His challenge was addressed to individuals, but this is obscured (denied?) in the new translation. "If anyone" speaks directly to me as an individual. To say "followers" puts the emphasis on the group. Maybe in one text this will make no difference but in the next text make a crucial difference. But Scripture cannot be put in this ideological straightjacket. Third, if you think aesthetics is all subjective, try this test. Which translation is easier to memorize? Which is more memorable? The CEV is downright ugly and forgettable next to the more traditional (and accurate) translation.

4. This re-writing of the great literature of the past results in the destruction of our literary heritage. As Markos writes:

"For heaven’s sake! Would anyone in academia dare to “translate” the poetry of Shakespeare or Milton in such a way as to eliminate all uses of the word man/mankind? Yet that is exactly what has been done to the poetic verses of David’s Psalms and Wesley’s hymns.

Speaking for myself, I wouldn't be too sure that the inclusive language project won't eventually be extended to Milton and Shakespeare. Or maybe these writers will just no longer be read.

5. Another argument he makes is that to impose such revisionism on the biblical writers in something as fundamental as the language they used to communicate will lead to a pattern of patronising them generally. He writes:

"But there is another reason to take pause before we convince ourselves that a modern-day Paul would have cheered the CEV or the NRSV or the new and emasculated hymnal. To make such a claim is not only to impose our own very contemporary values on Paul; it is to set a dangerous if not lethal precedent. It is to suggest that the language and culture of the Biblical writers are not a sufficient vessel for carrying the Word of God. I do not exaggerate when I say that, if we accept the reasoning that says a modern Paul would have used gender-neutral language, it will not be long before we assert (as many already have) that if Jesus could have been transported to the 21st century and met a loving homosexual couple face-to-face, he would have given his blessing to their marriage."

6. Markos disagrees with the underlying ideology that drives the inclusive language movement. distinguishes between a true and a false notion of equality. On the one hand, he is for equality defined as follows:

"If you mean by equality the equal dignity and inherent worth of every human being; if you mean the freedom from oppression and the liberty to worship as you please; if you mean, further, equal pay for equal work and equal educational and employment options without regard to race, creed, or gender: then, yes, America is all about equality. Indeed, it must be admitted, some of the early crusading feminists helped bring about much-needed reforms that extended the blessings of equality to countless women."

On the other hand, he disagrees with what he calls "egalitarianism."

"Unfortunately, when the proponents of gender-neutral language (and their multiculturalist allies in the public schools) talk about equality, they mean not equal dignity or pay or opportunity, but egalitarianism: the belief that everyone is the same and should be treated the same. The tenets of egalitarianism hold that the differences we see between the sexes and between people in general are not innate, essential, or God-given, but social constructs. The goal of egalitarianism is not unity in diversity or the celebration of inherent worth but a bland, universal sameness: the creation of a lowest-common-denominator world devoid of all difference and uniqueness."

I think Markos is right on the money here. True equality requires treating men and women differently, precisely because men and women are not the same in all respects. To the extent that women have uniquely feminine needs, they must not be treated as men if we are to have equality. And this is just what second wave feminism (since the 1960's) seeks to do. The problem is that the inclusive language movement is based in an egalitarian ideology that is false in certain crucial respects.

Language is powerful and important because it shapes the way we think. Secular Feminists and Christians agree on that point. And this is precisely why Christians cannot allow a secular form of egalitarianism to determine the way Christians think and read Scripture.