Responding to the sacred

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this paper, three dilemmas in liturgical gender-inclusive language are discussed: firstly, if there is any need for gender-inclusive language at all among Christian people; secondly, to what extent gender-inclusive language confirms or challenges binary gender categories; and, thirdly, how queer theory could be a useful tool to develop a non-binary theological language whilst also recognising the risks this might pose to making women invisible. The dilemmas are illuminated by examples from the discussion of gender-inclusive language in the (Lutheran) Church of Norway over a period of twenty years from a liturgy made for 8th March in 1993 to a comprehensive liturgical reform of the principal Sunday service in 2011. This led to a very moderate use of gendered metaphors, either male or female, in the liturgy. In the Church of Norway, it seems that inclusive language’s most important contribution to theological speech lies in the insights of metaphorical theology. God is neither a man, nor is She a woman, and the theological speech demands a broad variety in metaphors used for God.