the Article (this is a .PDF)
Every time a new hymnal or prayer book comes out, it is bound to offend a few people. The choices can be hard for a committee, and no matter what hymns they choose, someone will be offended. There will be errors of omission and commission. While I sympathize with the Lutherans who put together the new “Renewing Worship Songbook,” I also am extremely suspicious of their methodology. They have obviously bought into the theories of radical inclusive language, which I will illustrate below. This is one reason why I am glad to be released from the grip of the mainlines: my weariness of constant liturgical revisions dictated by academic trends. Please don’t think I am some kind of hidebound. Being connected to Academia, I know that liturgical revision is often undertaken simply because academic trends dictate them, rather than a demand from laypeople, or on account of any good catholic theological rationale. Liturgical revision is often an exercise in modernist “superiority,” whereby any text written before the 1960s must be “corrected” based on modern secular ideals. The cultural egotism and arrogance involved are staggering, that somehow we are so enlightened simply on account of our birth dates that we have the privilege… er …mandate to fix writings that came before us. Thus a prayer like “Praise the Lord,” a basic praise of God going back at least 2500 years, must be changed because of so-called enlightenment of the last 30 years. The Trinitarian formula “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,” ancient and the standard for over 1900 years, is changed to “Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier” because a vast minority of 20th and 21st century ears get offended by masculine language. And often what is apropos changes quickly. Soon “Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier” will be deemed inappropriate because they too are masculine. Perhaps something like this will emerge: Creatress, Redemptress, and (I don’t know the feminine equivalent of sanctifier). Either way there are serious theological issues with ridding our texts of masculine words, and words like “Lord” and “King,” and then replacing them with impersonal words like “creator” and “redeemer.”
I will let you read the article for yourselves, but I will highlight a few changes. “Praise to the Lord” becomes “Sing praise to God,” because “Lord” is supposedly oppressive (despite God’s Lordship being one of servanthood…this is what happens when even liturgical committees are affected by poor catechesis). “All Creatures of Our God and King,” a favorite of mine, becomes “All Creatures of Our God Most High.” Even St. Francis is not safe from being revised I guess. Besides being culturally elitist and theologically innovative, inclusive language creates some very awkward poetry. For instance “give Him praise” becomes “give praise.” Theologically and poetically these two phrases are very different. The former is standard English, the latter is a little iffy. For instance, let’s compare the two sentences “the teacher gave praise to her” and “the teacher gave praise.” The latter seems incomplete and seems to demand an object. Another example is in a fully inclusive Bible version, to be used for liturgy (the name esacpes me), which speaks of Christ giving self, not giving “himself” but simply “self.” Even with my education in classics and literature, I still ask, “what the hell does that even mean?” I guess it strikes me as strange that in order to “include” more people, we change liturgies to such awkward and non-standard English that most people can’t even understand them.
I guess this blog entry is to express my “hands thrown up in the air,” exhausted, and wearied attitude I have toward the mainlines. When confronted with all of these trends I am left with one ancient phrase, “Lord have mercy!” Or should that be “God have mercy…?” Hmmm.
