Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: wcsa@cbnewsc.att.com (Willard C. Smith) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: inclusive language text Message-ID: Date: 21 Jun 89 01:59:12 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 52 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu Nancy Tinkham writes: > I have, not surprisingly, mixed feelings about traditional vs. inclusive >language. The traditional *roles* assigned to people according to gender >do create barriers for women, and I am happy to see Christianity at last >beginning to remove some of these barriers. At the same time, I share Mr. >Hedrick's concerns for aesthetics, doctrinal correctness, and faithful >presentation of an artist's work as originally created. Recently I have been going over the Joesph Campbell and Bill Moyers discussion, _The Power of Myth_, and in chapter 7 ("The Gift of the Goddess'), there is a short discussion of the Father and Mother images especially pertaining to the "Father Quest." To quote Cambell and Moyers: CAMBELL: Well, the mother's right there. You're born from your mother, and she's the one who nurses you and instructs you and brings you up to the age when you must find your father. Now, the finding of the father has to do with finding your own character and destiny. There's the notion that the character is inherited from the father and the body and very often the mind from the mother. But it's your character that is the mystery, and your character is your destiny. So it is the discovery of your destiny that is symbolized by the father quest. MOYERS: So when you find your father, you find yourself? CAMPBELL: We have the word in English, "at-one-ment" with the father. You remember the story of Jesus lost in Jerusalem when he's a little boy about twelve years old. His parents hunt for him, and when they find him in the temple in conversation with the doctors of the law, they ask "Why did you abandon us this way? Why did you give us this fear and anxiety?" And he says, "Didn't you know I had to be about my father's business?" He's twelve years old--that's the age of the adolescent initiations, finding who you are. End of quote (_The Power of Myth_,1988, p. 166). Feminism aside, I question the damage being done in the name of equality, wherein the "Spiritual Father Quest imagery" is ripped out with nothing of equal force explicitly replacing it. -- 1100 E. Warrenville Rd., Naperville, IL Willard C. Smith (312) 979-0024 att!iwtdr!wcsa "It's life, Captain, but not as we know it."