When I first started teaching theology, acknowledging one\u2019s social location was a fashionable way to begin.\u00a0 In my case, the race-class-gender narrative went something like this (I lived in the Southern United States at that point):\u00a0 I am white, and originally from Europe.\u00a0 I am a woman.\u00a0 I was raised in an upper middle-class context and educated in European universities.<\/p>\n
None of these markers of difference have really changed, but — fast-forwarding to today \u2013 how to name them has morphed, and other ways of self-identifying have emerged.\u00a0 For example, the \u201cwoman\u201d I am might be described as cisgender (rather than transgender).\u00a0 I am also, in terms of linguistic identity, a \u201ctranslingual\u201d human being, as I discovered recently.\u00a0 Just as important to my social location is the fact that, having moved north, I now reside in the traditional homelands of the Quinnipiac peoples.\u00a0 And, taking to heart the recent book Watershed Discipleship: Reinhabiting Bioregional Faith and Practice<\/em>, I should note that I live in the Quinnipiac River watershed of Southern Connecticut.\u00a0 In short, my markers of difference are not only multiple but also somewhat unstable.<\/p>\n What does all this have to do with Christian worship?\u00a0 Lest you think these markers are mostly irrelevant, Galatians 3:27f makes clear that issues of naming differences are at least as old as the New Testament.\u00a0 The apostle Paul, in his letter, reminds a divided community of its baptismal identity, over and against specific markers of difference: \u201cFor all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. \u00a0There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.\u201d\u00a0 Paul names differences here according to some basic binaries of his time and culture:\u00a0 Jew vs. Greek, slave vs. free, man and woman.\u00a0 He leaves other important binaries invisible, however, such as young and old, and rich and poor.\u00a0 Furthermore, he occludes in his list markers of difference that soften the binaries he names, for example eunuchs and persons with intersex conditions.\u00a0 All this goes to say: naming differences is never an easy task, because the differences we choose to name are not innocent; they always both highlight and occlude.<\/p>\n Struggles with naming differences continue in Christian worship today.\u00a0 Think, for example, of the upsurge of hymns since the 1970s that explicitly name women together with men as protagonists of salvation history.\u00a0 The core image projected in these hymns is one of gender complementarity, a gender complementarity that mostly follows a traditional gender binary.\u00a0 A couple of texts by John Bell offer striking examples, such as his \u201cWomen and Men as God Intended,\u201d or his \u201cSisters and Brothers, with one Voice.\u201d\u00a0 These hymns grew out of and lent a voice to the struggle for women\u2019s rights both outside and inside the church.\u00a0 As women gained greater visibility, many liturgical texts, including hymn texts, were amended to reflect the importance of women\u2019s voices in the life of the church. \u00a0By now, however, some of these women-specific gains in liturgical language have been overtaken by newer gender-specific concerns. \u00a0The gender complementarity championed in some hymn texts and the addition of \u201csisters\u201d to the traditional \u201cbrothers\u201d have been supplanted, at least in some cases, by the search for a liturgical language that does not reproduce the traditional gender binary. \u00a0The main reason is that this traditional binary excludes those who live with non-binary genders.\u00a0 Ruth Duck\u2019s \u201cSacred the Body\u201d is an example of a hymn texts that envisions lives beyond the traditional gender binary.\u00a0 The author calls for respect for \u201cpersons,\u201d \u201cbodies,\u201d and \u201cdifference,\u201d without ever locking such respect into a binary model of sexual difference.\u00a0 The hymn tellingly lacks any specific naming of \u201cmale and female\u201d bodies.\u00a0 There is a lesson in this, I think:\u00a0 a liturgy may not need to name every specific marker of difference that surfaces in a particular cultural moment in time. \u00a0To put this differently, I will not be holding my breath for the first-ever hymn text that spells out cisgender, transgender, or intersex lives. \u00a0At the same time, however, foregoing limited and limiting traditional binaries is important as we struggle with how best to name and honor diverse ways of being in the world.<\/p>\n I cannot help but wonder whether the complexity of adequately naming differences is one of the reasons for the popularity of Marty Haugen\u2019s \u201cAll Are Welcome\u201d?\u00a0 The inclusivity and elasticity of the \u201cAll\u201d allows some communities to envision a rainbow flag while singing, and others to imagine an interracial future for their community of faith.\u00a0 A transgender person might feel affirmed in their journey in his hymn, as might a pregnant woman carrying a severely disabled child in her womb; and an undocumented immigrant might be allowed to feel safe for a moment.<\/p>\n A slight unease with a simple \u201cAll,\u201d however, must remain.\u00a0 The struggle over differences is not easily settled, in liturgy as in the rest of life.\u00a0 And how to honor and welcome each others\u2019 markers of difference is a profound challenge, of which the right naming of our differences in worship is only one small part.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A slight unease with a simple \u201cAll,\u201d however, must remain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":37335,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[3119,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-plaza-new-ws","category-sacramental-theology"],"yoast_head":"\n