Some interesting links and articles about inclusive language

The following quotes come from Lucy Winkett's Speak to us of Liturgy but you can also find links to some other interesting articles on inclusive language by going to Thinking Anglican's blog and following the links.

If we address God as our father, yes, we are following Jesus' example - but this Jesus also told a beautiful story about God searching for us and rejoicing when we are found - a woman sweeping a house looking for a lost coin. Who is that searching woman if not God?

God is a woman who searches for us and she finds us, she calls her friends and is utterly delighted.

Language that is truly inclusive will draw us out, will build unity, and will find ways of reaching the first of those truths; we have so much in common as human beings in the world. The process of inclusion and exclusion takes place in the second of those truths - we are like some other people, our gender, our ethnicity, our sexuality, our physical or mental impairments and so on. It is in this area that the debate is most live. And the way we react depends heavily on the third of those truths - our own experience of fathering will determine how we react to the concept of a Father God for example. And even if our experience has been similar - say for example, a bad experience, for one it will be redemptive to learn that God fathers us, for another it will render the name so painful it is not possible to say. Liturgy takes place metaphorically and actually in the Holy of Holies - the place outside time and space but our language is intimately connected to the experience of life orientated towards God in Jesus Christ.