Twystematics

The whole of Christian doctrine, 140 characters at a time

On gendered pronouns

A couple of people have tweeted about my use of pronouns in the Twystematics. This is an explanation, not a justification.

English lacks a gender-neutral singular personal pronoun. This is not news.

In writing, I take the view – accepted by almost everyone today – that the older practice of using male pronouns as generic is no longer acceptable; I will resort to a singular ‘they’ sometimes (now allowed by the OED…); more often I will switch between male and female pronouns with some deliberate attempt at balance.

In referring to God, in historical writing I tend to re-cast sentences so as to avoid any need for pronouns referring to God (my Baptist Theology contains none, for instance); in doing theology proper, where God is the subject of almost every sentence, I find this impossible. I have here adopted the old practice of capitalised male pronouns; I do not think that this is a good answer to how to refer adequately to God in contemporary English; I do think it might be the least bad answer.

(‘Godself’ and similar are OK, if ugly, until one tries to write extensively on the Trinity; ‘Fatherself; Sonself; Spiritself’? No.)

Others will think other answers are better. Probably in ten years’ time I will – and anyway contemporary idiom will have shifted slightly again. For now, this is my best attempt to negotiate the problems.

Twystematic Theology starts tomorrow

Assuming Twuffer does what it says on the tin (well, website…), the first tweet of this project will go out tomorrow at 9am. The first one is not exciting; the second one will follow at 9.05, and is more interesting. Ten tweets should go out on Monday, and another ten between Tuesday and Thursday to get the thing going; after that, things will slow down a bit – probably two a day for the next week.

The first section, on the definition of theology, will be completed on Thursday, at which point I will post all the tweets in a blog post here, at which point I invite comment or discussion.

Thanks all for following!