Elizabeth Cosnett: Language in hymns: One woman's experience - An article in the Bulletin of the Hymn Society of Great Britain and Ireland, Issue 182 (January 1990: Vol.12, No.9, pp.158-163); copyright Elizabeth Cosnett ©1990, reproduced by permission.
The author refers at length, in the later part of the article, to Brian Wren's hymn `Strong mother God', as first published in New Songs of Praise 3 (OUP 1987). Some verse references are given; in the transcription below these correspond to the verses in the volume indicated, with corrections of two figures apparently misprinted in the Hymn Society Bulletin. The hymn was, however, subsequently revised by its author and published with an additional verse which now stands as v.1, all the others being renumbered. (The extra verse begins `Bring many names', and the hymn is included in a collection with the same phrase as its title, published by Hope Publishing Co. 1989.)
Some additional paragraph breaks have been inserted in the following transcription, for the sake of screen readability.
At the 1989 conference in Glasgow I volunteered to fill a space in the `open forum' session with a few random and more or less impromptu reflections on feminism and hymnody. The relaxed atmosphere enabled me to speak very personally, sharing with friends some of the practical problems, ambivalent feelings and developing but still provisional convictions which have been an important part of my experience over the years, both as a user and as a writer of hymns. I was surprised and quite moved by the warm, though not altogether uncritical, response and by the number of people who wished to explore particular points in more detail with me afterwards. In what follows I have taken a few of the points hastily jotted down at Glasgow and have developed them in the light of members' comments and further thought after my return home.
I am a single, professional woman in my fifties, relying for my income as well as for most of my pleasures on the fact that I received a first- rate education at a time when plenty of people thought it was wasted on a girl. I have therefore always thought of myself as a believer in equal opportunities for women, a humble follower in the footsteps of Miss Beale and Miss Buss. I am also, however, temperamentally conservative. I appreciate the security and convenience of accepted norms and tend to see development, whether political or artistic, in terms of evolution rather than revolution. I never rock boats if I can help it. It is therefore not surprising that I have found a creative outlet in the intensely conventional art of hymn-writing.
In the early 1970s I started work on a hymn that has since been included in several standard books both here and in the USA. The first line was `Can man by searching find out God?'. At that time I was surprised and not pleased by the requests I received for copyright permission to substitute `we' for `man'. I felt and still feel that `we' has a much weaker sound than `man' and is not really suitable to carry a heavy metrical stress; and also that the meaning itself was weakened by the change. `We' can, and in some church contexts does, mean `this particular inward-looking little group gathered here on this particular day'. `Man', I assumed, was a universal term referring to the whole human race throughout its history. I was shocked to discover that some people interpreted it as including only the male half and hence excluding me, the writer. This started me thinking hard and the process was intensified when I came up against similar and related issues in my work as a teacher. After much reflection I personally still feel included in the generalized term `man' (without the article) - although I respect the feelings of those who do not - but definitely excluded by `men', `brother', etc., and would not now use any such terms in a new hymn when referring to groups that might include females.
The correspondence I received from the USA about `Can man by searching?' also raised another distinct but related issue. The first verse in full reads
- Can man by searching find out God
- Or formulate his ways?
- Can numbers measure what he is
- Or words contain his praise?
and the hymn refers to God throughout in the third person with very frequent use of `he' and `his'. With hindsight it seems ironic that at the time of writing I had deliberately avoided the second person form because of the thou/you controversy. I now found one American church wanting to use "God" and "God's" for `he' and `his' throughout, and also to ruin both rhyme and metre by substituting `Christ, man and Saviour' for `Christ, the son of man'. My correspondent explained that they had to be very careful as they had a liberal arts college in the area. I gave permission for purely local use although I could not help wondering whether `liberal arts' included Greek. Probably not.
As I pondered on such implied criticisms and on my own initially puzzled and hurt reactions to them I came increasingly to see the force of the basic feminist argument that there is a mutually causal relationship between accepted linguistic conventions and accepted social norms. Once this is admitted we are certainly treading in a minefield but retreat is not an option. New ways of looking at languageput us in a position like that of our first forbears facing the question, "Who told thee that thou wast naked?" New awareness may be regrettable, problematic, even horrifying, but there is no way back to a time before we had it. Moreover this awareness comes patchily and uncomfortably both to individual people and to social groups, rather like `pins and needles' after numbness in hand or foot. The aim of all concerned with hymns must be so to minister to the body of Christ that the flow of new life to some of the limbs is at the very least not impeded (and some would wish actively to encourage it) while at the same time reducing the distress involved to the unavoidable minimum.
It has seemed to me recently that my own confused feelings may be in some way related to the ambiguous nature of my medium, language. On the one hand it is a social thing, a means of communication, and hence depends for its very existence upon accepted conventions. A word has a certain meaning because users of English agree it should have that meaning and not another. To that extent language is a kind of code. On the other hand it is used by each human being in ways so intimately personal that my language is actually a part of me and hence not absolutely identical to anyone else's. Does anyone ever understand completely what another person means by the word `God', for instance?
I think this ambiguity explains why in the 1970s I could use words like `man' and `he' perfectly innocently in ways in which I can no longer use them innocently in the 1990s. My perception of their implications and of their effect has changed and therefore what I would mean by them were I to use them has truly changed. Nor am I alone. A sizeable minority of users of English have undergone similar changes in perception. Reluctantly I must now avoid, or use as sparingly as possible, certain resources of the English language on which I could once draw freely. And if I thus contribute in a tine way to the loss of such resources in the future, so be it. The price is high but necessary and English will undoubtedly adapt and flourish. Yet there are many people today who are still as I was twenty years ago and I feel under no obligation to use offensive epithets like `sexist' of them. I say merely that the tool they are using needs modification if I am to use it with integrity.
Similar considerations apply to earlier writers. Caroline Noel did not mean to exclude herself, and therefore in some sense at least actually did not exclude herself, when she penned the line `Name him, brothers, name him'. It is quite possible that in her imagination she visualized some women among the `brothers' or that she visualized all Christians as somewhat sexless beings. She was, after all, using the word metaphorically and in a highly specialized religious context. Perhaps unity between Christians was uppermost in her mind rather than sexuality. In some circumstances, either through unawakened consciousness or the deliberate exercise of tolerance and empathy, it is still possible to sing the hymn, and others like it, in such a spirit. When it occurs no harm is dome (indeed, great good may be done) and there is no need for sexism to be imputed to a woman who never heard the word or realized the concept.
At the same time, however, we, from our 1990 vantage point and with spectacles tinted by Germaine Greer, Brian Wren, et al., cannot help observing that no male writers of the period automatically included themselves under the term `sister'. To some of us this suggests that they lived in a society which assumed that men were more complete human beings than women and could therefore sum up or represent the human race in a way that women could not. Many women now reject that assumption. If they are Christians they do of course know that Jesus, who for them does indeed sum up and represent the human race, was a man, but they see his humanity as essential to this function and his maleness as accidental or secondary. His followers of both sexes regularly pray to be made more like him but modern women certainly do not believe that God asks them to become less feminine in proportion as they conform to the divine image. No one wants to be a clone, not even of Christ.
This raises again the question of metaphor and I must here assert my conviction, with which I know some of you disagree, that all religious language is metaphorical, including that used to indicate relationship within the blessed Trinity. The basis of metaphor is implied comparison between things that are similar, often in complex ways, but not identical. Thus all metaphor demands interpretation and there is always scope for variety of emphasis. It is therefore quite possible for `he' to convey the livingness, the vitality of God in circumstances where the context minimises the suggestion of physical maleness, although traditional connotations of strength, authority and the like frequently remain.
For centuries we called God `he' and still believe that he is, in the words of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England, `without body, parts or passions'. Some writers are now inviting us to use, in addition, the word `she', with a similar suppression of its physical connotations but including ideas of nurture, sensitivity and so on, traditionally associated with femininity. To most of us, including myself, this usage at first seems strained, bizarre, perhaps even comic, and we certainly cannot expect most congregations immediately to feel comfortable with hymns written in this form. It might, however, be a valuable spiritual exercise seriously to consider precisely why people feel uncomfortable with such hymns. Perhaps they are not accustomed to using `she' in contexts that require its physical connotations to be suppressed. In other words they are insensitive to its possibilities as metaphor. One unfortunate but inevitable side-effect of a feminist approach to language is that it sensitizes us to the male connotations of words like `father', `son' and `he', and so we can no longer use them metaphorically, suppressing certain aspects of their meaning and highlighting others, as once we did. Thus the feminists and their critics share a basic problem which surfaces in connection with male words for the feminists and female words for the critics. Learning to be less literal-minded might help us to be more tolerant.
I should like to comment briefly on two hymns, both written by men, which are of particular interest to me as a woman.
The first is Brian Wren's `Strong mother God' *[Note1] . To me this marks a great advance on earlier works such as `Dear sister God' *[Note2] and `Who is she?' *[Note3] in that Brian Wren is now sufficiently confident and unselfconscious in his use of female imagery not only to balance it against male imagery in verse 2 (`Warm father God') but also to balance the whole female/male contrast itself with that between age and youth in verses 3 and 4 respectively, thus leading to a convincing sense of transcendence and resolution in verse 5 (`Great, living God'). The general effect is that female imagery is used not primarily to shock us (although this will in some cases be a side-effect), not even to make us question our prejudices, but because it fits appropriately into a sequence directing our thoughts towards one who transcends all our divisions.
My only reservation about Brian Wren's use of language in this hymn is that in the first two verses he not only applies female as well as male imagery to God but also reverses the traditional sexual stereotypes at the same time, something he feels no need to attempt in connection with age and youth in the following two verses. Perhaps his female imagery might have been more acceptable to congregations, and hence more likely to work its way into their subconscious minds and influence their assumptions, had he not done two things at once, thus causing his language to draw a good deal of attention to itself. However, I sincerely hope that my doubts may prove unfounded.
Much as I admire Brian Wren's work my own approach so far has been rather different, perhaps more timid and negative. I constantly try to balance my integrity as a woman writer with what I judge to be acceptable to a general congregation. This has involved the increasing though not absolute avoidance in recent years of the kind of language I used in `Can man by searching'. Readers may experience the end result of this process positively as inclusive language but the writers's experience is often a frustratingly negative one of linguistic renunciation.
Sometimes I am able to be a little more positive, as in `What have we to show our Saviour?' [see below]. At one stage in its development verse 3 lines 1-4 read
- When to Caesar he had tendered
- Everything that was his due
- To the king of kings he rendered
- What from him alone he drew
and verse 4 line 3 read
Here he makes his new creation.
I first changed this to
Brings to birth a new creation
not simply to avoid using `he' but to balance the strongly male imagery in verse 3 with the specifically female imagery of birth. Unfortunately verse 3 than had to be altered when it was pointed out to me that the expression `king of kings' is never used in the Bible of God the Father, but only of Christ himself. This made nonsense of my original version; and the revision, as it happened, greatly reduced the maleness of the imagery. However, I decided to keep the change in verse 4 as I felt that the birth imagery actually strengthened the line without drawing undue attention to itself. If we imagine prejudice as a massive boulder separating us from other people and from God we might say that Brian Wren uses dynamite to get rid of it while those of my temperament rely on the steady dripping of water. The latter is admittedly a very slow method but I believe it has something to contribute, especially to such a stylized and conventional art form as hymnody, which demands that congregations should not merely accept or approve of the word offered to them but should voluntarily use those words as their own medium of expression in public worship.
Brian Wren, writing in the second half of the twentieth century, must surely use his female imagery quite deliberately and self-consciously. John Newton, writing in the eighteenth century, would almost certainly not do so. Yet he produced the verse
- Jesus, my shepherd, husband, friend,
- My prophet, priest and king,
- My lord, my life, my way, my end,
- Accept the praise I bring.
The interesting word here is `husband', a male word certainly, but one that requires the reader, and presumably the writer, momentarily to adopt a female stance. John Newton does this quite naturally with no apparent sense of awkwardness or embarrassment, and some male editors, most notably those of the A&M standard edition, have accepted his wording. Perhaps he was thinking of authority and/or of husbandry as well as of sexual intimacy. Perhaps he was influenced by the Song of Songs. Certainly he allowed the feminine within himself to become visible just for a moment, thereby greatly strengthening and enriching a sequence that without it is conventional almost to the point of predictability.
What a pity that so many Free Church and later Anglican editors have substituted the commonplace words `brother' or `guardian'! Did they instinctively feel that the original might be awkward for men to sing? Would a female editor have done it? We do not know because there were no female editors. We do know that male editors have apparently had no qualms about asking women to sing `Be thou my great father and I thy true son'. I am happy occasionally to place myself metaphorically in the position of a son, especially where the context, as here, highlights the ideas of unity and of inheritance. So, presumably, were the two women, Mary Byrne and Eleanor Hull, to whom we owe the English rendering of `Be thou my vision'. I cannot help feeling, however, that this empathy should be a two-way process. It would do male Christians nothing but good to imagine themselves, just occasionally, as wives.
- What have we to show our Saviour
- As he dies to make us free?
- All the shame of our behaviour,
- Countless years of treachery.
- We have broken his commandment,
- Made his love a mockery,
- So we stand beneath his judgement
- Once for all on Calvary.
- See the soldiers pierce and leave him,
- One dead body on a cross,
- See his mother's arms receive him,
- Final fruit of Eden's loss.
- To what end did she conceive him?
- Why did angels hail his birth?
- Must the friends he loved believe him
- Gone for ever, earth to earth?
- When to Caesar he had tendered
- All that was to Caesar due,
- To his God alone he rendered,
- What from God alone he drew.
- He accepted our condition,
- All that human sin could do:
- We accept his full submission,
- Made in faith to One he knew.
- In this last humiliation
- God is strong to meet our need,
- Brings to birth a new creation,
- Fills with hope the life we lead.
- Here the great retaliation
- Promised once to Adam's seed
- Through divine renunciation
- Ends in victory indeed.
ELIZABETH COSNETT
(Written for the tune Ebenezer)
[The foregoing article and the hymn with which it ends are both copyright Elizabeth Cosnett ©1990, and are reproduced by permission.]
End of File. Return to Top . . .
<< Back to the Enchiridion Notes on Inclusive Language in Rejoice & Sing
<< Back to the Alphabetic Index of Source Books
(The Rejoice & Sing Enchiridion:edited by David Goodall; last amended 11/8/02)