Not ‘He’, insist Swedes, God is gender-neutral

Helen Nianias

Olivia Rudgard

THE Church of Sweden is encouraging its clergy to use the gender-neutral term “God” instead of referring to the deity as “He” or “the Lord”.

The decision was made on Thursday, wrapping up an eight-day meeting of the church’s 251-member decision-making body. It will take effect on May 20 during Pentecost.

It is the latest move by the national Evangelical Lutheran church to modernise its 31-year-old handbook setting out how services should be conducted.

The Church of Sweden is headed by Archbishop Antje Jackelén. She defended the decision, telling Sweden’s TT news agency: “Theologically, for instance, we know that God is beyond our gender determinations, God is not human.”

Priests can now open their services by referring to the traditional “Father, son and Holy Ghost” or the genderneutral

‘Theologically we know that God is beyond our gender determinations’

phrase “in the name of God and the Holy Trinity”.

“We talk about Jesus Christ, but in a few places we have changed it to say ‘God’ instead of ‘He’,” Sofija Pedersen Videke, Church of Sweden spokesman, told The Daily Telegraph. “We have some prayer options that are more gender-neutral than others. A wide majority of people decided on the book.” She added that she had heard of no priests who objected.

Christer Pahlmblad, an associate theology professor at Lund University in Sweden, told Danish newspaper Kristeligt Dagblad that the decision was “undermining the doctrine of the Trinity and the community with the other Christian churches”.

“It really isn’t smart if the Church of Sweden becomes known as a church that does not respect the common theology heritage,” he said.

The church has 6.1million baptised members in a country with a population of 10 million.

The Church of England told the Telegraph that it also avoids divisive language in its services, but not with regards to God.