“Now my translation practice has a range of things, but for me it’s rooted in what does the text say? And also, for whom am I translating? One of the challenges of the Lectionary Project is that I am translating in a world that is no longer binary. And by emphasizing the presence of women and girls I have put a foot kind of firmly on the binary side of the world. I’m also using inclusive language and a range of language. But here’s my challenge: what I have learned is that for people who experience God and only learned about God with masculine language, when you start to say Creator and Shepherd and Redeemer — that doesn’t dislodge that image. It’s only when you say ‘She,’ in my experience, that that image is interrupted, for good or for ill. So that is a part of what the work is.”

A presentation by Wil Gafney in the Rector’s Forum at All Saints Church, Pasadena, on Sunday, December 1, 2019.

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