Politcal correctness and gender netural lanuage in churches

while I consider myself as liberal in thinking about most things, some political correctness stuff and gender netural language buggs me. Where the PC stuff has effected me lately is where accomidations are being made for a small few despite their effect on a larger majority. This is not to say accomidations should not be made, but I think they can be done without having everyone take part in them.

A prime example is communion and food alergies. At the church I worked at a concern was raised about those who have a gluten allegry. So a gluten free wafer was researched and instead of finding a way to seperate the gluten free wafer from the traditional bread, the change was made that everyone would use the gluten free wafer instead of bread.

I have been at other churches that have provided a gluten free alterative and bread, as well as wine or grape juice in Lutheran churches.

The gender netural language thing- this is were I know I am a real traditionalist and my dislike of change of somethings rears its head. Growing up in the church I struggled with the idea of the Trinity. I was oftern confused do we worship Jesus or God, father or Son, it wasn't until college that I dealt with this faith hurdle and realized that Jesus and God, Father and Son along with the Holy Spirit were all seperate but yet all one. Then people want me to refer to the Trinity as Creator, Christ, holy spirit. I 'm not sure can do this.

My late friend Karen Lea, came the closest to opening my eyes on this issue. She got me to see that God is such a wonderful and unique enity that we should not place a gender limit on God. I am stuggling as I write this not to use gender specific pronouns as I think in life we often use these gender specific pronouns without thinkning about it, or any intention. Any example is how often do you hear people refer to dogs with mascline pronouns and cats with femamine pronouns, despite the gender of the specific animal. Or people that refer to a boat in femamine terms ( maybe someone could come up with a hidden meaning behind this, but most would not think about this until someone brings it up).

I am trying to be more flexiable and open minded on this issue, but I am not sure if I will ever totaly convert to speaking or writing in gender netural language espcially when refeing to God and Jesus.

I guess what I have the hardest thing with is singing hymns I have known for a long time with mascline nouns, like the doxology. I really don't like the version that condenses the trinity into Trinune God whom I adore, as I think it is important to name the three parts of the trinity. Goes back to my early statement about stuggling with the Trinity.

One thing that really bothers me and I am not sure I will ever accept is the Sophia notion. In the wisdom lit class I took in seminary the idea presented to me was that there was a feminie dieity called wisdom or Sophia that along with God helped create the world. If we go back to Karen's idea of not limiting God with a gender, doesn't this seem like a case of not wanting to refer to God male gender terms but yet claim that there was a female essanse along side of the gender netural creator. Which is it not gender or a male and female essance of God ( which would mean that God alone is like 2 in one seperate from the trinity.

I think as I am giving this more thought I would like to have an open discussion with someone about this from the gender netural viewpoint. I think like some topics that have strong supporters we often worry that people are so set in their view that they do not listen or want to acknowlege other views on the same issue, which makes an open discussion difficult and leans more towards a debate. I will admit that on this issue in the past I would not have been a very good listener or receptive to other views on this, but I hope that I am at a point I could have a good discussion on this.

I feel while I am more open on the gender netural lanuage I am still very resitant to changing things like the doxology that in my mind should be the way I learned it as a kid. I wonder if there are things for everyone as much as we don't always want to admit it that for us is one way and should always be that way.