expansive language

Riding the coattails of my last post, here's the United Church of Christ's page on Inclusive and Expansive Languague use.

The materials include a covenant that begins:

"We believe that the imagery conveyed by language and language itself is important and that they articulate and influence our understandings of what is revealed to us about the nature and activity of God and the dignity of all God's people as created in the image of God."

And I think it's important to note that expanisve language and imagery (I like this term more than "inclusive" because it conveys the vastness of God) doesn't mean boiling it all down to the gender-neutral, but reflecting the many aspects of god: male, female, gender-neutral, and more.