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Is the name God gender-neutral? The concern of the Evangelical Church in Germany


The new council chairwoman of the Evangelical Church in Germany, Annette Kurschus considers the word God to be sufficiently gender-neutral.

Berlin - "God cannot be fixed on a gender," she said to Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. This is already clear in the Bible, when different spellings and names are used for God. Kurschus does not want to follow the suggestion of a Catholic youth association to use "God *" instead of "God".

In Germany, gender-neutral words are formed by the use of an asterisk, a colon or an underscore, and you must make a break while speaking. There's no standard, but for example, the word "teachers" was "Lehrer" (it takes the generic male form), but now it would be "Lehrer*innen", "LehrerInnen", but you need to make a short pause between "Lehrer" and "innen" otherwise you would be simply saying "Lehrerinnen", that is, "female teachers". An unnecessary complication.

The address "God" is "open enough". In this respect, she personally sees no reason to change the word. When addressing people, Kurschus, according to her own explanation, "continues to combine the female and the male approach".

Sometimes she now uses "asterisks" or "take a short break while speaking". You "vary and experiment".

Photo: Westfalen-Blatt.
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