As Bill Sees It, p. 51
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At the time Alcoholics Anonymous was published in 1939, the masculine pronoun was used universally in reference to humanity at large besides when referring to the paternalistic concept of God as “Our Father”. The text for our Fellowship was far ahead of its time for an open-minded approach to race, and creeds…sexual identity and homosexuality has been, for the most part, addressed open-mindedly by the membership also. This is a fact that was even more remarkable because, at that time, most of the culture and the membership of AA were from the Judeo/Christian tradition with only a smattering of other beliefs.
Since 1939 AA has grown and spread throughout the world with a diversity that is astonishing. I have no bone against those who see God in any form, light or gender; however, it is somewhat annoying to me that the language of 1939 is, outside of the original text, still used officially. Considering that the use of language went through a shift in the West away from the universal use of the masculine pronoun since the advent of feminism in the seventies, while other concepts of divinity have filtered into the culture, the use of the pronoun can a stumbling block for whole generations (whose education has rigorously extruded sexism from our language). I suppose it might be true that the majority of AA membership in the USA adhere to whatever their religious beliefs were before coming into the AA, but I believe that we are alienating a huge sector of our Fellowship that cringes and tolerates the insistence on the use of the archaic pronoun in our literature. God as we understand God appeals to a much greater audience than “God as we understand Him” and it smacks of arrogance to insist on archaic concepts departing from our usual broad-mindedness otherwise. Isn’t it more important how we act on our beliefs rather than whether God has a penis, a vagina or any sex at all?
geo 5,269
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