1/11. The basic premise of the "inclusive language" movement is totally false. The very phrase "inclusive language" contains an accusation against all previous language, namely, that it failed to be inclusive of women. This is factually incorrect.
2/11. It is true that older lang, such as the use of "man" to refer to the human race as a whole, did not explicitly mention women, but the reason why it did not is misconstrued. The reason it did not was exegetical & theological & has to do with the definition of the human race.
3/11. In Gen. 5:2 we read that God named the human race "Man." This is special revelation on a par with Jesus naming God as "Father" in the Lord's Prayer. We are obligated to use "Man" to refer to the human race. The basis for this name is rooted in Gen. 2:5-7 and 18-24.
4/11. There God creates Adam out of the dust of the ground & breathes into him the breath of life. Then he creates Eve out of the rib of Adam specifically because, out of all the animals, no suitable helper was found for him. Only one like himself, yet complementary, would do.
5/11. Thus, in a deep theol. sense, Adam & Eve are 1 ontologically & all their descendants constitute one ontologically united human race. Like the 1st Adam, the 2nd Adam has his bride generated out of himself by the new birth (which is a metaphor for an ontological reality).
6/11. Paul develops the parallel between Christ & Adam in Rom. 5, where he says: "For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous." (19) The Church corresponds to Eve, taken out of the side of Christ.
7.11. Eve became the bride of Adam & the Church becomes the bride of Christ, yet in both cases the bride is also 'sister' in the ontological sense; she is of the same being as her husband. Christ in his humanity is our brother, as well as our Lord, our Redeemer & our bridegroom.
8/11. In the Song of Songs the poet refers 4 times to "my sister, my bride" (Song 4:9, 10, 12, 5:1). He says: "How beautiful is your love, my sister, my bride." He became a servant, "born in the likeness of men" & humbled himself even to death on a cross to win us (Phil. 2:5-11).
9/11. The use of nuptial imagery for the church was common up to the Puritan era but has declined since the rise of Darwinism. This is no coincidence; modernists are nominalists & do not believe in the metaphysical realism that is the basis of the ontological unity of the race.
10/11. Classical orthodoxy, OTOH, understands our ontological unity to be based on the Xian understanding of creation in which Eve comes fr Adam & all of us fr Adam & Eve. This precious bit of theology has massive implications (eg. for the doc. of redemption & for human rights).
11/11. The assumption behind the demand for "inclusive language," that older lang. does not include women, is actually based on a prior unstated assumption, i.e. that the human race is not ontologically one by virtue of special creation. That is an assumption we cannot accept.
