Amen and Awoman

 

Prayer has been a bedrock in our country since it was founded, and that includes using it to open each new session of Congress. It was nothing new when Representative Emanuel Cleaver was asked to open the 117^thCongress in prayer last January, but it was the final two words of the invocation that raised some eyebrows. Instead of the traditional amen, the Missouri democrat added the words “and awoman” to the end of his prayer (inasmuch as we can call “awoman” a word).

 

The reason for this inclusion was the new rule set by the Speaker of the House that eliminated what she calls gendered words. Words such as mother and father, son and daughter, and grandmother and grandfather have been banned in the House of Representatives, and Cleaver must have thought that the last three letters of amen made it a gendered word. By adding “and awoman” Cleaver attempted to include the other gender into his prayer.

 

Is this what we should all be doing? The last thing we want to do is exclude women from our prayers or from Christianity in general. In Orwellian fashion, are we now to add awoman to the eleventh addition of the Newspeak dictionary? Is it chauvinistic if we stick to the traditional “amen”? 

 

The m-e-n at the end of amen does not make it a gendered word any more than the m-a-n in the middle of Emanuel makes the congressman’s name gendered. Amen isn’t even English. It is the transliteration of the Hebrew word that means “verily, truly, or so be it.” It is a term of agreement. That is why a congregant may shout it out when he agrees with the preacher, and why a believer says it at the end of her prayers. When we close our petition with the word amen, we are asking God to make it so, hoping that He will grant our request.

 

That is why it is fitting that amen is the final word of the Bible, not just our prayers. Revelation 22:21 says “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.” The preceding verse says “Amen. Even so, come Lord Jesus!” In the context of the Bible’s final book, there is a big amen stamped across the bottom, verifying not only the Revelation of Jesus Christ, but the sixty-five books that come before John’s vision as well. More specifically, we say amen when Jesus promises to return for His church. We say amen when He promises to bind Satan and cast him into the lake of fire. We say amen when He promises to bring heaven to earth and establish His kingdom. We say amen when He promises there will be no more curse, and nothing unclean will ever enter the city. 

 

We say amen because we are agreeing with God that this is the best end, and that we want Him to come back quickly. We do not need to add a fake word, but both men and women can heartily say amen at the end of our prayers and God’s promises because our trust is settled in our living Lord. He always keeps His promises, and to that we can all say amen!