Why inclusive-language translation is the only accurate translation
Since appearing here as a guest blogger in May, I have twice been alerted by bishops of this diocese to a ‘note’ from the 2002 House of Bishops asserting that inclusive-language translation is necessarily a ‘departure from accurate translation’.
It is hugely important to say: they are simply wrong. They are diametrically wrong. This far through the twenty-first century, inclusive-language translation is the only accurate translation. All other translation is wrong. Indeed all other translation is contrary to one of the fundamental principles of the Reformation – that everyone should have access to the bible in their own language – and indeed to the Articles of the Church of England, specifically Article XXIV: “It is a thing plainly repugnant to the Word of God, and the custom of the Primitive Church, to have publick Prayer in the Church, or to minister the Sacraments, in a tongue not understanded of the people.”
Here in 2025, inclusive language is just regular English. Not to use inclusive language is to be accidentally or deliberately archaic. Not to use inclusive language is to be accidentally or deliberately rude. In the workplace, it would earn a reprimand, and a ‘learning opportunity’. Millennials (let alone Gen-Z or Gen-Alpha) have never heard the words ‘headmaster’ or ‘policeman’ used on the BBC or in the workplace, and rightly so. And yet we are still reading aloud from gender-biased bibles every Sunday in church – like NIV and NRSV, which even in their latest revisions use ‘he’ for God, Lord, and the Holy Spirit. These words take all manner of different genders in different languages – including biblical Hebrew and Greek. To render them consistently male in English is to use non-inclusive language which – this far through the twenty-first century – increasingly looks deliberately, rather than accidentally, archaic and offensive.
It is perfectly possible to build sentences and paragraphs that avoid the need for third-person pronouns for God, Lord, the eternal Word, the eternal Christ, and the Holy Spirit. Avoiding third-person pronouns altogether neatly side-steps the whole issue of the gender of these nouns. Doing so skilfully means nobody will even notice that all those male pronouns have gone missing, as in this short passage from John 16.13-15, where NRSV uses eight male pronouns for the Holy Spirit, and NIV uses eleven: ‘The Spirit of Truth will come to you, and guide you into all truth; honouring me, by taking what is mine, and making it known to you; disclosing to you the things that are to come. All that the Father has is mine; and the Spirit of Truth will take what is mine, and make it known to you.’ The result is that we can all focus on the readings, without the distraction – and without the male bias – of a constant bombardment of he/him/his.
In that 2002 ‘note’, the bishops also assert that paraphrase is not translation. Again, they are simply wrong. In The Word (2022), John Barton rejects the distinction. Some so-called ‘literal’ translations are barely even translations at all. They are more like word-by-word transcriptions, with hardly a thought for whether any real-world speaker, reader, or hearer could actually make sense of them – which is the task of an actual translator.
Thankfully the 2002 ‘note’ – from perhaps the most conservative and divided House of Bishops in the last hundred years – has no actual authority. The authoritative ruling is Article XXIV; and after that, the relevant canon (search for ‘canons of the Church of England’, click on ‘supplementary material’, then search the page for the heading ‘Versions of the Bible’).
With an academic background including linguistics and biblical Hebrew and Greek, and over twenty years in parish ministry, and with the whole project supervised and endorsed by leading Oxford biblical scholar, Robert Morgan, I can offer a fully accurate translation, crafted specifically for reading aloud from the lectern, in ordinary churches, on ordinary Sundays. As the only usable lectionary or bible in fully-inclusive language, it is the only fully-accurate translation available, this far through the twenty-first century.
The language we use affects the culture around us. We would not use default-male pronouns for priests or archbishops, and we should not be using bible translations with default-male pronouns for God. We can upgrade now to a bible translation fit for 2025 instead of 1975. The lectionary is Sunday Scriptures for Reading Aloud at ssra.uk. The same texts in bible order are now The Inclusive Language Bible, at ILBible.uk. The print editions are offered at cost. Whatever some conservative bishops have said, the canons permit it, and Article XXIV demands it – for women, for men, for 2025, for Gen-X, Millennials, Gen-Z, Gen-Alpha, and beyond.
