Gender Debate: SBC Pastors Denounce NIV
Southern Baptists have asked their denomination-owned retail chain to stop selling a best-selling Bible translation, saying it contains errors when it comes to language about gender.
Church delegates—known as messengers—passed a resolution at their June annual meeting in Phoenix criticizing the 2011 update to the New International Version (NIV) as an "inaccurate translation of God's inspired Scripture." They asked LifeWay Christian Resources not to sell the NIV 2011, which avoids using male terms in passages where context suggests that both genders are intended, except where the pronoun in question has messianic allusions.
"This is as big as it gets," said Jim Overton of Halteman Village Baptist Church in Muncie, Indiana. "This is the word of God. … As Southern Baptists, I don't think we have the luxury of not speaking to this important issue."
But the convention's resolution committee disagreed. They declined Overton's resolution when it was first submitted to them.
Committee member Russell Moore, dean of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, told delegates that he has concerns about the new NIV but didn't think it "rose to the level of needing to be addressed by this year's convention."
Moore authored a 2002 resolution against a previous update, Today's New International Version (TNIV), which asked LifeWay not to sell that product. In that case, LifeWay's leadership decided not to sell the edition.
The TNIV was a publishing flop, in part because of opposition by groups like Focus on the Family and the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.
That opposition was part theological and part personal.
Critics felt like the Committee on Biblical Translation (CBT), which produced the NIV and TNIV, had broken a promise they'd made to James Dobson and other conservative leaders not to produce a gender-inclusive NIV.
Moore said the TNIV was a stealth project that Southern Baptists needed to oppose.
But this time, members of the CBT reached out to critics like Moore.
That didn't lead critics to embrace the new NIV. But it seems to have muted the criticism.
Doug Moo, Blanchard Professor of New Testament at Wheaton College and spokesman for the CBT, said the Southern Baptist resolution was unfair.
He said that the committee, comprising both complementarian and egalitarian scholars, followed the same translation standards as groups like Wycliffe Bible Translators. Their goal, he said, was not to appease TNIV critics but to create an accurate translation.
"That was our only agenda," he said.
Verne Kenney, executive vice president of sales at Zondervan, which publishes the NIV, said sales of the NIV 2011 have exceeded expectations. "They are up in what has been a declining trade-book market."
Zondervan and the CBT have taken a wait-and-see approach to the possibility that LifeWay would drop the latest NIV.
The Christian-retail chain currently sells both the latest NIV and the older version. LifeWay does not reveal sales numbers, but a search of LifeWay.com produced a list of more than 200 NIV products, from the "NIV Study Bible: Update Edition" to the digital "GoBible Player Complete, NIV."
"[We] will continue to sell the 2011 NIV while working through the process of review with our board of trustees," said LifeWay spokesman Micah Carter.
That delay reflects Southern Baptist policy. LifeWay's trustees—not the annual meeting—make policy decisions.
"Resolutions are statements of opinion by messengers at a particular convention," said Frank Page, president of the convention's executive committee. "They are not legally binding."
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Marilyn
I believe the Bible they are speaking of is THE NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION not the original version. I use NIV all the time. I have no problem with it. God speaks to me through it. It doesn't make a gender difference like the newer one does. I wouldn't buy the newer one though because they made it politically correct and I detest that!
Stephen J
Whether one is speaking about the NIV, TNIV, ASV, RSV, NKJV, JB, etc. none of them are about God's Holy Word.
The King James Bible is the only one in the English language that is 100% God Word! The Bible, the Scriptures of the Old Testament and the New Testament, preserved for us in the Masoretic text (Old Testament) Textus Receptus (New Testament) and in the King James Bible, is verbally and plenarily inspired of God. It is the inspired, inerrant, infallible, and altogether authentic, accurate and authoritative Word of God, therefore the supreme and final authority in all things (II Tim. 3:16-17; II Peter 1:21; Rev. 22:18-19).
The King James Bible is the only one that the vatican has never giving its "blessings" to. Why? Because the satanic cult wasn't allow to have a say so in it. So they went out of their way to kill people for putting it together. Furthermore, why the law is not being enforce at the moment, for any catholic to own or to have anything to do with one is against vatican state law. I know this as a fact!
Injunred
A few yrs ago my church, situated within a large state university and fairly large, revised the hymnals to make them more "gender-sensitive." For instance, the popular hymn 'Faith of our Fathers' became 'Faith of our Parents,' and verses like 'God our Father' became 'God our Parent.' And to make things even more lively, our pastor started praying: 'Father God and Mother God...' It was almost comical, until one day, one of our members - a world-class baritone who had sang in the Met - complained he couldn't sing the new lyrics, as he grew up only with the old ones!
It was quite a relief when we all went back to the original lyrics, although our pastor still occasionally intones "Mother God.." perhaps out of habit.
Whither goest us in this "technically-correct" translation of the "new" NIV? May it not just encourage the "contextually-correct" among us (never mind the politics involved, because it's always there, despite our denial) -just like what happened in our church - that in the future, churches will start "experimenting" with coined words, and recite the Lord's Prayer as: "Our Parent, who art in heaven...?"
And, oh, by the way, I may only have 'a little Greek' (to quote Shakespeare) and therefore appear "ignorant," but pls lets try not to be arrogant in this forum!