A few centuries ago, Bible translators faced the possibility of being burned at the stake. These days, they are more likely to face a commercial boycott and hostile websites.

While new Bible translations seem to have been popping up like rabbits in recent years, this is the year when evangelical Christians paused for some serious discussion -- some of it pretty hostile -- about what we expect from such products, particularly in the use of gender-neutral language. A battle that raged in universities a generation ago has come to church.

Why should it make any difference to preachers? The debate now underway raises significant questions about the kind of Bible translations that people in the pew will be reading for years to come. If those translations represent any kind of theological or cultural shift, then those who proclaim the Word week after week need to let their own voices be heard -- but only after gaining a clear understanding of the real issues involved.

To 'he' or not to 'he'

In 1997, World magazine led the charge against the New International Version - Inclusive Language edition (NIVI) that was being sold in Britain. A series of Christian leaders blasted what they decried as a "unisex" Bible which, they feared, represented political correctness more than careful scholarship.

Five years later, that debate has reignited with the release of the New Testament section of Today's New International Version (TNIV) this spring. (The Old Testament will be available by 2005.) According to Zondervan, publisher of the NIV and TNIV, approximately 7% of the text is changed from the last American revision of the NIV, published in 1984. A little less than 30% of these changes involve inclusive language for humanity -- using "brothers and sisters" for "brothers" when a mixed audience is clearly meant by the biblical terms, or "human beings" for "men" or shifting to a third-person plural or a second-person pronoun to avoid a generic "he," and so on.

While inclusive-language may constitute only 30 percent of the changes, it has constituted 99.99 percent of the controversy surrounding TNIV. Each side has its own websites (such as http://www.no-tniv.com/ for the anti-TNIV forces and http://www.tniv.info/index.php for the pro-TNIV side) and its own list of Christian-celebrity endorsers.

The pro-TNIV group, which includes John R. W. Stott, Timothy George, Jim Cymbala, Ben Patterson, Stuart Briscoe, Jay Kesler and others, is swamped in star power by the anti-TNIV list, which includes James Dobson, Charles Colson, Chuck Swindoll, D. James Kennedy, Jack Hayford, John MacArthur, Erwin Lutzer, Josh McDowell, Jerry Falwell, R. Albert Mohler, Jack Graham, R.C. Sproul, Pat Robertson, Adrian Rogers, John Piper, and J.I. Packer.

The debate has also divided serious New Testament scholars, who have lined up for and against. As D.A. Carson has observed, "In quieter moments, one wonders if any conceivable damage that could be done by the NIV or TNIV could be any worse than the division, bitterness, and strife stirred up by those who have made this a dividing issue."