This past Sunday was the Global Day of Prayer. In previous years all the Greater Toronto Area gathered in one central location (e.g., the Air Canada Centre). This year, they made it more local. My church (in Mississauga) was assigned to go to a church in nearby Oakville.
When I got to the church and sat down in the pew I almost immediately noticed that there were (relatively) new pew Bibles. Knowing that Piper's church (Bethlehem Baptist Church) had recently changed the pew Bibles from the NASB (i.e., the New American Standard Bible) to the ESV (i.e., the English Standard Version) I was thinking that this might be the first church I'd been to that made the switch to the ESV.
Nope. The pew Bible was a TNIV (i.e., Today's New International Version). The TNIV is known for being a gender-neutral Bible. The next thing I knew, one of the coordinators of the GDOP (i.e., the Global Day of Prayer) stood at the front and introduced herself as Pastor Joan.
Then, we were singing We Want to See Jesus Lifted High. The first verse originally went:
We want to see Jesus lifted high
a banner that flies across this land
That all men might see the truth and know
He is the way to heaven
but at that church the third line went "That all people might see the truth and know".
This change wouldn't on its own be bad. It doesn't change the meaning of the song. But it makes me wonder why that church was being so vigilant to make such minor changes. They didn't even write the song so they don't have the right to change the wording.
The whole event was a little weird (e.g., flag waving), but I merely wanted to comment on the length to which some egalitarians are going.
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2 comments:
Hey Peter! Thanks for letting me have access to your thoughts. I love your disclaimers.. you actually went through the effort to type abbreviations for all the books in the Bible. And, you shamelessly decided to name all third party individuals, regardless of actual gender, as "he". Hahahaha... only you would do this! I don't think acknowledging someone as "she" would really make things more obvious than you would like...
What about in really obvious circumstances when it is very evident you are talking to a girl? Wouldn't it be weird if you made her a boy?
Anyways, your posts are still interesting. I'll comment more on content later.
Well, you have to agree that the pronoun for an unintroduced person would traditionally have been "he" until recently when it became "he or she". Then that became too cumbersome so we switched it to the incorrect "they". I'm being simple, and correct.
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