Gender Dividing: Women, NIV 2011, the SBC

What's the most important thing to notice about Moe Gerkins and about Selma Wilson? It's that they're women, right? I mean, why would Moe say the following if she were not a she?

"Whatever its strengths were, the TNIV divided the evangelical Christian community," said Zondervan president Moe Girkins. "So as we launch this new NIV, we will discontinue putting out new products with the TNIV."

Girkins expects the TNIV and the existing edition of the NIV to phase out over two years or so as products are replaced. "It will be several years before you won't be able to buy the TNIV off a bookshelf," she said.

"We are correcting the mistakes in the past," Girkins said. "Being as transparent as possible is part of that. This decision was made by the board in the last 10 days." She said the transparency is part of an effort to overhaul the NIV "in a way that unifies Christian evangelicalism."

And why would Selma write the following with her husband if she were not a she?

Teaching Spiritual Truth as You Go

The greatest celebration centers on God's love for us....  As you go, remind your child:

• She was created in God's image!

So God created man in His own image;
He created him in the image of God;
He created them male and female. (Gen. 1:27)

Moe, of course, said what she said when CEO of the publishing house that was trying to bridge the divide among evangelical Christians.  And Selma wrote what she wrote when she was still just the Vice President of the publishing house that is an arm of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), establishing the women's ministry at Lifeway.

That these two women are women and not men, are females and not males, is the most important thing.  Right?  Their gender affects and infects their perspectives and their speech and their writing.  Right?

But look how funny this is, and how strange!  Did Selma get a say when the men of the SBC recently resolved not to sell the newest Bible published by the company Moe was Chief of?

I do want you to notice how funny and how strange it is that Selma chose to use the language of her publishing company's Bible above.  Selma and her husband used the Holman Christian Standard Bible.  Notice their use of the gender-neutral word, "child"!  And notice their use of "she" next to the Bible's use of "He" and "He."

But what if they'd done the evangelical Christian divisive thing of writing this for daughters and for sons?  What if Selma and her husband, female and male, had used the controversial Today's New International Version?  It would have been written this way:

Teaching Spiritual Truth as You Go

The greatest celebration centers on God's love for us....  As you go, remind your child:

• She was created in God's image!

So God created human beings in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them. (Gen. 1:27) [TNIV]

Notice how gender-blind and gender-neutralizing this very offensive language is!  Oh, never mind.  Yes, right, right.  I see it now.  The TNIV actually still called God "he" and "he."  Well, give me this then:  look how small the "h" in "his" "he"!!  And look how the gender-neutralizing TNIV has the audacity of putting "God" before "he" and "male and female" before "he" too!!  How dare they not start the clauses with "He"!   How dare they not start the sentences with capital "H" "He"!

So notice now the NIV 2011, the one no longer sold in Selma's company's stores.  Notice how it fails to make good on Moe's promises on behalf of her company to overhaul that gender-neutralizing-horrible TNIV.  If Selma and her husband could have used the NIV 2011 to revise their male-and-female parenting book for sons-and-daughters, then just look at how it'd be:

Teaching Spiritual Truth as You Go

The greatest celebration centers on God's love for us....  As you go, remind your child:

• She was created in God's image!

So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them. (Gen. 1:27) [NIV 2011]

---

I'm being a little silly.  Just a little.  But I was noticing what Al Moehler, President and spokesman for Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, had said when the announcement came out from Moe's publishing house that it was going to try to bridge the divide.  I was also noticing what Suzanne McCarthy had said.

Al said:

Maureen (Moe) Gerkins, president of Zondervan, along with representatives of Biblica and the Committee on Bible Translation, have approached this new project and update with the stated determination to revisit controversial translation issues related to the TNIV and to consider all the concerns raised in that process. She has demonstrated integrity in discussing these issues openly and honestly. She, along with Zondervan’s partners, has promised an openness to these concerns. They have not promised to change their translation philosophy. Their straightforwardness on this is commendable, even where we may find ourselves in disagreement over these decisions and the underlying translation philosophy....

In the end, the update of the NIV to be released in 2011 will have to stand on its own. Those of us who have had significant concerns with the TNIV should communicate these concerns respectfully, candidly, and directly to the Committee on Bible Translation, to Zondervan, and to Biblica. When released, the updated NIV will deserve and require the attentive study and review of all committed evangelicals. We must hope and pray that this updated NIV will be found both faithful and useful. For now, the decisions that will determine the faithfulness and usefulness of this updated edition are in the hands of the Committee on Bible Translation. We must all pray that their work will produce an updated translation we can greet with appreciation and trust. We must take the members of the Committee on Bible Translation at their word that they will consider these concerns. To fail to pray and to act in this way will be to fail at a basic Christian commitment. The issue is not only the integrity of a Bible translation, but our integrity as Christians.

That was September 2009.  But in June 2011, Al said this:

Mohler said he thought the Resolutions Committee and messengers were both right.

"The [SBC] Committee on Resolutions had good reason for deciding that this was not the most timely opportunity to bring a resolution on the NIV," Mohler told Baptist Press. "I would not second guess the Resolutions Committee, and I certainly know their conviction on these issues. But once that resolution was brought to the floor, Southern Baptists simply had to support it, and support it overwhelmingly, on the basis of the fact that what it said was patently true and did reflect the established concerns of Southern Baptists."

The question is did the male-only Resolutions Committee communicate [their] concerns respectfully, candidly, and directly to the Committee on Bible Translation, to Zondervan, and to Biblica or give the updated NIV ... deserve[d] and require[d] ... attentive study and review [on behalf of any and] of all committed evangelicals?  Did these men, as Al called for, pray and ... act in this way [to give their] basic Christian commitment?  But does it matter now?  Al is not going to "second guess the Resolutions Committee."

Suzanne said:

I predict that complementarians will completely reject the new NIV because of 1 Tim. 2:12, 1 Cor. 11:10, the paragraphing of Eph. 5:21-22, and Romans 16:7. John Piper has already spoken vociferously against the NIV 1984, perhaps to pave the way for a full rejection of the NIV 2011.

That was November 2011.  Today (in July 2011) she said:

Enough time had not passed. The steam was building. The negative responses came and keep on coming. I was especially disappointed to find the Biblical Studies Carnival link favourably to a negative post on the NIV 2011. Notably that post included this passage,

In Roman Catholic and Southern Baptist contexts – the largest church polities in the US – a reaction against gender-sensitive translation has set in. Both faith traditions seek to retain a degree of independence from prevailing cultural trends. This is no doubt salutary.

I believe that it needs to be said, that not all women find the ways in which the RC and SBC counter cultural trends to be salutory. In the past, it was slavery, now it is the rights of women to be treated as equals. What is salutory about that?

Who's dividing by gender now?  Is it Moe or Selma or Suzanne or any other woman who is reading the Bible with her "child"?