Also hier unten im "Bible Belt" wird's auf jeden Fall noch so gemacht, auch in der gegenwärtigen amerikanischen Belletrisik.

gross: He, Him, God, etc.

Danke!
Dann ist das ja doch etwas anders als im Deutschen, wo das inzwischen ziemlich antiquiert wirkt. Gut, dann habe ich einige Texte noch auf Großbuchstaben zu überarbeiten!

Groß. Aber vielleicht bin ich auch antiquiert? :)

I went to Catholic schools and it was DRILLED into us. No matter how the world changes (or how much I have changed), I will never be able to do anything but capitalize .....

Seltene Einigkeit hier im Forum! :-)
(Es gibt Threads, da ist es schwieriger, sich zwischen den Antworten zu entscheiden...)

I was raised Presbyterian and capitalize He, Him, ect.

Consensus between the denominations too here!
How wonderful!
If only all ecumenical questions were able to reach a consensus so quickly... :-)

Amen, Hillard!

As a Atheist, I never cap these pronouns. This is a usage shared by many other more progressive thinkers. :)

I know the Leonardos are gonna go crazy over this one!!

My belated 4 cents:

Capitalized, definitely, for

God
Jesus
Holy Spirit
Bible
Christ
Messiah
etc.

However, 'biblical' has traditionally not been capitalized, and many other words like 'church' and 'scripture' are now usually not capitalized unless they are part of a proper name.

And here's the part that may mess up your consensus a little, but I trust you can live with a little ambiguity. (It's good for our theological health. (-; )

Many writers no longer capitalize 'he' and 'him' in reference to God, and I would say that's definitely the preference in all texts written for a general audience or for a moderate to liberal Christian audience. The remaining holdouts using 'He' and 'Him' tend to be conservative Christians who also dislike any other translation than the King James Version.

To me (admittedly toward the liberal end of the spectrum), it's really better not to use such pronouns at all if we can avoid it, since God is not masculine and Christianity still has a lot of repenting to do for 2000 years of unthinking patriarchy. But if you have to use the occasional masculine pronoun, it's at least better not to call attention to it.

A few modern non-Christian writers don't even capitalize 'God,' especially in expressions with little religious meaning, like 'Thank god!' or 'Oh my god!' [sic] That's beyond the point where I personally draw the line, so it grates on me to see the word uncapitalized, but you might see such usage very occasionally in print. Most editors, though, would probably object to it, if for no other reason than convention.

And of course, when the word 'god' is used in another sense than the unique God of monotheism, it's lower-case: the Greek / Roman / Celtic / African gods, nature gods, local gods, treat someone like a god, the gods have smiled on us, etc.


*f5*

No idea what a Leonardo is (aside from di Caprio or da Vinci), but while I agree on the pronouns, it's really wrong to capitalize the word 'atheist.' It's neither a proper name nor a word that has traditionally been accorded great respect, just a description. Unless you want to claim you belong to the Church of Atheism, but that would sort of defeat the purpose, no? (-;

And, psst, it's an atheist in any case ...

Just to add to the developing muddle, I checked a number of Bible translations and found the following:

Capitalized: New American Standard, Amplified, New King James, 21st-century King James, Young's Literal

Lower Case: New International, New International-UK, The Message, New Living, King James, English Standard, Contemporary English, New Century, American Standard, Darby

The point I found ironic is that, as hm notes, those who prefer (only) the KJV capitalize the pronouns while the KJV itself does not.

Having grown up Baptist, I capitalize the pronouns unless I have a specific audience for whom I have a reason to choose lower case.

Well, a slight disturbance to our nice ecumenical consensus here - that's o.k.!
After all, my question was about common AE use, not about personal (atheist or otherwise) preferences! :-)
So thanks, hm--us, and Robert, for your detailed research!

OT @ hm--us: I tried to send you an email - wonder if you received it or if possibly your SPAM filter swallowed it?

From my point of view, it depends entirely on the sort of text you're gonna write. It doesn't seem to be a good idea to me to capitalize the pronouns when you write about God in a neutral way. However, when you write in a context where it matters that you are somehow affiliated with God's buisiness, it makes perfect sense.

Example: when you write an academic text, say a historical, philosophical or sociological text about God, capatalizing the pronouns will probably very much reduce the probability that your paper is accepted for publication. If, however, you write a theological text, it would probably be considered absolutely appropriate.

Another one: I wouldn't expect the New York Times to capatalize the pronouns when they write about religion. However, when they quote a believer talking along the lines of "without His grace I would be lost now", it seems to be not a bad idea to use capitals because it captures the emotions involved.

>>The point I found ironic is that ... those who prefer (only) the KJV capitalize the pronouns while the KJV itself does not.

Interesting. I have to confess I hadn't noticed that. (-:

'Only the KJV' was of course exaggerated, but I would still say it's more common among generally conservative Christians, and/or older ones. So if Hillard's question was, Is it still an absolute rule, my answer would be, No, more a matter of preference.


OT @Hillard: Yes, it had, but now I've fished it out & replied. Thanks. (-:



BTW, has anyone come across the similar discussion on German usage that Hillard7 mentioned in the opening post?

What's progressive about atheism anyway?

BTW, has anyone come across the similar discussion on German usage that Hillard7 mentioned in the opening post?

Basically, the same rules go for German writers. Pietists in Swabia and catholics in Bavaria (or Rome), as well as free church members will, as a rule, capitalize. I myself (catholic in Berlin) usually capitalize, but that's almost a bit snobbish here around.
However, spellig GOtt with two capitals is definitely out of fashion; I think it occurred up to the late 18th century.

"Pietists in Swabia and catholics in Bavaria (or Rome), as well as free church members will, as a rule, capitalize."

Das ist mir Bayerin aber ganz neu. (Wo bekommt man denn 'pietistische' Texte zu lesen? Die Medien schreiben übrigens ganz normal "er", wenn's um den lieben Herrogtt geht :-))

Here are a few quotes recently from the New York Times.

Standing Wednesday amid the debris field of twisted metal and pink insulation, Carmon Lagunes struggled to grasp why God would take her sister.

''That's his wrath,'' she said, looking toward the wreckage. ''For some reason, he's not happy right now and this is. ... Nobody understands God's will. I sure as hell don't understand it.http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Severe-...
(This article came from the Reuters news service.)

Or:
While we appreciate that some of the deprecatory language has been removed ... we are deeply troubled and disappointed that the framework and intention to petition God for Jews to accept Jesus as Lord was kept intact," Abraham Foxman, U.S. national director of the ADL, said in a statement.http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/internat...

Or:
And it comes from reading the most beautiful, strange, impossible, but most of all radical civics lesson ever taught, when Jesus of Nazareth went to a hill in Galilee and told his disciples

@Birgila: Pietistische Texte bekommst Du da zu lesen, wo Pietisten sind - im Schwabenländle, wie oben gesagt. An die Zeitungen Bayerns hatte ich übrigens nicht so sehr gemeint, eher so Gemeindeblättchen - wobei ich zugegebenermaßen auch hier nicht völlig sicher bin. Der bayerische Katholik in Rom ist definitiv ein Freund der Großschreibung.

@ hm--us: Just looked for that thread once more - here it is:
Siehe auch: divine personal/ possessive pronouns
Not much more information in there though than here in this thread by now.

Concerning the use in German, I would say that it's definitely less common nowadays to capitalize these pronouns than in English.
I am not sure if the Swabian pietists really do it (probably according to personal preferences there too), but in contemporary theological texts you will hardly ever find it. You would give your text a very old-fashioned look if you were to do it.

Although I, too, was trained in Catholic schools to always capitalize references to God and Christ, the contemporary Catholic usage seems to be lower case in all both the most explicitly liturgical texts.

Here, for example, is a quotation taken from the column written by the archbishop of Washington in the newspaper published by the Archdiocese of Washington:

"We know that only God has the power to forgive sins, but it was Jesus Christ, God and man, who entrusted to his Apostles the administration of that grace. We cannot presume to know God's reasons, but perhaps he chose to use human instruments so that we would receive not only forgiveness, but also the assurance of that forgiveness by hearing it from the lips of someone acting in the person of Christ." [http://cathstan.org/main.asp?SectionID=2&SubS...]

Here's some guidance from the on-line edition of the Chicago Manual of Style


Q. Is it proper to capitalize pronouns that refer to a deity? For example, “God is willing to forgive anyone who comes to Him.”

A. Yes, although it’s not Chicago style. Capping the pronouns can imply an expression of religious faith on the part of the writer; lowercasing them leaves the writer’s beliefs unclear. The choice of style should be made with sensitivity to the type of reader you are addressing. Lowercasing is more inclusive, but it might offend in some kinds of religious literature

Thanks for all your answers!
Well, things do seem much less clear now than they did at the beginning...
It does seem to be more a matter of your own preference or religious attitude.

So, in order to help me on with my question, does anyone happen to know how this is commonly being handled in the ELCA (Evanglical Lutheran Church of America)?

For a church organization, I would capitalize the pronouns.

...wenn aber die church organization selbst die Pronomen klein schreibt?

The man, Jesus of Nazareth, lived and died in Palestine during the governorship of the Roman administrator Pontius Pilate; we believe him to be the Messiah chosen by God to show his love for the world. ...

By the standard of the Law, of which the Ten Commandments are a classic summary, God expresses his just and loving expectations for creation, and our failure to live up to those expectations reveals only our need for God's mercy and forgiveness. ...

Lutherans accept two Sacraments as God-given means for penetrating the lives of people with his grace. ...

God freely offers his grace and lovingly establishes a new community...

Christians should go about their daily tasks, trusting in God's grace and living a life of service in his name.
http://www.elca.org/communication/brief.html

lunatic's examples from the ELCA website, and Sharper's from Catholic sources, are consistent with what I would expect from any current large mainline denomination.

If anyone has time on their hands and wants to compare, the more conservative/evangelical Lutheran denomination in the US is the Missouri Synod; it wouldn't surprise me if you found a few more capital letters there, but it also wouldn't necessarily if you didn't. (If that sentence is muddled enough ...)

Well, that pretty much answers the question for my purpose.
Thanks for your trouble with all those quotations, lunatic!

@Hillard7: Keine Ursache - zumal ich eigentlich auch die Großschreibung von Begriffen wie Messiah, Ten Commandments, Law markieren wollte (die über das hinausgeht, was ich angesichts der kleingeschriebenen Pronomen erwartet hätte) :-)

@ Lunatic:
Ja, hier wird's dann endgültig konfus. Wieso werden die "Sacraments" und "Law" jetzt auf einmal großgeschrieben?

Bei "Messiah" kann ich es noch nachvollziehen - das ist, wie "Lord" (siehe #19) ja ein Titel, der auf Jesus bzw. Gott angewendet wird.
"The Ten Commandments" könnte man evtl. noch als sowas wie eine Überschrift oder als festen Begriff verstehen. Ähnlich auch "Good News" in einem anderen Satz aus demselben Textbeispiel: "By this great victory God has declared the Good News of reconciliation."

Dann wird die Kirche - dort in Anführungszeichen - als "the Body of Christ" bezeichnet.
Sie existiert "solely for the hearing and doing of God's Word."
Martin Luther ist "the Father of Protestantism".
Und das Neue Testament "is the first-hand proclamation of those who lived through the events of Jesus' life, death, and Resurrection."

(Bin leider der Fett-Hervorhebung nicht mächtig - ich hoffe, es geht deutlich genug aus den Sätzen hervor, welche Großschreibung ich meine.)

Ach du liebe Zeit, wer soll daraus noch schlau werden?
Die Seite würde ich eigentlich für eine relativ seriöse halten. Hat da einfach jemand von Groß- und Kleinschreibung keine Ahnung gehabt? Oder steckt doch irgendein System dahinter, das ich noch nicht erkannt habe?

Wenn man mal von der Bezeichnung "Father of Protestantism" absieht, die ich als Titel verstehe, scheint mir durchaus ein System dahinterzustecken: Alle besonderen heilsgeschichtlich relevanten Gott-gegebenen Dinge sind groß geschrieben. Ich glaube aber nicht, dass Du negativ damit auffällst, wenn Du aus Versehen die Auferstehung einmal klein schreibst. (Insbesondere bei "resurrection" scheint mir der Autor dann doch zu weit zu gehen. Alles andere kann ich - quasi als heilsgeschichtlich begründeten Eigennamen - gut nachvollziehen.)

"Insbesondere bei "resurrection" scheint mir der Autor dann doch zu weit zu gehen."
Ja, besonders in dieser Auflistung "life, death, and Resurrection" - da gibt's dann eigentlich keinen Grund mehr, warum man "life" und "death" nicht auch großschreiben sollte. Um in Deinem System zu bleiben: ist ja schließlich alles auch heilsgeschichtlich relevant...

The rules are not very well defined. To cite from the same Catholic source i cited before, the same archbishop wrote:

Resurrection Uncapitalized:

"When we turn to Mary as the mother of Jesus, the Mother of God and our mother, we do so in prayer. One of the most enduring and beautiful devotions to Mary is the rosary. The rosary is a manner of praying which both commemorates and meditates on the mysteries of the life of Jesus, beginning with the Annunciation by the angel to Mary that she was to be the Mother of God, through the other joyful mysteries, the luminous mysteries of Jesus' revelation, the sorrowful mysteries of Jesus' passion and death and, finally, the glorious mysteries of our Lord's resurrection, ascension and Mary's final triumph as a sign of our own pending victory over death." [ http://www.cathstan.org/main.asp?Search=1&Art... ]

Resurrection Capitalized:

In these reflections, as in the documents cited here, there is a clear distinction between dogmas of the faith, such as the Resurrection of Jesus and the Assumption of the Blessed Mother into heaven, and those moral principles proclaimed by the Church that are rooted in creation and written on the human heart as the natural moral law. [ http://www.cathstan.org/main.asp?Search=1&Art...]

It appears to me that the rule is that anything that can be construed as a title is capitalized. In the second example, "Resurrection of Jesus" and "Assumption of the Blessed Mother" are treated as titles of dogmas, and thus are capitalized. In the first example, however, these events are simply listed as events in the life of Jesus, and not specifically as titles.

Of course, any title for Jesus or God would be capitalized.

The capitalization for "Word" is explained by it being either 1) a reference to Christ or 2) a reference to the Bible.

Thanks, Sharper, for your explanation and examples!
I especially like this sentence: "the mother of Jesus, the Mother of God and our mother"...

Da Gott, der Herr keinen persönlichen Namen hat, hatte für mich (lutherisch) die Großschreibung der Pronomen auch immer etwas damit zu tun, dass ER oder Sein oder gar HErr oder SEin soetwas wie ein Namensersatz sind. ER ist HErr also als spezifischer Hinweis, dass es um genau diesen "er" geht und um keinen anderen.

In einer pluralistischen multireligiösen /-konfesionellen Gesellschaft kann es schwerlich sprachliche Regeln für diesen Fall geben. Schließlich wird man einem Andersgläubigen (dazu gehören auch Nichtglaubende) nicht vorschreiben, ja nicht einmal empfehlen eine andere Gottheit besonders zu ehren. Also die Groß- oder Kleinschreibung ist hier doch wohl eine reine Privatsache

(Ich z. B. schreibe im Englischen das Anredepronomen You auch aus Höflichkeit und Respekt groß, obwohl das wohl kein Anglophoner tut und ich es auch nicht erwarte, daß es jmd. anderes tut.)

Religions- und Sprachwissenschaftler

@td: Das hier ist ein Übersetzerforum.

Korrekte Schreibweise ist dabei das täglich Brot: Die meisten Auftraggeber sind zu unverständig, um inhaltliche Übersetzungsfehler zu erkennen, oder zu faul, um danach zu suchen.

Tippfehler oder mutwillig falsch geschriebene Worte fallen hingegen selbst bei flüchtiger Prüfung rasch auf und führen in weiterer Folge zu Auftragsverlust, Hungersnöten und Hartz IV.

@18: …"ganz normal er" – wieso ist das normal? Wie hm schreibt, Gott ist kein Mann. Die interessante Frage ist also: Welches Pronomen ist überhaupt zu verwenden?
Interessante Lektüre hier: Die "Bibel in gerechter Sprache".