Monday, August 3, 2015

Capitalising your Divine Pronouns (or not)

So just had to explain this to someone and came a across a nice little blog post on the subject from a new to me blog from a chap with a very impressive beard.

So
1. There is no grammatical convention that capitalising a pronoun shows respect it is therefore meaningless to the uninitiated.
2. There is no precedent or command in scripture for doing this (Hebrew and Greek were originally lacking in lowercase anyway!).
3. If someone is going to judge you for not doing it they are wrong and creating a false religion, don't pander to them.
4. I once read a book where the author not only capitalised divine pronouns but refused to use capitals to refer to S/satan or H/hell, it was a book on spiritual warfare. The author boldly proclaimed his disregard for grammar in his desire to disrespect the enemy at the start of the book and confirmed for me that he was indeed fruitier than a nut bar. I now associate any such urges with foaming at the mouth loopiness.
5. My pastoral experience has revealed to me that the more a person feels the need TO PUT THINGS IN CAPITALS the more insecure they are about their ability to communicate or to keep a good grasp on reality. Write clearly and well, YOU DON'T NEED CAPITALS TO MAKE YOUR POINT!

However, for fear I am leading you astray, this helpful post gives the other side of the argument.

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