See a Map of Petitioners Asking Wycliffe to Stop Mis-Translating the Bible

The response to the petition asking Wycliffe and others to stop removing "Son" and "Father" from the Bible in reference to the first and second members of the Trinity has been tremendous. Most encouraging are the Christians weighing in from Islamic majority countries. Arabic and Turkic speakers are affirming that Wycliffe's reasons for using alternate terms for son and father are completely mistaken (at best). Muslims are NOT confused by the terms; they are OFFENDED by them because the Koran states that God has no son and the Trinity is an "accursed" idea.

Click here for a map of signatories. The green tags contain comments which are click-able. The red tags are signatures only.

Stop Wycliffe, SIL and Frontiers from Removing Son and Father from the Bible!

Wycliffe Bible Translators, the largest missionary translation organization in the world has been producing Bibles which remove the words "Son" and "Father" from the descriptions of Jesus and God. These Bibles are being produced for Muslims and are called Muslim Idiom Translations (MIT). In order to "contextualize" the Bible, Jesus is now described as "God's Uniquely Beloved Chosen One", or even worse, "God's Representative." References to "Father" have been "retranslated" as "Lord." One version reads "baptizing them in the name of the Lord, the Representative and the Holy Spirit." (Matthew 28:19)

You can help confront this by signing the petition, Lost in Translation. When you sign the petition, your name and any note you write will be sent to the heads of Wycliffe, SIL and Mission Frontiers. Clicking on the link will NOT automatically sign the petition. It will take you to the website where you can read all about it BEFORE signing. I hope you do sign it.

Wycliffe has been denying many of the claims in the petition. Answers to their denials can be found in the Fact Check, which is produced by Biblical Missiology. Wycliffe's denials raise more concerns.

By joining this effort, you will be supporting the effort to save an important ministry from apostasy and you will help the efforts of the faithful Christians within these organizations which are trying to fight this error. Many long-term missionaries have already left the organization. The church in the Muslim world is asking for your help. These "Bibles" are hurting the cause of the Gospel.

Wycliff Bible Translators comes out in support of "Insider Translations" but not quite

Wycliffe, the Presbyterian church of Bangladesh, and other organizations have sent communications to the General Assembly regarding the use of "Insider Translations" and the involvement of the PCA in Insider Movements in the world. These communications were ruled out of order, partially out of concerns that this precedent would open the floodgates of lobbying by outside organizations and parties.

One commissioner noted that the purpose of a Study Committee would be to solicit opinions and information from such parties (indeed!) but another commissioner, Bill Nikides (an expert on world missions), noted that some of the communications come from Reformed denominations addressing missions work by the PCA in the Islamic would. Scott Seaton, former missionary and currently a pastor in Potomac Presbytery, noted that the information is directly related to matters before the Assembly.

Even though the material was found out of order, much of it was already in the hands of the commissioners. Maybe we get to have our cake (not set a bad precedent) and eat it too (get to read the information anyway).

Wycliffe submitted a detailed response to the motion condemning "Insider Translations," basically arguing that there is a difference between the Insider Movement and accepted contextualization in translation. This is probably fair enough in a theoretical sense, and likely opponents of the Insider Movement have been hyper-sensitive at times to attempts to contextualize the message of Scripture appropriately. But . . . I strongly suspect this is not as cut and dried as they are claiming and I bet there ARE Insiders seeking to influence Bible translations.

Wycliffe's claim that Muslims are offended by the idea that Jesus came from a sexual union between Mary and God and are not at all offended by the Bible's claim that Jesus is God in the flesh is completely untrue. While there may be some Muslims who completely misunderstand the claims of the Incarnation, very few thinking Muslims who have read the Bible would think this. What they are offended by is the Bible's claim that Jesus is God. Wycliffe is clouding the issue and people should ask why.

Is this not why we need a study committee?