Among the resolution’s highlights, it says the NIV 2011 erases “gender-specific details which appear in the original language” and “has gone beyond acceptable translation standards…” It also says messengers “respectfully request that LifeWay not make this inaccurate translation available for sale in their bookstores.”

Two prominent Southern Baptist leaders have endorsed a resolution passed by convention messengers that calls the New International Version (NIV) 2011 Bible an “inaccurate translation” the SBC cannot recommend.

Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, say messengers were right to pass the resolution and take a stand against what the language calls “gender neutral methods of translation.” Mohler, though, did say he regrets the resolution addresses LifeWay stores so directly.

The controversy over a newer version of the NIV dates back to 2002 when messengers passed a resolution criticizing the Today’s New International Version (TNIV) Bible, which also employed a gender-neutral philosophy of translation for pronouns. After receiving criticism from James Dobson, Southern Baptist leaders and other evangelical leaders, the TNIV never gained widespread usage and finally was discontinued.

At issue in both cases are pronouns for humanity, not pronouns for God.

The NIV 2011 is an updated translation to both the TNIV and the NIV 1984. It maintains 75 percent of the gender-neutral changes found in the TNIV, according to the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, a Louisville, Ky.-based group that supports a complementarian position on manhood and womanhood. CBMW did acknowledge that the NIV 2011 had “numerous commendable improvements” from the NIV 1984 but that the newest translation still had problems from CBMW’s perspective. The NIV 2011, CBMW contends, changes the meaning of the text in numerous verses, and by changing singular pronouns to plural pronouns, “removes the emphasis on an individual, personal relationship with God and on specific individual responsibility for one’s choices and actions.”

The NIV’s popularity — it’s the bestselling Bible translation — is a driving force behind the controversy. Zondervan, the North American publisher, is discontinuing the NIV 1984 and replacing it with the NIV 2011.

The fact that the resolution on the NIV 2011 was debated at all at the SBC annual meeting was somewhat of a surprise, because the Resolutions Committee, the body charged to recommend resolutions to the convention, had declined it. Instead, messenger Tim Overton asked from the floor that his resolution — previously submitted to the committee as required — be brought forward, and messengers voted to consider it by the required margin of at least 2-to-1. After a brief debate, it passed overwhelmingly by a show of ballots, receiving opposition from only a few dozen messengers out of the 4,800 who were registered.

CBMW’s lengthy NIV 2011 evaluation, released in May, helped give the resolution momentum.

“The adoption of a resolution on the NIV offered from the floor of the Southern Baptist Convention has three major points of significance,” Patterson told Baptist Press in a statement. “First, it demonstrates anew that a grass-roots response on the part of Southern Baptists is still a unique feature of the DNA of the Convention, something that we must never loose. Second, the adoption of this resolution demonstrates the continuing concern that the overwhelming majority of Southern Baptists have for gender-neutral translations of the Scripture and the questionable advertising techniques of the NIV marketing program. In fact, Southern Baptists will continue to reject all agenda-driven translations of Holy Scripture.

“Third,” Patterson continued, “this action from the floor of the Convention should send a message to all Southern Baptist Convention institutions and agencies that we are expected to pursue our ministries out of conviction rather than out of concern for profitability.”

Focus on the Family also has quietly taken a stance on the NIV 2011. Its website lists a series of Bibles it recommends, specifically stating the “New International Version 1984 Edition” as an acceptable translation. An asterisk guides readers to the bottom of the list, where it says, “For a preliminary analysis of the NIV 2011 Edition, see the CBMW’s review.” The link takes readers to a November article where CBMW said it “cannot commend” the updated translation.

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

“The 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.”

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