Journal: Priscilla Papers
Volume: PP 11:4 (Fall 1997)
Article: Am I Wrong Because I’m Politically Correct?
Author: David R. Leigh

PP 11:4 (Fall 1997) p. 12

Am I Wrong Because I’m Politically Correct?

David R. Leigh

Rev. David R. Leigh is pastor of Church of the Redeemer, a Baptist General Conference church in Libertyville, Illinois. An abridged version of this article appeared in the BGC’s October 1997 issue of the standard magazine.

Ten Reasons To Embrace Inclusive Language Revision

How many times have you heard from the lips of conservatives, “I’m not politically correct, and proud of it!”?

The badge of political incorrectness began as an oft-appropriate response to ideas and values imposed on us culturally by political liberals—a backlash against left wing “thought police” whose anti-traditional values ironically included opposition to censorship, absolutes, and “legislated morality.”

Conservatives rightly saw through this, noting that thought restriction is itself a form of censorship, that left-wing ideas can become cultural absolutes, and that imposition of liberal values is often an oppression greater than most so-called conservative moral legislations.

Antagonism toward anything politically correct is now the knee-jerk reaction of conservatives and calling something politically correct has become a shortcut for discrediting it. Likewise, to declare something politically incorrect is to ascribe to it a kind of boldness and integrity.

But as I sat watching a news interview recently, I heard a Ku Klux Klan grand wizard make an interesting statement. You guessed it: “I’m not politically correct and I’m proud of it!”

Sadly, this shorthand method of discrediting by calling something PC has been used in at least two recent situations in evangelical circles. First, it was used successfully to derail efforts by the team of scholars known as the Committee for Bible Translation (CBT) to update the New International Version (NIV) of the Bible into truly contemporary English. Second, it was used unsuccessfully at the 1997 Baptist General Conference (BGC) Annual Meeting regarding proposed revisions of the BGC Affirmation of Faith. And though its use in the latter case failed to prevent the needed revisions, it did not fail to damage some people’s respect for the outcome.

In both cases, the literary revisions involved a switch to gender-inclusive language. Simply defined, inclusive language is speech that includes everyone, without making people who are intended to be included feel left out, especially where gender is concerned. According to the editors of the NIV Inclusive Language Edition (NIVI, Hodder & Stoughton), inclusive language translation may be defined in this way: “Where the original languages are consider...