It doesn’t offend me when secular publications refer to Jesus as “he” or “him.” For that matter, many of the theology books used at my Catholic high school did the same, especially when discussing Jesus in historical terms.
My sense is, the few Christians who’d complain about failure to capitalize are too sensitive, and just looking for something to complain about.
What I find both interesting and disturbing is how many supposedly secular publications now seem to feel compelled to add “peace be unto him” after mentions of the prophet Mohammed. For Pete’s sake, if you’re not a Moslem, there’s no reason you should add that blessing!
Okay, now I’m inspired to do a little actual research (i.e. Googling).
The spelling, capitalization, etc. of the King James version has been revised over time, but pronouns referring to God were not originally capitalized. Cites here and here.
Here is an explanation and defense by the makers of one modern translation why they chose not to capitalize pronouns for God.
And just to give the [del]nutjobs[/del] opposing view their say, here’s a website I found arguing that the pronouns should be capitalized.
He is an English lord. – In this sentence, lord is a common noun, and thus is not capitalized.
He is Lord Peter Wimsey. – In this sentence, Lord is part of the title of a specific man, and thus requires capitalization.
Similarly:
She is my doctor.
She is Dr. Erika Thomas.
Incidentally, here is a transcription from my Bible, whose title page proclaims that “the text [is] conformable to that of the edition of 1611, commonly known as the authorized or King James’ Version”:
Psalm 94, Verse 22:
Yes, each letter of LORD is capitalized, but the first letter of he is lowercase.
It doesn’t offend me. I’ve come to the conclusion that when man takes it upon himself to be offended on God’s behalf, it only leads to trouble. I personally don’t think God is so weak that he needs me to defend him. If he needed me to defend him, it would be pointless for me to do so because he would be no god.
The all caps “LORD” is something of a special case; when the word is written this way, it means not only that the word lord is referring to God (as opposed to something like “the lord of the manor”), but that the word translated as “LORD” in English wasn’t actually a Hebrew word translatable as “lord” (such as 'adown or ba`al), but is actually a cryptic reference to the fobidden name, and not just the title, of the Biblical God. Thus, in Nehemiah 8:10, you have the word “Lord” used twice to refer to God, once with a capital L, and once in all caps:
The first reference is using “our Lord” as a title for the God of the Israelites; if you look at a concordance of the passage showing what Hebrew word or words each of the English words corresponds to, the English “Lord” is a translation from Hebew 'adown (“lord”, “master”, or “owner”); but the word shown in English as “LORD” is actually Y@hovah, conventionally if rather inaccurately rendered as “Jehovah”. The name of the Israelites’ God was actually “YHWH”–exactly what the vowels are supposed to be is now obscure, probably something like “Yahweh”–but the true name of God was (and is) considered sacred and you weren’t supposed to just come out and say it, so when Yahweh was written in the text, they put in the vowels for Adonai, from 'adown, meaning “my Lord”, as a reminder that someone reading the text out loud should avoid posssible blasphemy. Later on, this circumlocution got kind of mangled into “Yahovah” or “Jehovah”, which is neither the forbidden “Yahweh” nor the “Adonai” you’re supposed to say here.
Just another atheist opinion. I do capitilize Messiah, Christian, Hebrew, etc. but I do not capitalize god, he, or him. FWIW, I don’t like the idea that god generally is assumed to mean the god that Moses spoke to, but that would be a hijack, and I will restrain myself.
I refuse to use any male words when referring to the Christian “god,” who is not male. I don’t capitalize the word “it” when refering to it either.
In the final scene of the novel “Rosemary’s Baby” Levin uses capital letters when the devil worshippers are referring to the baby (Come see Him. Come see the Child), and smaller case ones when Rosemary does (You’re rocking him too fast).
The Episcopalian Book of Common Prayer doesn’t capitalize pronouns referring to God or Jesus Christ, therefore I can see no reason at all to be offended if an Atheist doesn’t capitalize those programs. I do so out of respect, but even so, I realize it’s a bit archaic and may be seen as a bit pretentious.
As for capitalizing “Christian”, as has already been pointed out, I do so for the same reason I do “Buddhist”, “Jew” or “Wiccan” – because I was taught that it’s proper to capitalize the names or religions and their followers. I usually capitalize “Atheist” to show similar respect to Atheists, but some have told me they prefer it not be capitalized because it isn’t a religion and I try to respect that when I remember whom I’m dealing with. If it bothers our resident atheists, I’ll stop capitalizing it.
I think that it is polite to capitalize religions like Hinduism and Islam and “deities” like God, Allah, Jesus, Muhammad, etc. I also capitalize Agnosticism / Agnostic and Atheism / Atheist. Just seems rude not too. I usually do the pronouns too but wouldn’t find it rude not to. I have seen folks on bulletine boards purposely using lower case spellings of ‘Islam’ and ‘Muhammad’ as way to insult.
I’d currently describe myself as a Christian. Personally, I’d take deliberate use of underase letters to spell Christian, Christianity, Jesus, and God as an intended insult. Pronoun capitalization or lack of, no.
I’m an atheist/agnostic. I capitalise where it is customary or polite to do so, including the pronouns Christians like to use.
Then again, I’m a wishy-washy atheist who is probably considered something of a traitor by some of my peers. I will go through all the rituals at a religious service: crossing myself, pretending to pray, singing along, etc. Fact is, if I find myself at a religious service, it’ll be a wedding or a funeral, or in any event I’ll be there as the invitee of somebody for whom that particular day is important, so it’s not my place to go making political or ideological statements. It costs me nothing to play along, and it avoids hurt feelings, so I do it. I make my pssive statement by not going to church every Sunday.
I’m the same with the capitalisation. It only costs me an extra keystroke. I can live with that if it keeps somebody happy.