5 reasons why reverential capitalization is not a brilliant idea
‘Reverential capitalization’ refers to the practice of capitalizing, for reasons of reverence or respect, the initial letters of words that refer to the deity.
Capitalization of nouns, in written English, does not convey respect or reverence. Rather, it conveys specification. We capitalize both Churchill and Hitler, both Pol Pot and Gandhi.
But what about capitalizing personal pronouns that refer to God?
Well, I think it is unnecessary and unhelpful, here’s why.
1. There is no biblical mandate for it
Biblical Hebrew does not distinguish between upper-case and lower-case letters, and the earliest manuscripts of the New Testament were written in all capital letters.…