218^th General Assembly
2008

[posted 5-19-08; published in Network News, Spring 2008, pp. 14-16]

[Click here for a note added by the author on July 7, 2008.]

At the center of the controversy are questions and answers 19, 33, 55, and especially 87 (Book of Confessions 4.087), one of the few references to "homosexual perversion" in the Book of Confessions. Considering that the Heidelberg Catechism was written in German in 1563 and the word "homosexual" is a term that originated late in the nineteenth century and did not come into widespread use in European languages until the twentieth century, the translation problems are apparent. In fact, of all the many English translations of the Heidelberg Catechism made since the sixteenth century, all but one, the 1962 Miller-Osterhaven translation contained in the Book of Confessions, lack any reference to homosexuality.

Concerns about the translation of the Heidelberg Catechism in the Book of Confessions were first raised after Johanna W.H.van Wijk-Bos, (Professor of Old Testament, Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary), who had studied the original German text of Heidelberg extensively as a young woman in The Netherlands in preparation for her confirmation in the Reformed Church there. She discovered the error through a perusal of an article in Monday Morning of April 22, 1996. That article quoted the Heidelberg in a way that to her eyes was totally unfamiliar. After she mentioned the matter to her then still-to-be colleague Christopher Elwood (Assistant Professor of Historical Theology, Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary), the two of them put their minds together to rebut the article in Monday Morning and to provide rationales for the overtures that went to the 1997 and 1998 Assemblies.  (Click here for their original article, The Heidelberg Catechism and Homosexuality.)  While the overtures brought to those two assemblies failed, more than ten years of reflection may prove that this part of the Book of Confessions is not only inaccurate but contains a distortion that needs to be corrected.

The 1962 Miller-Osterhaven translation became part of our Book of Confessions because the Special Committee on a Brief Contemporary Statement of Faith presented a report to the 1965 General Assembly of the UPCUSA to include it in a Book of Confessions. Presumably the committee chose this translation because it was the most recent at that time. Princeton Seminary Professor Emeritus Ed Dowey, chair of the Special Committee, later acknowledged that both he and the committee as a whole were "guilty of negligence," and that "there should have been thorough editorial work on all the documents," but because of time pressures the committee settled for some brief spot-checking of the translation. The change to question 87 was not spotted. In Professors Dowey's words, he was "dumbfounded that I and such careful scholars as [Leonard J.] Trinterud, [George S.] Hendry, [James D.] Smart, et al, failed to discover the illicit change." Without recognizing that the authors' words had been tampered with and without reviewing adequately the version of the document adopted, the denomination received the translation now presently in the Book of Confessions.

The problem with the words in the '62 version of the answer to Q87 is not that it is a flawed translation. The problem, admitted by Osterhaven, is that they intentionally ignored the words of the original catechism and inserted, instead, the New English Bible translation of 1 Corinthians 6: 9-10 which was one of four Scriptural references footnoted by the writers of the catechism. Furthermore, the New English Bible translation of those now highly controversial verses was the first time in an English translation (including King James and the Revised Standard Version) that the Greek arsenokoitai and malakoi were translated as "homosexual perversion." It was an editorial decision that violated the trust we place in translators to adhere to the words of the writers. This explains why other translations, including the one on the website of the conservative Westminster Theological Seminary, does not include "homosexual perversion," as those are actual translations of the German and Latin in Q87, which was really a harmony of the vice lists that left out those two words, included only in I Corinthians 6:9-10, from the four Scripture passages footnoted.

The more recent Christian Reformed Church (CRC) translation, prepared for the CRC and adopted by the Synod of 1975 with some editorial revisions made and approved by the Synod of 1988 (See Ecumenical Creeds and Reformed Confessions [Grand Rapids: CRC Publications, 1988]) is a more accurate and better translation than the 1962 Miller-Osterhaven translation because it is a livelier translation with a more contemporary feel. The liveliness comes, in part, from the fact that this is a translation of the German text rather than the Latin. There are no substantive differences in meaning, but the German gives an opportunity for a bit more vital rendering in contemporary English. The CRC translation is not a free translation. It stays close to the meaning of the original. It does not contain the outright errors included in the 1962 translation at questions 19, 33, 55, and 87, and avoids the carelessness of renderings that creep into the 1962 translation at other places.

The CRC, considered by some a more conservative denomination than the PC(USA), is a Reformed body with which we are in Full Communion. Adopting a translation of the Heidelberg Catechism that already enjoys constitutional status in a Reformed denomination with which we enjoy full communion would not only be a wise decision affirming our ecumenical agreements but save both time and money needed for preparing a new translation.

Overture 36 (OVT036), from the Presbytery of Northern Kansas, seeks appropriate steps to “restore The Heidelberg Catechism to an authentic and reliable English version of the historic document by replacing the 1962 translation, The Heidelberg Catechism, 1563– 1963. 400th Anniversary Edition. [1962, United Church Press], with a translation that more faithfully renders the original text.” The presbyteries of Chicago, New York City (of which I am a member), and Pittsburgh have concurred with this overture.

OVT036 actually originated with Pittsburgh Presbytery. Kent Winters-Hazelton, the Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Lawrence, KS, gave a copy of Pittsburgh's draft to an Adult Ed class that was studying Jack Rogers' book. The class decided to bring the overture, as a concurrence, to Session. The session approved it and sent it to Presbytery. The Presbytery of Northern Kansas then approved it before Pittsburgh Presbytery, thus making Northern Kansas the Presbytery of Record.

Overture 45 (OVT045), from the Presbytery of Boston, would direct the Stated Clerk to request permission from the Christian Reformed Church in North America to print their 1988 translation of the Heidelberg Catechism in The Book of Confessions of the PC(USA), and if such permission is granted, to use that text as the official text of the Heidelberg Catechism until such time as directed otherwise by the General Assembly, and if such permission is not granted, to make a recommendation to the 219th General Assembly (2010) regarding the choice of an appropriate translation of the Heidelberg Catechism to be the official text in The Book of Confessions.” The Presbytery of Winnebago has concurred with this overture.

While both overtures are worthy of full consideration, Overture 36 is the better of the two. The rationale of Overture 36 mentions some of the history and many of the textual problems associated with the current translation of the Heidelberg Catechism in the Book of Confessions, history and problems which beg for correction. It is also well footnoted. Additionally, the overture recognizes that replacing the current translation, even with an already existing translation, it is truly an “amendment” to the Book of Confessions and not a mere editorial change, a precedent established when the Book of Confessions was amended in 1999 by replacing the then current translation of the Nicene Creed with a new contemporary translation.

Overture 45, however, does bring to light in its rationale section a published assertion by Osterhaven that changes in the text of the answer to Question 87 “had been entirely intentional.” It also better establishes the ecumenical consensus for the more accurate and preferable CRC translation. Thus OVT036, while perhaps not as strong as OVT045, bolsters the need for action.

Once aware of this history, a Presbyterian may wonder how commissioners to the General Assembly cannot choose [could ever choose not] to be guided by the most authentic, reliable, faithful and accurate translation possible. Given our tradition of respecting scholarship, it seems inconceivable that one of these two overtures, perhaps in an amended form, cannot pass both the committee and the General Assembly and be sent to the presbyteries for their approval.

For a fuller discussion of the above issues, Commissioners and other readers are encouraged to look at Jack Rogers' recent book, Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality: Explode the Myths, Heal the Church (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006, pp. 115-199), which has been sent to all commissioners and advisory delegates.

Heidelberg Catechism Question 87:
A Report on a Problem of Translation

In the fall of 1996 Johanna W.H. van Wijk-Bos and I published a short article in a number of Presbyterian periodicals discussing an error in the translation of question 87 of the Heidelberg Catechism, in the version included in the PC(USA)'s Book of Confessions (BOC 4.087). Since this passage includes the only explicit reference to "homosexual perversion" in our confessions and because we had seen this passage cited in presbytery and other debates on the question of sexuality and ordination, it seemed to us to be very important for us all to know whether or not this translation was reliable.

Based on a check of the German original, it seems quite clear that this translation is not reliable. Following is a comparison of a common translation of the answer to question 87, one which is quite close to the German original, with the Book of Confessions version. The most obvious changes are underlined.

We consulted other translations of the catechism. All remain close to the original wording. None include any reference to homosexuality. Only this translation, made by Allen O. Miller and M. Eugene Osterhaven in a 400th anniversary edition published in 1962, inserted this new material into the text.

How did it happen that this text, 400 years after its initial publication, acquired a reference to homosexuality it previously lacked? And how did this change make its way into the confessional standards of the Presbyterian Church? Because the publication of our findings have elicited a number of responses from persons who can shed light on this matter—including Professor Osterhaven and Professor Edward A. Dowey, who chaired the committee that put together the Book of Confessions—we have available some fairly reliable answers.

First, the translators made a decision to stop translating the German text after the words "Scripture says," and turned instead to the New English Bible translation of 1 Cor. 6:9-10 to supply the rest of the answer. 1 Cor. 6:9-10 supplies a list of sinners which is fairly close though not identical to the one presented by the authors of the Heidelberg. The apostle Paul includes in that list the terms malakoi and arsenokoitai. These are the terms that the NEB rendered with the phrase those "who are guilty...of homosexual perversion." (The editors later dropped the reference to homosexuality when the NEB was revised in 1989. There is presently no consensus among New Testament scholars on the translation of these two terms. ³) Professor Osterhaven has said that he was convinced that Zacharius Ursinus and Caspar Olevianus (the authors of the Heidelberg Catechism) believed homosexuality to be among the sins that excluded one from the kingdom of God, and that they meant such sinful behavior to be included under the phrase "or any such like." They were reluctant, in their time, to include graphic terms to describe this behavior, but Osterhaven and Miller felt that in the wake of the sexual revolution "it would be well to be more specific in question 87 than Ursinus was in his day." The translators, in other words, believed they knew what the authors really meant but were unwilling to say explicitly; and this knowledge, together with their concern about contemporary cultural trends, justified substituting a modern biblical translation with its reference to homosexuality for the authors' words in question 87.⁴

The Special Committee on a Brief Contemporary Statement of Faith presented a report to the 1965 General Assembly of the UPCUSA to include the Miller and Osterhaven translation of the Heidelberg Catechism in a Book of Confessions. Presumably the committee chose this translation because it was the most recent edition. Professor Dowey acknowledges now that both he and the committee as a whole were "guilty of negligence": "there should have been thorough editorial work on all the documents" but, because of time pressures, the committee settled for some brief spot-checking of the translation. The change to question 87 was not spotted. In Professor Dowey's words, he is "dumbfounded that I and such careful scholars as [Leonard J.] Trinterud, [George S.] Hendry, [James D.] Smart, et al. failed to discover the illicit change."⁵  So, without recognizing that the authors' words had been tampered with and without reviewing adequately the version of the document adopted, the denomination received this translation with its reference to "homosexual perversion" and it has been part of the confessional standards ever since.

In light of what Professor Bos and I have learned in researching this translation and its history, it seems we need a more reliable translation of the Heidelberg Catechism. Professors Miller and Osterhaven's procedures in translating this passage do not conform to the best standards of translation and our church can do better than the document they produced. I am appending to this statement a text in which I will lay out in more detail some of the issues of interpretation, but here I would like simply to sketch in summary fashion my principal objections to the rendering now in the Book of Confessions.

1. It seems quite likely, in view of Professor Osterhaven's reference to his concern over the sexual revolution of the 1950s and 1960s, that a particular agenda directed the translators' decisions and diminished their capacity for a measured judgment on the rendering of question 87. The church, especially in these times, cannot afford agenda-driven translations among its confessional documents.  

2. Ursinus and Olevianus did not "quote" scripture in question 87, therefore it is illegitimate to insert a biblical quotation here. They used a device quite common to writers of the sixteenth century: they gave a rough summary of the contents of a biblical passage. 

3. It is a mistake to justify inserting a reference to homosexuality in the Heidelberg Catechism on the basis of supposed references to homosexuality (or "effeminacy") in Ursinus' commentary on the catechism (as Professor Osterhaven does). In the first place, any insertion or substitution of words in a translation must always be suspect. Second, the "effeminacy" (literally "weakness") to which Ursinus referred in his commentary denotes not homosexuality (as modern readers might initially assume) but more likely either autoeroticism (or masturbation) or other, non-sexual forms of moral weakness, as we know from numerous sixteenth-century uses of this and related terms. Ursinus and Olevianus, like many sixteenth-century reformers, display in their writings little, if any, interest in the question of same-sex relations. ⁶ 

4. There is a certain carelessness in the rendering of other passages in which the translators have felt free to play with the authors' choice of words. In some instances the result is a loss of distinctively Reformed ideas and images (as, for example, in the substitution of "Old Covenant" for "law" in 4.019 and the disappearance of the image of adoption in 4.033 and of the present fellowship of the saints with Christ in 4.055).

What I have learned in the process of investigation convinces me that we can do far better than this translation of the Heidelberg Catechism. There are several existing translations that are quite faithful to the original text with language that is accessible to the contemporary reader. I strongly encourage the Committee on Catechisms and Confessions to consider carefully the problems posed by our current document and to take steps to provide a suitable remedy.

To:      The Committee on Catechisms and Confessions

Re.:     A report on problems in the translation of Heidelberg Catechism, question 87

Date:  May 21, 1998

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Jesus Christ,

I wrote to you last year in support of Overture 97-63 from Winnebago Presbytery on authorizing a new translation of the Heidelberg Catechism and write to you again this year supporting overture 98-34 from the Presbytery of Utah on the same matter.

Once again I am attaching a report of my research into the translation of the document currently in the Book of Confessions as well as a series of questions and answers pertaining to the interpretation and translation of question 87 of the catechism. I hope these will be useful to you in your deliberations.

I would like to emphasize that I think there is little need to contemplate producing an entirely new translation of the Heidelberg. There are at least two contemporary translations (i.e., produced within the last forty years) which are more faithful to the original text of the Heidelberg Catechism than the one currently included in the Book of Confessions.

First, there is the translation by Thomas F. Torrance included in his The School of Faith: The Catechisms of the Reformed Church (London: James Clark, 1959). This is a reliable translation which stays rather close to the language of earlier English translations. It lacks the archaisms of some of those earlier translations ("thou," "thy," "saith," e.g.) and it is traditional (from some points of view, perhaps, even stodgy).

A quite different but perhaps even better option would be the translation prepared for the Christian Reformed Church, adopted by the Synod of 1975 with some editorial revisions made and approved by the Synod of 1988. See Ecumenical Creeds and Reformed Confessions (Grand Rapids,: CRC Publications, 1988). This is a livelier translation, with a much more contemporary feel. The liveliness comes, in part, from the fact that this is a translation of the German text rather than the Latin. There are no substantial differences in meaning, but the German gives an opportunity for a bit more vital rendering in contemporary English. For example compare the renderings of question and answer 89:

Torrance:

Q. What is the mortification of the old man?
A. To be heartily sorry for sin, and more and more to hate and turn from it.

CRC:

Q. What is the dying-away of the old self?
A. It is to be genuinely sorry for sin, to hate it more and more, and to run away from it. [footnotes with scriptural citations follow]

Either translation would be serviceable, although the CRC seems to have clear advantages. Neither contains the outright errors included in the Miller and Osterhaven translation at questions 19, 33, 55, and 87, and both avoid the carelessness of renderings that creeps into that translation in other places.

I do hope you will give this matter the attention it deserves. If I can provide any additional information that will be helpful for sorting through the issues or if I may be of further assistance to the committee in any other way, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Grace and peace,

Christopher Elwood
Assistant Professor of Historical Theology
Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary
1044 Alta Vista Road
Louisville, KY 40205-1789

encl.   Heidelberg Catechism Question 87: A Report

Questions And Answers On the Translation of Heidelberg Catechism Question 87

A Comparison of Select Passages from the Heidelberg Catechism

Edward A. Dowey, Letter to Elwood and van Wijk-Bos

cc.      Fred Jenkins
          Unzu Lee
          Joseph Small      

The Heidelberg Catechism and Homosexuality

by Christopher Elwood and Johanna W.H.van Wijk-Bos

Do the confessions speak unequivocally about homosexuality? A quick check of the index of The Book of Confessions turns up the following entry: "Homosexual perversion, and salvation, 4.087." The reference is to question 87 of the Heidelberg Catechism, which in the 1994 edition of The Book of Confessions reads as follows:

Question: Can those who do not turn to God from their ungrateful, impenitent life be saved?

Answer: Certainly not! Scripture says, "Surely you know that the unjust will never come into possession of the kingdom of God. Make no mistake: no fornicator, or idolater, none who are guilty either of adultery or of homosexual perversion, no thieves or grabbers or drunkards or slanderers or swindlers, will possess the kingdom of God."¹

Although there is no other place in the confessions one might point to for such an explicit treatment of the subject of homosexuality, this passage speaks plainly enough.

Yet, a discerning reader may ask: Does the Heidelberg Catechism, a document composed and first published in 1563, really say that? The very mention of "homosexual perversion" raises a red flag. "Homosexual" is a term that originated late in the nineteenth century and did not come into widespread use in European languages until the twentieth century. It sounds out of place in a sixteenth-century text. But then, perhaps the Catechism uses other terms for the same category of behavior?

How does the Heidelberg Catechism version of question and answer 87 read? A common English translation of the original German of ... is as follows:

Can those who do not turn to God from their ungrateful, impenitent life be saved?

By no means; for, as the Scripture says, no unchaste person, idolater, adulterer, thief, covetous man, drunkard, slanderer, robber, or any such like, shall inherit the kingdom of God.⁵

The list of sinners as presented in the Heidelberg lacks quotation marks and is considerably shorter than the one found in the Book of Confessions. It omits any version of what Miller and Osterhaven render as "Surely you know that the unjust will never come into possession of the kingdom of God," as well as the phrase, "Make no mistake," which introduces the list of those excluded from God's kingdom. Finally, there is no mention of those "who are guilty of homosexual perversion." There is no counterpart for any of these readings in the original text.

Because of this substitution, readers of the Book of Confessions might be forgiven for assuming that the Reformed confessions speak definitively on the question of same-sex relations, equating "homosexual practice" with sin. To the extent that interpretations of homosexuality and the life of the church are informed by a misreading of the confessions, they can certainly be corrected. For this reason, as the presbyteries take up the issue of sexuality and ordination and seek to be guided in their deliberations by Scripture and the confessions, it seems to us to be critically important that we are clear on what the confessions do and do not say about homosexuality and sin.

The authors are two of the major scholars who have developed the critique of the mistranslation used in the version of the Heidelberg Catechism that has been included in the Book of Confessions. Christopher Elwood is Assistant Professor of Historical Theology, and Johanna W.H.van Wijk-Bos is Professor of Old Testament, both at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

Notes

1. The Book of Confessions, 4.087, emphasis added.
2. See Catechismus oder Christliche Underricht, wie der Kirchen und Schulen der Churfurstlichen Pfaltz getrieben wirdt (Heidelberg: Johannes Mayer, 1563), p.60.
3. Wilhelm Niesel, ed., Bekenntnisschriften und Kirchenordnungern der nach Gottes Wort reformierten Kirche (Zurich, 1938). This text served as the basis for the translation included in The Book of Confessions.
4. The Heidelberg Catechism, 1563-1963. 400th Anniversary Edition (Philadelphia/Boston: United Church Press, 1962).
5. See, for example: The Heidelberg Catechism in German, Latin and English, with an Historical Introduction (New York: Scribner, 1863), p.228f.; Reformed Standards of Unity, ed.Leroy Nixon (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Society for Reformed Publications, 1957), p.44f.; Thomas F.Torrance, The School of Faith (London: James Clark, 1959), p.86f.; Ecumenical Creeds and Reformed Confessions (Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1988), p. 53.

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