by Bobby Holloway
About 50 years ago I was in a group of about 150 young men who were planning to become gospel preachers. One member of the group was asked to lead prayer. In that prayer he referred to God as “you” rather than “thou”, and the faculty member who was the sponsor of the group severely criticized the young man for failing to use personal pronouns, such as “thou” and “thy”, to show the proper reverence for God. What do you think about that? Was he correct in making that criticism? I accepted that criticism for about 45 years, but do those pronouns really show greater reverence for God?
It is not wrong for people to use “thee” and “thou” in prayer. If you feel like that faculty member that you do not show proper reverence for God by using pronouns that are normally in use today, then you will need to keep using those seventeenth century pronouns for the sake of your conscience. However, it is not wrong to use pronouns that we normally use in regular conversation today. Why did people ever start praying by using those old pronouns?
Read the King James Version of the Bible, and the pronouns that were common in usage in that day are found throughout the translation. Not only are “thee”, “thou”, “thine”, and “thy” found there but verbs no longer used like “wast” and “shouldest” are also there because they were in common usage back in the seventeenth century. Shakespeare used that kind of language, too, because that was when he lived and wrote. Why do most men who lead public prayer, especially older men, continue to use those old pronouns and verb forms?
The answer to that question is really the point of this article, and the answer I believe is TRADITION. Until recently we never heard anyone pray in public who ever used pronouns like “you” and “your”. When we began to lead public prayer, we followed the format set by our fathers. I assume that when women prayed privately they also used those same pronouns. This practice was not just local or regional but national. I heard it used on the radio by other religious people. If it was that widespread, why question it? Remember, it is not wrong, but it is based on a misunderstanding of why those pronouns were used in the Bible. That was the way people talked during the time the King James Version was translated, and those pronouns were used to refer to everyone, not just deity. Puzzlingly, though, those pronouns referring just to deity were retained in the American Standard Version and the New American Standard Version, until it was revised. They were also retained in the Revised Standard Version of the New Testament of 1946 and the Old Testament of 1950 just to refer to God and not Jesus. Of course, there is no justification for treating God and His Son differently, and that version was sharply criticized by most conservative scholars. Regardless of what those later translations did about those pronouns, there was no reason to retain them. Jesus and the apostles did not talk that way; they spoke Greek and Aramaic, and modern-day people do not use those pronouns.
Hymns sometimes contain those pronouns. “Thou Art the Way”, “My Savior as Thou Wilt”, and “I Am Thine O Lord” are examples. In fact, there are scores of hymns which contain at least one of these old-style pronouns.
The prevalent use of those pronouns in prayer throughout the brotherhood and in denominations, the language of several Bible translations, and the presence of “thee” and “thou” in some hymns have combined to create a deeply steeped and grand tradition, but that is all it is.