Why I have started referring to God as ‘he’ and not ‘He’

Hi everyone! In all of the books I have written, and in the majority of articles I have written on this blog to date, I have capitalised pronouns referring to deity, for instance writing ‘He’ or ‘Him’ instead of ‘he’ or ‘him’ when referring to God. I always wanted to honour and revere God when I referred to him, and so I picked up this tradition that I noticed other people and certain Bible translations practicing.

However, this year I have fallen in love with the English Standard Version of the Bible, which contains the following note in the preface:

“[It] is sometimes suggested that Bible translations should capitalize pronouns referring to deity. It has seemed best not to capitalize deity pronouns in the ESV, however, for the following reasons: first, there is nothing in the original Hebrew and Greek manuscripts that corresponds to such capitalization; second, the practice of capitalizing deity pronouns in English Bible translations is a recent innovation, which began only in the mid-twentieth century; and, third, such capitalization is absent from the KJV Bible and the whole stream of Bible translations that the ESV carries forward.”

The ESV Bible, published by HarperCollins, © 2001 by Crossway, (p ix).

Having read this, I feel a little ashamed by the tendency I had to capitalise the pronouns referring to deity. It makes me wonder whether those who introduced the capitalisations did so prayerfully and humbly, or whether there was a touch of bravado in their decision.

In any case, now that I understand the truth of the matter, I personally feel that the best way I can honour God in this matter moving forward is by being faithful to the original manuscripts. So that is why I am choosing to no longer capitalise pronouns referring to deity.