So… who am I?

About the Liberation and Inclusion Translation

This project didn’t begin as a public translation. It grew out of years of study, pastoral formation, living in Christian community, counseling work, and the realization that how we translate Scripture shapes how people experience God, themselves, and one another.

As I kept returning to the Greek text, I noticed something that had bothered me for a long time: much of what makes the good news good—the liberating movements, restorative teachings, radical inclusion, healing, empowerment, embodiment, and insistence on loving justice in the New Testament—wasn’t coming through clearly enough in English. Sometimes that was because of theological tradition. Sometimes it was because of habit. Often it was because familiar religious language had trained us to be numb to what the text was actually doing.

"Word-by-word" doesn't mean neutral

The LIT is translated word-by-word directly from the Greek texts, working closely with grammar, syntax, and historical context. In that sense, it is word-based. But Greek is not a code with fixed English equivalents, and translation is never a mechanical process.

A single Greek word often carries a range of meanings:

• Charis can mean grace, favor, generosity, gift, or gratitude.
• Sarx can mean flesh, body, family, embodied humanity, or self-preservation instincts.
• Pistis can mean faith, faithfulness, commitment, trust, allegiance, or confidence.

Every translation has to decide which sense is doing the work in a given passage, whether to preserve ambiguity or clarify it, and whether to echo inherited theological language or let the context speak more directly.

The LIT doesn't pretend to avoid those decisions. Instead, it makes them deliberately, choosing English that reflects what the Greek is actually communicating in context, often letting go of familiar phrasing to do that more clearly.

Why the language often sounds unfamiliar

Many English translations rely on traditional church vocabulary that has accumulated centuries of doctrinal meaning. Sometimes that language is helpful. More often, it narrows, distorts, or mutes what the text originally conveyed.

In the LIT, you'll see terms rendered in ways that may feel unfamiliar at first:

• ekklesia as "called community" (traditionally, "church")
• pneuma as "life-breath" (traditionally, "spirit")
• euangelion as "triumphant message" (traditionally, "gospel")
• soterion as "liberation" (traditionally, "salvation")

These choices aren't meant to be provocative. They're attempts to let the original meaning breathe, to surface what the text was doing socially, relationally, and politically before religious shorthand smoothed it over. Where a choice might raise questions, footnotes show the Greek term, its range of meanings, and the reasoning behind the rendering.

Not a paraphrase, not a frozen literalism

Although the LIT often reads fluidly and with unfamiliar phrasing, it is not a paraphrase. Every line is translated from the Greek, and every rendering stays within the recognized semantic range of the source language.

At the same time, it resists a kind of literalism that treats English words as interchangeable containers for Greek ones. The goal is not to reproduce Greek grammar in English, but to communicate meaning faithfully and responsibly to people who don't live in the world of the first century.

You could think of the LIT as an annotated translation where the interpretive work is made visible rather than hidden behind the appearance of neutrality.

Starting with the text, not with tradition

Many translations are shaped primarily by doctrinal clarity, liturgical use, or reverence as defined by later theological frameworks.

This translation takes a different starting point. It prioritizes historical and linguistic integrity, pays attention to power and marginalization in the text, and cares more about reader comprehension than inherited piety.

That means it does not claim neutrality. Translation is always interpretation, and interpretation always reflects values. Rather than disguising those values, the LIT names them so readers can engage the text with awareness.

What drives this translation

Faithfulness to the text. Translation choices are grounded in grammar, syntax, and historical context, not doctrinal shortcuts.

Clarity over religious jargon. Traditional theological terms are reconsidered when they obscure meaning, import later doctrine, or soften the text's original force.

Attention to harm. Where Scripture has been used to shame, exclude, or justify harm, the translation asks whether that harm comes from the text itself or from how it has been rendered and taught.

God looks like Jesus. The character of God is interpreted consistently with Jesus' life, teaching, and self-giving love rather than through abstract or punitive frameworks.

Belonging and repair. The translation highlights the Bible's recurring concern with communal repair, shared dignity, and life together — not fear-based exclusion.

What this translation is and isn't

The LIT is a theological, interpretive translation rooted in historical-critical scholarship and shaped by concern for how people actually encounter the text. It is offered as one faithful contribution among many.

It is not a claim to be the most literal or most neutral Bible. It is not a replacement for other translations. And it is not a final word on the meaning of Scripture.

I'd encourage readers to read it alongside other translations, commentaries, and voices, engaging it as part of an ongoing conversation, not a conclusion.

An invitation

This project exists because translation shapes theology, and theology shapes lives.

For many people—especially those who have been harmed or excluded by how Scripture has been translated and taught—those choices have mattered deeply.

The Liberation and Inclusion Translation invites readers to slow down, notice where translation choices matter, question inherited language, and encounter the text with fresh eyes.

It doesn't ask for agreement.
It asks for engagement.

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