Partnerships are necessary means for Bible translation

 

Image ceated by ChatGPT. Clasping hands in partnership. OpenAI DALL-E, 2025, AI-generated image.

The theme of this blog entry appears to be a no-brainer, and in a sense nobody in the Bible translation world would disagree with this statement, at least not in the sense as most people would read it at face value. Partnership is immensely important for Bible translation, and I am definitely not here to tell you that there are people out there who don't believe it.

In fact, the opposite is the case: partnership has been taken so seriously by Bible translation practitioners and decision makers in the past 20 years that many of them have gone overboard and have turned partnership into an end in itself, at the cost of almost everything else. And this is what I am writing about here, as I believe that partnership is not our goal, and pursuing it like a goal can get in the way of what we actually should have as a goal.

But let's begin with the basics, reassuring ourselves that indeed without strong partnerships with the right people every Bible translation effort would be doomed. This is almost forced on the whole endeavor by its very nature, with participants and players from very different backgrounds in terms of ethnicity, training, financial capacity, organizational structure, and even belief. In a successful translation project usually the following kinds of stakeholders are involved:

• local language community representatives,
• local churches,
• national churches,
• donors from overseas, both small and large,
• technical experts as advisors and consultants,
• government authorities,
• researchers and academic institutions,
• media,
• publishing houses and license holders,
• other mission agencies,
• philanthropic organizations,
• a network of organizations and various ad-hoc boards in which all these various stakeholders interact with each other.

So there can be no doubt that skillful alliance building and partnership development have an important role to play in the Bible translation movement, and that each Bible translation organization needs to invest heavily in their capacity to set up and maintain strong partnerships.

But what I have seen very often in the past 20 years is that partnership has been elevated from a crucial tool to the very end of what we want to accomplish. Telltale signs for this have been

• progress indicators that count the number of partnerships that an organization maintains,
• impact stories which make it clear that keeping a certain partnership alive is more important than accomplishing the stated purpose of the organization, for example by sacrificing quality in order to keep a partner on board,
• exhortations from higher levels that lower levels should bend over backwards to revive partnerships that have proven to be dysfunctional or that were driving the organization away from its stated purposes,
• strong expectations that an organization submits to a governance structure that is dominated by the various partners of the organization,
  
• funneling large amounts of resources into partnership structures that have not contributed much to the success of a project or program.

Admittedly, it is widely open to discussion whether a certain organizational effort to maintain a troublesome partnership may still be a strategic move from the perspective of a given bigger picture, and many things that I would criticize here could be carefully explained to me as a necessary means to advance the goal of Bible translation. But the way people nowadays speak about partnerships I get the impression that it has really become their main goal in life. Instead of belonging to the organization that produces the Bible translations of the highest quality, they'd prefer to work in the organization that everybody everywhere likes most to partner with.

What is the essence of partnership?

A partnership is defined by (at least) two actors working towards a common goal. There are probably a lot more factors that make a partnership successful, such as mutual trust, complementary strengths, availability of resources, time, etc. But for the most basic definition one only needs to have two players and a common goal. This common goal, though, is normally not the only goal of either of the players. I may partner up with you to push your car off the road when you have a breakdown. We both have the goal to get the car off the road, because you as the owner fear for its safety and don't want to cause an accident, and I as your helper want to get your car out of the way so that the road is clear for me.

So there can be no mistake: Although we are partners in the temporary project of getting your car out of the way, both of us have a number of different goals, some of them overlapping, others not. In fact, in some areas of life we might find ourselves working against each other's goals.

Bible translation organizations at least currently appear to be under the mistaken impression that any overlap of goals implies that any partner would by nature stand behind anything the organization does. Only with this kind of understanding would it make sense to hand over the governance of such an organization into the hands of the partners, trusting that their goals are so very much in sync with the organization's goals that any future decision making would be a matter of total mutual benefit. But the reality is different.

Whereas a Bible translation organization has ideally only one goal (quality Bible translations), any single one of the many partners sees Bible translation as a means to reach widely differing goals, such as growth of the church, increased standing of the language community, economic benefits, spiritual flourishing, jobs for people close to the leadership, increase of knowledge, a larger powerbase, access to larger sections of the donor community, a good press, and many more. Some of them we can enthusiastically support, others leave us indifferent, and some we would even object to. It is therefore rather naive to assume that involving our partners in our governance decision-making would get us anywhere else than into a mess of thorny goal conflicts.

Taking our partners seriously

If we realize our partners for what they are to us, we can start to approach them in a more realistic manner. No longer do we bother them with expectations that they need to see the world as we do, with the same kind of urgency and exclusiveness directed at our one defining goal. Instead, we allow them to pursue their own legitimate goals, and we strive hard that they realize that Bible translation and language development are in their best interest. If they do, they will be willing to join forces with us in ways that bring both them and us forward into a better future, while we allow each other to be very different in anything else we do.

This also enables us to evaluate partnerships, so that maintaining a given partnership does not turn into a motivation to go astray regarding our own goals. No partnership is so important that it can force us to leave parts or all of our DNA at the roadside. If a donor, partner organization or other stakeholder is only willing to partner with us if we agree to compromise on our own foundational values, then there needs to be a very open discussion inside the organization whether this is really worth doing, because it would turn it into a very different organization.

We can be better partners ourselves if we know what our DNA is as a Bible translation organization, where our values leave us open to align ourselves with other players, and where they and we have common goals that need accomplishing. We also need to know the boundaries of our openness, where compromise would lead us into abandoning our purpose as it has been set out for us. This will enable us to pursue strong partnerships that really bring Bible translation forward, while we no longer find ourselves in a partnership treadmill that pours time, energy and resources into maintaining relationships that may have turned stale and unproductive long before, if they haven't even pulled us away from what we should really do.

No, we won't get very far without strong and healthy partnerships, but partnerships are not our final goal.

Bible translation is best done by para-church organizations

 

ChatGPT. A Team of Medieval Scholars Gathered Around a Table, Working on a Bible Translation. OpenAI DALL-E, 2025, AI-generated image.

Making this statement I'm leaning out of the window as far as I can, as you will have no trouble whatsoever finding examples that prove me wrong. Luther, Zwingli, Eugene Peterson, probably many more successful Bible translators never joined a Bible translation organization, and still got the job done. So where do I want to go with this?

This post is a follow-up to my previous post "Bible translation usually does not happen through the Church, but in spite of the Church", and there my point was that the church (with or without a capital C) is rarely the driving force in Bible translation, and we should not overburden it with expectations that it may or even should become so, as it normally and naturally pursues a large number of other and frequently competing goals. In that post I also allowed for highly motivated individuals who often initiated and even completed a translation, and these should serve to explain the counterexamples to this statement here.

Then, if we leave out the Luthers and Zwinglis and Petersons of this world, plus many other similar individuals of which I have the pleasure and honor to have met two or three in the course of my work, and if we further don't expect the church to sit in the driver's seat for the final push towards translating the remaining languages, then we need to ask ourselves who else is there to do it?

What is a para-church organization?

Para-church organizations are founded to do things that the church as such is not willing or able to do, for whatever reasons. The first example is encountered in the New Testament in Acts 6, where the Apostles appear to have botched the job of caring for widows, and when the complaints became too nagging, they threw up their hands and said "why should we deal with aliments for widows when what we really want to do is to evangelize the world? We don't even know what to do here! Find someone else who is better at that, and leave us to continue to do what we are good at!" It sounds a bit nicer in the original text, but this, in a nutshell, is what happened. Since those days more and more para-church organizations have been formed, usually with the following characteristics:

• They are interdenominational (not a thing in Acts)
• They support the church by doing things the church itself is not equipped for
• They specialize in things, so that they become really good at what they are doing
• They are normally funded and governed from outside the church institution (which is the one big difference to the story in Acts 6).

Humanitarian and social work, as seen in Acts 6, are what often was sourced out by the church to para-church organizations, such as certain monastic orders and later diaconic institutions. But since the 19th century there are also a number of para-church organizations that deal with specialized roles in mission, and since the 20th century in particular with Bible translation.

All this would be nothing to write about in a blog, had I not the nagging suspicion that the idea of a para-church organization has fallen somewhat out of fashion in current missiological reflections, at least when it comes to Bible translation. What I wrote in the other blog entry about the role of the church describes contemporary thinking much better: Bible translation should no longer be entrusted to organizations that are set up and governed outside the church, but to the church as such, whatever that may mean. And I proposed some reasons there why this idea is not likely to survive over a longer stretch of time. My main reason then was that Bible translation clashes too often with other important goals of the church and therefore may not receive the support it requires in order to thrive.

Better placed for Bible translation

It is not only the lack of a goal conflict that gives para-church organizations an edge when it comes to Bible translation. Here are a few more:

• Bible translation organizations are experts in Bible translation, which, as we have seen elsewhere, is a technical task and requires expertise.
• Bible translation organizations are tightly connected with that section of the church that truly has a vision for Bible translation, which may often be just individuals.
• Bible translation organizations are very often non-denominational, which allows them to partner with all sorts of people, even when the church landscape around the project shifts.
• Bible translation organizations can organize their own recruitment and training processes and attract recruits from all kinds of Christian backgrounds.
• Bible translation organizations can develop an institutional memory that contains standards, best practices, and quality assurance processes, and they can make sure that these are adhered to by all staff.
• Bible translation organizations usually focus on Bible translation, at the expense of everything else, which makes them good advocates for Bible translation among the church, and makes them less likely to forget about the goal of Bible translation.

There are clearly some good reasons why Bible translation is frequently done by para-church organizations. If the Bible translation movement is currently shifting to a model where these para-church organizations are either sidelined or forced to submit to a comprehensive control through church bodies, then these advantages can easily fall by the wayside.

In a sense, many of the current misunderstandings and unhelpful practices of the current Bible translation movement can be traced to such a sidelining. Wealthy donors from Western countries directly approach church partners in countries with Bible translation needs to conduct Bible translation with a focus on speed, while trying to relegate the role of Bible translation organizations to technical partners that need to serve whatever goal is presented to them by the donors. This has led to a neglect of expertise, coupled often with an unwillingness to accept what best practices have been developed over many decades by such organizations. While to the western church the overly optimistic narrative is presented that the local and national churches are willing and quite capable of doing Bible translation on their own, recruitment of westerners into Bible translation organizations goes down, degrading the capacity of the whole movement to provide the tools and to maintain the processes that make quality translations possible.

Para-church organizations are of the church

In spite of their independent structure para-church organizations are still an expression of the church. As indeed we have shown that Bible translation is very often initiated and driven forward by individuals who have caught on the vision for this task, we would never deny that these individuals are representatives of the Church and the churches they are coming from. A Bible translation organization is, quite similarly, an organized body of such individuals who have accepted that more can be accomplished if such likeminded individuals cooperate and help each other out as a community of practice with many sub-specializations to the big specialization of Bible translation that brought them together. The Church therefore forms para-church organizations to do Bible translation, as this is the most efficient and most sustainable way to go about it.

Para-church organizations are the preferred way of the church to approach complex tasks such as Bible translation that require a focused vision, a trained work force with many specializations, a coherent message to the supporters and a protected governance system that allows them to maintain their vision in spite of the recurrent tidal changes in support or neglect by the churches that called them into being.

Para-church organizations are also always quite dependent on actual churches, in both spheres of activity. They need a good connection with the church in countries that provide finances for the work, or that are the recruiting grounds for new staff, and they need to relate well to the churches in the countries where the translations happen, as indeed Bible translation works best when the local churches are on board with as much involvement as possible.

But particularly in areas where the local church is weak, untrained, or even non-existent, Bible translation organizations are the only way to devise a viable strategy for unreached people groups. Here the impetus coming out of such an organization is the force that gets the ball rolling, that trains the first staff, that maintains the needed structures and that provides the necessary tools.

Para-church organizations therefore still have a great role to play in Bible translation, and it is not a good idea to act as if they could already now get out of business. We need to take care that they are not starved out of the picture by well-meaning, but uninformed efforts by western donors to bypass them and get at the local church directly.

Bible translation usually does not happen through the Church, but in spite of the Church

By Peter Schöffer (printer); William Tyndale – British Library Board, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10794227

This topic needs to begin with a quick review of Bible translation in church history, both ancient and more recent. Here are some anecdotes on how Bible translations came into existence:

• When Jerome translated the Bible into the Latin language, he was criticized by church leaders such as Augustine for using the Hebrew Bible as the source text, instead of the Septuagint Greek translation preferred by previous translators. The accusations against him included a charge of heresy.
• The church was so inflamed by John Wycliffe's work, including the translation of the Bible into English, that it decided to posthumously declare him an heretic and to burn his bones on the stake, as happened to his writings, too.
• The same happened to William Tyndale, whose Bible translation was burned by the church alongside with the translator, who had the misfortune to be alive until the day of his execution.
• Martin Luther was in protective custody, hiding from church persecution, when he made use of the opportunity of much spare time to translate the New Testament into German. Although the translation became an immediate bestseller with the German public, the church of his day tried to stifle its distribution. Secular authorities contributed to its success considerably, instead.
• Not quite 500 years after Luther, an Ethiopian monk approached the office of SIL Ethiopia to ask for support in making his dream come alive to see a translation of the Bible into his mother tongue, against the clear wish of his church. Through tireless work, the man eventually succeeded in drawing his church into this endeavor, and the New Testament was published a few years ago.
• The translation for another language spoken in Ethiopia was initiated by a high-school teacher from that language community, who was organizing the support needed for this translation and almost saw it through, dying before the New Testament was published some years ago.

What these situations have in common is not that the church active in these language communities was working against Bible translation (it didn't always), but that the initial impulse was coming from strongly motivated individuals who did what needed to be done to get a Bible translation underway. In most cases, the local church did not provide the initiative to get things moving, but at best it could be motivated to support the effort, if it didn't even take on a stance of resistance until the end.

There are counterexamples with the church initiating Bible translation efforts, such as the Church of England's commission for the so-called King-James Version in the early 17th century, or the Catholic authorization of the Einheitsübersetzung in 20th century Germany. These church-led efforts were usually not resulting in first translations for a language, but produced alternative versions or revisions to existing translations. When it comes to providing the impulse for translations into previously unreached languages, church history provides very few examples of the responsible church being in the forefront. Possibly the Gothic translation attributed to Ulfilas may serve as an exception, as he was the Bishop of the Goths in his days when he either translated the Bible himself or at least commissioned the work to a translation team. Other examples were several Scandinavian and Finnish translations happening at the time of the early reformation, which saw Bible translation as a defining element of the reformation movement.

So where do I want to go with all this church history? The current worldwide Bible translation movement shares a strong assumption that Bible translation can only be successful when the church is in the forefront of the action. Bible translation needs to happen through the church, and initiated by the church, or it shouldn't and won't happen at all. A large part of current Bible translation strategy is developed around that assumption.

Whether this assumption is correct or not, church history so far leaves very little room for the idea that this has always been the case. Indeed, up to this century, first Bible translations into previously unreached languages have happened in spite of the church, and not usually through the church.

There is, of course, the possibility that church history will not have the last word on this, and that we have reached a new era in which the church rises up to this task and becomes (or even has become) the true driving force in the 21st century Bible translation movement. If so, then indeed it would be prudent to center our strategies around this idea. I submit, though, that this optimism about a new era is quite misplaced, and that there isn't really a lot of evidence that presents the church in a new and much more active role.

What exactly is the church?

You may have noticed already that I didn't use the word church with a capital C, except when referring to a particular name of a specific church. The reason is that I find it very difficult to be clear about what I or others mean when we use the word "the Church". It could be understood in at least one of three different ways:

• The global church, probably the concept most deserving to be written with a capital C. This is the body of believers of which Christ is the Head and which has persevered over two millennia. Christ has given this Church the Great Commission of spreading his Kingdom to the ends of the earth. As we all know too well, this Church has functioned with very differing levels of vitality throughout history, and certainly with quite variable success in fulfilling the Great Commission. If we leave behind the idea of the organized Catholic Church that died at the latest 500 years ago, if not much earlier than that, then there is not much of a structure that we can turn to in order to determine the will of the Church, or to get it to act as a body in a matter such as Bible translation. Though the language of our pronouncements sounds as if it is this level of the global church that we have in mind as driving force of Bible translation, practically we tend to look elsewhere.
• The national church in a country where Bible translation takes place. This can be a fairly easily determined body such as the Church of England, or the Roman Catholic Church during the times of Tyndale or Luther. But nowadays most national church landscapes are rather complex and fragmented. Looking at the national church, we also have the same boundary issues that we'd have with the global church: which denomination or even confession should be counted as part of it? Do we accept Catholics, Orthodox (of many colors), New Apostolics, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses to the table? All of these nowadays work with Bible translations. What about the countless independent churches in some countries, some of which come with rather colorful theologies? Practically, in most countries you can find denominations that are rather supportive of Bible translation, and others that are strongly opposed to it. Plus all the others who are mostly indifferent. If you now work with the two or three denominations that stand behind the idea, are you then indeed working with "the church" of the country?
• The local church of the geographic area into which the Bible is to be translated. Again, this could be a fairly clear-cut body of two or three congregations, or it could be a rather chaotic network of relationships that cut across the language community in many conflicting ways. Whoever was involved in working with local churches can probably confirm that very often they have vastly different interests compared to the national church congregations of which they are part. This can work for the best or for the worst of a translation project, and it is a territory where all people involved usually need to tread very carefully.

I see very little discussion of these various levels of what constitutes the church when Bible translation leaders and decision makers make their strong statements about the great role the church needs to play in Bible translation. In practice, negotiations of resourcing organizations happen with national churches, as they are always the first contact in a country. But it would be overly optimistic that whatever support or goodwill is found on that level will be found on the local level. On the other hand, it would be too pessimistic to assume that all is lost just because the national church congregation doesn't want to play ball. The local church may have a totally different idea. In any case, actions such as a submission of all Bible translation work in a country under a governance that is dominated by the national church may quickly lead to situations where the goals of the national church overrule the needs of Bible translation.

Another complicating factor when talking about "the Church" is that there are also the sending churches of the missionaries and even a growing number of financing churches who want to fund the global Bible translation effort in general. These are usually located continents away, but their contributions are crucial for the success of what happens in the language communities. At the same time, many of the ideas that currently undermine the quality of ongoing Bible translation projects are also developed by this "Western" expression of the Global church, given weight by the money they provide for translation under the condition that things are done according to the ideas of the donors.

What are the goals of the church?

Any church body, no matter on what level, has a number of goals and ends it needs to see through. When this church is well organized, it will have these goals written out in some foundational statement. Some such goals may be to provide a home and a community for the Christians of a specified geographic area, or of an ethnic community. It may be accompanied with a desire for good teaching according to clearly defined theological statements, and with a vision for a sustainable presence in terms of finances, personnel, services, buildings, training institutions and probably many things more. If we are dealing with a very far-sighted church, it will also have developed a vision for implementing the Great Commission, either locally or even with an outreach to other communities.

This needs to be contrasted with the goals and needs of Bible translation. Bible translation comes with a lot of needs in order to achieve a goal that is often not naturally on the list of priorities of an existing church. Any church reached its current state of existence under the current status quo of Bible translation. Particularly when the church is reasonably large there may be a majority of decisionmakers evaluating this status quo as actually quite okay, and any newly proposed translation would therefore have to be justified. Here a national church may quite heavily stand in the way of a Bible translation for minority communities. But also on the local level an existing church may not have much use for a new translation that will be seen as a complication to the co-existence of various linguistic groups in the same church service. Things have been going well without such a translation. Individual pastors or leaders may fear that their position of authority will be challenged, as they will lose any advantage that they had worked hard to achieve. There are many reasons for churches on all levels to be wary of any kind of Bible translation efforts, as they tend to be intruders in a situation that was previously seen as not needing them.

Add to that the many needs accompanying a translation, with a number of people working for many years on the product without being productive in other ways, the need to pay them, the need for people to learn to read and write in a different language, the need to adjust the way to do church services – it becomes clear that a Bible translation is not necessarily seen as a welcome proposal. This should explain some of the resistance that has been offered to Bible translation by the various churches in the course of church history. Unless the church is blessed with a body of decision makers having the most astonishingly clear vision for mission and for God's desire to be truly understood by all people, opposing Bible translation at first sight may be a totally rational and reasonable position.

Looking at the situations where a language community is truly unreached and therefore there is no local church to work with, the "church as driving force of Bible translation" then needs to default to the regional or even national level. Some churches indeed see the opportunity to fulfill the Great Commission in this way, but others may be less excited about this. Others still dream of mission as a way of imposing their own culture and language on this unreached group – yes, I did observe this attitude in places in Africa.

All this should make it clear that it is by no means the most natural idea for a church to become ardent supporters of Bible translation. Yes, we see churches where there is a strong desire to make translation happen, but any assumption that the future of Bible translation will from now on be best left in the hands of the global, national or local church is in my opinion wishful thinking. Even where there is support for Bible translation for a while, it is just as likely to wane when new people come in, or new situations arise, or just a few generations pass by. Churches that in the 17th century warmly welcomed the English King-James version, nowadays as the King-James-Only Movement strongly resist any new English translation. The Lutheran Churches of Germany, for which the use of the Luther translation was part of their DNA, for centuries did nothing to translate the Bible into other languages of Germany, such as Frisian, Sorbian or Romani.

For the past 15 years I observed that the global translation movement attempted to fabricate a stronger support of "the church" for Bible translation by injecting large amounts of money into the national and local churches. It is not surprising that the influx of previously unseen amounts of salaries, structural support and equipment which all are to be absorbed by the participating churches will lead to a quite favorable re-evaluation of the church's stance towards Bible translation for as long as these resources materialize. But there is not much reason to be optimistic that this will lead to a sustainable shift of priorities that will make these churches champions for Bible translation for the long-term future. There are also indications in many places that these large funds are spent in conjunction with strategies that attempt to complete translations in the shortest possible time, which quite often lead to results that will require a revision or even retranslation. It will need to be seen how strong the support of the local churches will remain once the funds and the implementing partners are gone, and the translation left behind does not live up to expectations.

What then is the role of the church? 

As in previous posts, I need to add a disclaimer here, this time to the effect that it is not my desire to sideline the church in Bible translation, so that it should not play a role, and that it shouldn't be a champion for it. Quite to the contrary, having the local and national church behind a project will be a huge advantage to it. The support of the church will make the work go smoother, it can assume and display ownership by contributing to the success of the translation, and it can help the translation to take root in the community. The closer the churches are involved, the better it will be for the project.

But the current Bible translation movement wants to go much further than just securing the support of the church for individual projects. It wants the church to take ownership of the translation movement as such, and therefore wants the locally active participants to submit themselves under the strategic leadership of the churches. This may take shape for example by having translation organizations locally governed by boards that consist of church leaders. In my experience, such locally rooted governance will inevitably bring the goals of Bible translation into competition with the goals and ends of the churches. If the boards are dominated by the churches, then the priorities of the churches will always win out, to the disadvantage of the goals of Bible translation. This is not because these church-representing governors are acting out of bad faith, but because they are pursuing the interests of the churches they represent. They are doing their job, and they should not be blamed for it. As a result, such boards normally agree that Bible Translation as such is desirable, but the many complex questions and processes that surround it are quickly forgotten or misunderstood, and decisions are made with incomplete information or based on unrealistic expectations.

The church is desperately needed for the success of Bible translation. The national and local churches are crucial players that can make or break a translation strategy or a project, so they need to be positively involved. But the job of church leaders is to make their churches reach their goals, and we Bible translation practitioners need to accept that our goals are not necessarily high on their priority lists. It is therefore not moving our goals ahead if we make these church leaders determine our goals. Bible translation will be more successful when its goals remain determined internally and then form the basis of contact, negotiation and interaction with the church on all levels. I will pursue this thought further in the post on Bible translation and para-church organizations (still to be written).