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Lost in Translation?
Abstract: A reader submits textual evidence.
Some of our readers (you know who you are) read everything. This past week we received email with the subject "Lost in Translation?" from one such reader. The email asked us to consider two statements:
Statement 1: Today's momentous actions by the ELCA Church Council guarantee that for the first time in the history of our church a recommendation for the elimination of the policy of discrimination against ministers in same-gender relationships will come to the floor of the ELCA Churchwide Assembly from the churchwide organization itself. The Church Council has acted for justice.
Statement 2: Views within the ELCA run the gamut. But the documents and motions being presented by the Task Force for ELCA Studies on Sexuality and the ELCA Church Council take no position — rather, a middle ground.
According to our correspondent, both of these statements have been attributed to our friend Emily Eastwood, Executive Director of Lutherans Concerned North America (LCNA). Statement 1 appears in a March 29 LCNA Press Release titled ELCA Church Council recommends rostering changes that allow ministers in committed same-gender relationships. Statement 2 is appears in Not Them And Us in the My View column of the July, 2009 issue of The Lutheran.
Our correspondent comments:
No translator is credited for the article in The Lutheran, but textual evidence (e.g. the striking lack of similarity between the two statements cited) indicates that something must have gone awry in the preparation of this text. Furthermore, the failure to distinguish between neutrality ("take no position") and a centrist stance ("middle ground") suggests either that the translator was not a native speaker of Ms. Eastwood's dialect or that translation software was used.
