Some people are offended when pronouns for God aren’t capitalized, but for unbelievers, seekers, and new Christians, capitalization can make the reading more difficult.
Many churchgoers grew up under a religious tradition suggesting that God would be unhappy if you didn’t capitalize his pronouns. On the other hand, many others don’t understand why a sentence containing He, His, and Him is starting to look like a ransom note. Should you capitalize or not? Well, it depends.
If you’re self-publishing, you can do what you want. When editing or writing for others, you do what they want. Just be sure to be consistent, which is easy if you’re not capitalizing and really tough if you are.
Capitalizing the pronouns can be an editor’s nightmare as you try to catch every occurrence that applies to God, Jesus, or the Holy Spirit , not only for he, but also for him, his, himself, you, your, who, whom, and one.
The Chicago Manual of Style and The Christian Writers Manual of Style says not to capitalize. Most of the modern Bible translation editions don’t capitalize, including the ASV, CEV, ESV, GWN, KJV, MSG, NCV, NET, NIV, NLT, NRS, RSV, TEV, TLB, and TNIV. If you choose to capitalize and use one of many popular translations that don’t capitalize, you face an inconsistency, because the style of your text won’t match the style of the Bible quotations.
Whether you capitalize or not, be sure the context makes clear who the pronoun refers to. Never expect readers to know you’re talking about God merely from capitalizing the pronoun. Obviously, every sentence beginning with “He” doesn’t refer to God. To avoid confusing readers, make the antecedent clear.
