mative action in California. Predictal^K-,rnthe CCRI and its authors have becomernthe target of vicious attacks by blacks andrnliberals, in the grip of a collective hysteriarnnot seen since the publication of ThernBell Curve.rnAccording to the Contra Costa Timesrnon October 7, Fred Jordan, the head ofrnthe California Business Council of Organizationsrnfor Equal Opportunity, warnsrnthat the state will suffer economicallyrnif voters dare to endorse the measure.rnBlacks who work for big corporations,rnJordan says, “might use their influencernto dissuade them from coming to thernGolden State” to hold conventions. Thernsame issue reports that an activistrnnamed Arnoldo Torres is sponsoringrnthree initiatives of his own aimed at protectingrnaffirmative action.rnAs reports in the Sacramento Bee makernclear, the California Democratic Partyrnhas been at the forefront of the attacksrnon professors Custred and Wood. Thernattacks are invariabh’ personal. Bill Press,rnchairman of the state party, says thatrn”They are tools of the Republican Partvrnand they’re probably too dumb to knowrnthey are being used.” A May 17 editorialrnin the Bee blasted Bob Mulholland, anrnadvisor to the state part), for saying “hernintends to ‘research’ Wood and Custredrn. . . to determine ‘if they ever paid theirrntaxes, inappropriately touched studentsrnor [have] ever been involved in lawsuits.’rn. . . Mulholland says that such research isrna standard part of the political process.”rnBut the most interesting remarksrncome from Willie Brown, speaker emeritusrnof the California State Assembly.rnSpeaking before a mob of mostly blackrnand Latino students on the Haywardrncampus of Cal State Uniersity, wherernProfessor Custred teaches. Brown urgedrnhis audience to take Custred’s class.rn”You ought to do what you do best,rnto terrorize professors you don’t like,”rnhe said. If the students follow his advice.rnBrown assured them, “I guarantee [Custred]rnwill be a basket case by the end ofrnthe term.”rnThough its influence may be waningrnalmost everywhere, the left can stillrnmuster its forces to harass, threaten, andrnintimidate. Unfortunately for the left,rnmost Californians are implacabl hostilernto affirmative action and the ideologyrnbehind it. According to a field poll conductedrnin September, almost 60 percentrnof Golden State voters who have heardrnof the initiative are in fa’or of it. If thisrnfigure is broken dov’n along part}’ lines,rnthe results are surprising: about threefourthsrnof Republicans support thernCCRI, and no fewer than 41 percent ofrnDemocrats side with them.rnThe racial l)reakdown is interesting,rntoo. About two-thirds of white males arernbehind the initiative, and it enjoys thernbacking of some 44 percent of Latinos.rnWhile most blacks decry the measure asrnracist, about one in four of them endorsesrnit. (This isn’t the first sign that the leftrncan no longer depend on black supportrnon any racial issue. According to the Decemberrn6, 1994, issue of the VillagernVoice, about half of California’s blacksrnvoted for Proposition 187.)rnDespite the acrimony of the left-wingrnactivists, the CCRI may yet have a fightingrnchance. “To our knowledge,” saysrnCustred in the August 8 Sacramento Bee,rn”no significant portion of the Americanrnelectorate has yet been given a chance tornvote its conscience” on affirmativernaction. Until now. Although Custredrnand Wood hae managed to raisern$450,000, they still need to cough up anotherrnmillion dollars to get their initiativernon the November 1996 ballot.rnThose who would like to help their campaignrnmay write to CCRI, P.O. Boxrn67278, Los Angeles, CA 90067.rn—Michael WashburnrnOXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS,rnperhaps the most prestigious EaiglishlanguagernBible publisher (although farrnfrom the largest), brought out The NewrnTestament and Psalms: An Inclusive Versionrnon September 11. After “more thanrnfive years of steady work,” the editors,rnaccording to Oxford University PressrnSenior Editor for Bibles Donald Kraus,rnsought “to expand the richness andrndeepen the expressiveness of a text thatrnis already very familiar to many readers.”rnThe text is a revision, or perhaps better,rna distortion, of the already politicallyrncorrect New Revised Standard Version.rnIt must be rather humiliating to therneditors who worked steadily for five yearsrnto have produced the same product thatrna college newspaper editor armed with arnmanual of politically correct “inclusive”rnlanguage could have generated in a fewrnweeks. The NRSV sought to make allrnreferences to human beings unisex andrnwas even reluctant to admit that JesusrnChrist was a man. Thus it edits one ofrnthe classic confessional statements ofrnScripture, which speaks of “One mediatorrnbetween God and men, the manrnChrist Jesus,” to read “One mediator betweenrnCod and humanity, Christ Jesus,rnhimself human” (I Timothy 2:5), Althoughrnthis is not, strictly speaking, arngross mistranslation, it does change thernnuances and suggests unorthodox views:rn”Betveen God and men” reflects the familiarrnidea that individuals must comernto God in repentance, becoming disciplesrnand being baptized, whereas “humanity”rnmight suggest universalism, thernredemption of all humans qua humans.rnPerhaps the more dangerous error insinuatedrnby dropping the noun “man” andrnsubstituting the generic “human” in adjectivernform is not a loss of the realityrnthat Jesus was a man (male of the humanrnspecies), but a loss of the fact that he wasrna real, historic, individual human (man),rnnot a generic human. “Christ Jesus,rnhimself human” instead of “the manrnChrist Jesus” adulterates the biblical andrncreedal confession that the Son (the secondrnPerson of the Godhead, according tornChristian doctrine) not onh “becamernflesh,” but also was “made man,” a completernhuman being, and as it happens,rnfor whatever reason it may have pleasedrnGod, one of the male sex.rnNevertheless, the NRSV retained traditionalrnlanguage for the deity Himselfrnand did not venture to edit the wordsrnused by Jesus in addressing God in thernmost familiar of all Christian prayers,rnknown as “the Lord’s Prayer” and “thernOur Father.” “Our Father” becomesrn”our I’^ather-Mother,” a grotesquerndistortion of the words of Jesus and onernthat can hardly be considered anythingrnelse but blasphemous. The expressionrn”Lord” is used in the Hebrew Scripturesrnas the normal way to refer to the sacredrnName, the Tetragrammaton YHWH, inrnorder to avoid the danger of taking thatrnName in vain. It is also used in the greatrnconfession of the first Christians, “Jesusrnis Lord.” “Lord,” however, must berndropped from the newest (per)version ofrnthe Bible because, according to the editors,rnit suggests a ruling class of lords,rnwhich of course our modern democraticrnworld cannot accept. To be consistent,rnof course, one would also have to rejectrnGod Himself, in order not to have to acknowledgernHim as “Ruler of All.” Oxford’srnsubstitute, “All-Highest,” is alsorninferior, suggesting an attribute or arnqualitv rather than the personal God, thernGod of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.rnAffirmation of “diversitv” of all kindsrnrequires such idiocies as the eliminationrnof “the right hand of the Majestv onrn6/CHRONICLESrnrnrn