When is heaven capitalized

And, as we point out in the post, not even all Bibles capitalize these terms! Thus, it would be wrong to say they need to be capitalized as standard. Scott Moore. What if I am using the term "Christian" as an adjective, as in "John did it because of his Christian values? Hi, Scott. Gigi Galliani. When using reverential capitalization, should adjectives and nouns in reference to God follow suit? Ex: "Christ is the only and ultimate judge".

Hi, Gigi. To some extent it is a matter of personal preference assuming you're not using a specific style guide , but it would be unusual to capitalize adjectives or other modifiers. What about terms like "Passion" referring to the passion of Christ leading up to his crucifixion , or "Ascension"?

Would these be capitalized in an MLA formatted paper? Hi, Jeremy. I don't believe that MLA style has any guidelines on the capitalization of religious terms in particular. I would suggest capitalizing them for clarity if necessary e. And they are functioning as proper nouns i. But it is ultimately a matter of preference as long as you pick a clear and consistent style of capitalization. Melody Banks. Hi, Melody. This would fall under the general category of reverential capitalization, but there are no universal rules for this.

Many people capitalize the "Holy" in terms like "the Holy Spirit" and "the Holy Bible," and while "Holy God" seems less common, this is ultimately a matter of preference unless you or your organisation has a style guide you're following, in which case it might have guidelines on capitalization you can use.

What about the word scripture? I thought that if you say the Scriptures, it will be capitalized, but what about "through the encouragement of scripture" is scripture capitalized in the latter case? Hi, Kellie. As with most cases of reverential capitalization, this is largely a matter of preference.

Most writers would capitalize "Scripture" if they were using it as a synonym for "Bible" e. But it isn't necessary to capitalize it in other cases, and doing so might look slightly old-fashioned to some readers. I looked up the word Requiem in the Webster dictionary and it was capitalized. I was surprised. From my understanding of capitalizing of religious words, the keep it simple, if they refer to or are used in a religious context or are proper religious nouns, one would capitalize.

Requiem is not strictly a religious word. Your thoughts? Mozart's Requiem in D minor , and it would be standard to capitalize it in those cases. Can you think of examples where it has a non-religious usage? Perhaps if you were using it to refer to a piece of music used to honor the dead in a non-Christian context? Or even if referring to musical compositions in general rather than one particular piece? There's room for flexibility here at least, as long as you use a consistent style of capitalization for similar usages of the word.

Joanna Jablonska. When writing about religious sisters and referring to them indirectly, should 'sisters' be written with an upper or lower case letter? Obviously, if I were referring to a particular order of nuns, I would write: "The Ursuline Sisters", for instance, but if I was saying: "The sisters then went into the chapel", I'm suddenly not sure if it should be a capital 's' or not.

I've just translated a story into English. The story also refers to a number of sisters from the same family , so I also want to distinguish between birth sisters and fellow nuns. As a Catholic, I should know, but am suddenly unsure which to use. Hi, Joanna. The conventional rule would be only to capitalize "Sister" when it functions as part of a proper noun e.

There is some room for flexibility, though, in a creative writing context. Thus, if you're worried about the ambiguity of "sister" in parts of the story and it isn't clear which you mean from the context, it might make sense to capitalize "Sister" and "Sisters" when referring to nuns. The key will be making sure to apply the capitalization consistently. Jeannie Taljard. In the sentence "We christened her Lucy", should "christened" be capitalized?

Hi, Jeannie. Please tell me is this is the proper way to write this sentence: Follower of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Hi, Sheri. That isn't a full sentence it looks like an appositive phrase , but if you're referring to the capitalization in particular, we can only point you to the advice in this post: you would not need to capitalize words like "Lord" and "Savior" in most contexts, and if you're using a specific style guide it is worth checking for advice on reverential capitalization, but otherwise it's a matter of choice.

If you want to capitalize "Lord" and "Savior" to clarify that they refer to Jesus, feel free, but since you name Jesus explicitly as well it would still be clear without the non-standard capitals. Should confirmation be capitalised such as "there was a confirmation service"? Hi, Alain. Should Law of Moses or Mosaic Law be capitalized as such? Or would law of Moses and Mosaic law be better?

Hi, Riley. There is room for variation here. To my mind, they are proper nouns i. And if you follow that conclusion, "Law of Moses" and "Mosaic Law" would be most appropriate. However, it may depend on how and where you are using these terms e. Ultimately, then, it's a matter of preference. If you're using a specific style guide or writing for a specific publication, you might want to check for further advice.

Otherwise, though, you can pick the approach you think works best. Just make sure to apply capitalization consistently! And lo, the proofreader corrected the spelling and the grammar, and she did separate sentence from sentence with proper punctuation. For six days she did this, and on the seventh day she did this also, for she worked freelance and could not afford to rest. Capitalisation can be tricky with some religious words. And while most people know to capitalise names of religions e.

Buddhism , Islam , Christianity , other terms are not so straightforward. Take heaven and hell , for example. Or should that be Heaven and Hell? Some style guides give advice on this, but they do not all agree. A good rule is to capitalise Heaven and Hell when they are used as proper nouns i.

Here, Heaven is a proper noun and is therefore capitalised. But this is not always the case. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. When it refers to the sole or main deity of a monotheistic or quasi-monotheistic religion, God should be capitalised. This is because it is a proper noun in such cases i. What about secular sources? Well, when I used Grammarly to look over this article, it flagged at least one use of uncapitalized heaven as a possible error.

Do you reject Satan? And all his empty promises? And do you refuse to capitalize the name of the place where he lives? The style an author uses says a lot about them, or at least about the tone they intend with that particular work. I see it frequently.

O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended you, and I detest all my sins because I dread the loss of Heaven and the pains of hell. But nor am I here to judge. As Grammar Girl says in her TED talk , we are the ones who vote on new words and new styles, and we do it by using some and ignoring others.

I love this, so much! Thanks for the kind words, Kristin! Thank you! Congratulations on your new blog. Looks like it is off to a good start! Oh this was a delight to read!

Thanks for such an in-depth look at the issue. And I heartily agree with your closing comment. Capitalizing that common noun accomplishes the same thing as capitalizing pronouns: it reinforces the narrative that Yahweh is the only deity. And I agree with you on the Oxford comma. Surely hell should be reserved for those who capitalize rather than capitalise.

Actually, someone told me that the former is also correct but it looks so ugly that it never should be allowed. Someone should labour to change it.