About
Built so you never have to take our word for it.
SpiritualTranslations is a small team with one conviction: in the age of abundant AI, the scarce thing worth building on is being trustworthy about meaning.
Where this began
The same answer at every booth
Parliament of the World's Religions, Chicago, 2023. Our founder walked the exhibition hall booth to booth, past publishers, societies, seminaries, interfaith organizations, asking the same question: why aren't your books in more languages? The answer never varied: cost. A professional translation of a single book runs into the thousands of dollars. For most communities, that means it never happens.
So the books that help people live their traditions, the commentaries, study guides, devotionals, stay locked in one language, generation after generation. Not for lack of translators, but for lack of economics that work.
AI changed the economics. It didn't change the accountability problem: who says the translation is right? SpiritualTranslations was founded to answer that question.
Mission funded by mission
SpiritualTranslations is wholly owned by WMOJ, a ministry, and supported by The Center for Unity. There are no outside investors and no growth-at-any-cost mandate. Revenue funds the mission: more translation, for more traditions, at prices that widen the door.
The ownership matters more than it looks. A translation company whose owners push for maximum profit will sooner or later cut the corner that betrays its customers. Ours has no such owners. Everything flows to the mission.
The people
Small on purpose
A lean core, plus a bench of expert linguists engaged per tradition, who appear in every report by initials and credentials.
Gabriel Rymberg
Founder & Quality Assurer
Translator and software architect. Led the Hebrew translation of The Urantia Book. Signs every Assurance Report as the named Quality Assurer. Based in Israel.
Fraser Gorrie
Lead Developer
MSc Zoology, University of Toronto, and 44 years of independent software development. Designed and built the SPT translation system, and previously translated DiscoverJesus.com end-to-end. Based in Hamilton, Canada.
Judi Valentine
Market Development
Published novelist and PhD in clinical nutrition. Leads market discovery and customer voice through commercial launch.
Joel Garbon
Advisor
Connector across the faith-publishing community. Advises on partner relationships.
Byron Belitsos
Strategic Advisor
M.A. in systematic theology, Union Theological Seminary. Founder and publisher of Origin Press, winner of Nautilus and Eric Hoffer Awards. His own books have been translated into several languages.
The long view
Where this is going
Our five-year direction, stated in the open like everything else. AI making translation nearly free isn't our threat. It's our raw material. When anyone can produce a translation, someone still has to be accountable for whether it's right.
Today
The agency
We translate and vet spiritual books. Every job compounds three assets: expert-approved terminology, a public track record, and the written reasons behind contested decisions.
Next
The certifier
We check and vouch for translations no matter who produced them, the way a kosher agency vouches for food it didn't cook. As AI floods the world with unvouched text, that service grows more necessary, not less.
Later
The steward
We maintain each tradition's reference library and terminology standard, and serve it to readers, publishers, and their AIs alike, year after year.
Judgment, accountability, and a shared reference are what stay scarce when intelligence is abundant. That's what we sell: today as a translation, eventually as an institution.
The standard
Our commitments
The bar this site, and every report we sign, is held to:
- 1.We claim only what evidence supports, and we state the limits of the evidence.
- 2.We never imply a human read every word when one didn't. The report says exactly who checked what.
- 3.We name no client or partner without their consent, even when naming them would help us.
- 4.Our terminology stays faith-neutral. We serve traditions, we don't rank them.
- 5.When we err, we correct in the open: files re-issued, record annotated, client told.
Be early to something careful.
We're early, and small on purpose: a handful of projects, taken on with care, while we measure the method in the open. The people who talk to us now will shape what this becomes. Bring your questions and your doubts. Or bring a book you already paid to translate and see how we compare.