Naming may have a certain ambiguity and arbitrariness to it, but the language of he and she, preferred pronouns and the use of bathrooms and hotel rooms does not. And I will draw a line and say, I will not call he “she.” I will not call she “he.”
One of the reasons why the professing Christian Church is weak and powerless in 2019 is because most Christians do not know Bible doctrine, if they do they do not know how to rightly divide, and the vast majority of the Christians I come in contact with have little to no discernment. Because of these factors,
as we pointed out in last night's Bible study on the same subject, the LGBTQ+ has been able to make incredible strides in taking power of our national narrative and steering it to where they want it to go. This is possible because we are no longer in the Philadelphia Church Age but rather the Laodicean one, and I don't know about you, but it's really starting to wear on me pretty good. Let's talk about preferred pronouns.
"This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come." 2 Timothy 3:1 (KJV)
The Transgender Agenda is sucking all the oxygen out of the room lately, as they are now the driving force in the LGBTQ+P for Pedophile Movement, and Christians are confused and bewildered on how they should act when having to interact with them. The current president of the Southern Baptist Convention, an apostate named JD Greear, recently gave an interview where he suggested that Christians use something he calls '
pronoun hospitality', and call them by whatever they identify as. Greear even tries the drag the Bible into his theological nightmare by suggesting that Paul would be accommodating to the transgender and call them by their preferred pronouns. Let me assure you that the apostle Paul would do no such thing.
We should love the lost souls of
the LGBTQ+ Movement, without question, almost all of us have a gay or transgender relative. All Christians are called to love the lost no matter their sin, and to be a witness to them of the
transforming power of the gospel of the grace of God. But we are never called to
confirm people in their sin, and as such, there is a line that needs to be drawn. It is impossible to change your gender, a person who is born male remains male no matter what surgeries, creams, lotions, hormones or clothing they apply to their situation. A transgender 'woman' is still a man, and nothing exists anywhere in the world, at the moment, that can change that. Preferred pronouns are all part of the intentional confusion they are trying to draw you, the Christian, into. The transgender will tell you that using their preferred pronouns is a form of "respect and validation", but it is no such thing. it's mental illness.
I know that this article will fall on mostly deaf ears as
the Laodicean Church in general has no desire to be anything other than lukewarm. It looks at
Kanye West and cannot discern that is a deception, so they call him a 'baby christian' and allow him to earn $170 million in 6 weeks in album sales. It looks at
the Chick-fil-A betrayal and says "Franklin Graham told me Chick-fil-A hasn't change and I believe him!". This is
Franklin Graham. So I don't expect that with preferred pronouns most Christians will be able to figure this one out, either. But here's to hoping.
How Should I Refer to Transgender Friends?
FROM DESIRING GOD: Manhood and womanhood, our sex, are intended in the Bible — that is, intended by God our Creator — to be biologically or genetically identified. Of course, the biblical authors didn’t know anything about genetics, but I am throwing it in because we know genetics, and it is in sync with biology, which they did know.
“Manhood and womanhood are glorious realities that transcend biology, but are never to be severed from biology.”
There is vastly more to the meaning of manhood and womanhood than biology and genetics in the way we relate to each other, but not less. In other words, manhood and womanhood are glorious, personal realities that transcend genetics and biology, but are never intended to be severed from biology. One of the clearest ways to see this reality in the Bible is to see the many references to “male child” or “female child.” I looked them up just to make sure. This fact is so obvious that people wonder, Why are you even arguing? But we need to.
In other words, before children were old enough to express any gender-specific behaviors or desires or preferences, they were identified as male and female. And this identity defined their lives — for example, sometimes in matters of inheritance and other ways. There is no thought in the Bible of the possibility that the sex (biologically identified) could change because its rooted in biology.
Therefore, when Genesis 1:27 says, “God created us male and female,” there is every reason to think that this included our biological, genetic nature at the root of all the other transcendent aspects of male and female personhood. So we have a pervasive, biblical warrant to say that God wills for our sexual identity to be of one piece with our biological, genetic identity. Now that is my biblical premise.
Rare Cases
Let me just mention an exception. We all know that there are very, very rare situations of heart-breaking biological anomalies where the anatomical sexual organs are ambiguous or compromised. In those cases, we face very unusual challenges. If I were a parent to a child who was born in that situation, I think I would ask for genetic testing (which you couldn’t do generations ago) and opt for surgery that suits the child best for what his genetics say he or she is, and then raise him or her with that expectation.
But that is very, very rare. And we are talking mainly here about clearly identifiable sexual organs at birth through life that should define the trajectory of the sexual and gender life and understanding.
Now how does all that play out in our culture? Even short of surgery we are being asked in Minnesota to treat boys as girls who want to be treated as girls and vice versa so that it determines what team they play on in high school — the girls’ team or the boys’ team — what locker room they use, and what restrooms they use. We are being asked to call Bob “Mary” and Sally “Jim.” This will make obedience to Jesus in the coming days increasingly costly for us. So now, finally, here are my three guidelines:
Should I Call Her Jim?
(1) In one sense the names Sally or Jim are culturally arbitrary. We can name our kids whatever we want. We can name them after cars or planets or Greek virtues or Grandma. Calling someone by that arbitrary name their parents chosen or the one they choose halfway through life may not imply agreement with all that that name was created to signify by the person.
So if I had a neighbor next door to me, which this is very feasible, who was biologically male, and everybody knew it, and he introduced himself to me as Sally — if I met him for the first time, and I saw him the next day, I might avoid calling him anything, but I would probably default to Sally. I probably would until there was a relationship that would go deeper to see whether I could be of any help. So that is one concession I am going to make because of the arbitrary nature of names. And then it is going to get a little more dicey and divisive.
(2) However, if in the office where we worked, I was compelled to identify every so-called transgender person by the pronoun they preferred in all of my emails, or conversations — suppose in emails and conversations I had used “she” for he or “he” for she — or I would get disciplined in the office, at that point I would say to my superiors, I cannot treat he’s as she’s and she’s as he’s.
“I will draw a line and say that I will not call he ‘she.’ I will not call she ‘he.’”
I cannot buy the whole package. I would be lying to call a he a “she.” I am not lying to call a male “Sally.” That is a culturally arbitrary, weird fluke. But I am lying if I say about a true Jim who wants to be called Sally, “she.” And it would be contrary to my understanding of sexuality and I would start looking for another job.
(3) The same thing applies to bathrooms, locker rooms, and hotel rooms where women identify as men or vice versa. I would refuse to have a roommate who said she was a man, even though I share a room in my travels with my assistant all the time. He is a man, and I know he is a man, and that is a perfectly normal thing to do. But if they insisted that I share the same bathroom, share the same locker room, or share the same hotel room, I am looking for another job.
So in summary, then, the question is: Are we forced to call them a name that they prefer, which I am probably going to submit to in the short run at least, or are we forced to identify them as a different sex than they really are? Naming may have a certain ambiguity and arbitrariness to it, but the language of he and she and the use of bathrooms and hotel rooms does not. And I will draw a line and say, I will not call he “she.” I will not call she “he.” And I will not intrude on the sexual privacy of a person of the opposite sex, or walk into a situation where they would intrude upon mine.
READ MORE
Preferred Pronouns And Transgender Confusion
If you want to know how crazy things have gotten with preferred pronouns and the transgender movement, watch this video.
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