Talking Points: Dad, should we use pronouns?
The Cultural Challenge
Cultural support for preferred pronouns has been growing rapidly (as summarized here).
Merriam-Webster awarded the singular pronoun they word of the year in 2019.
Lawsuits have recently been filed against people who refused to use a transgender person’s pronouns.
24 US states have introduced legislation this year to regulate pronoun usage in schools.
The National Institutes of Health has declared, “Intentional refusal to use someone’s correct pronouns is equivalent to harassment and a violation of one’s civil rights.”
This reflects an ongoing trend in Western culture that increasingly denigrates the body’s importance for defining our identity while inner feelings are privileged.
A hundred years ago, a feeling of being trapped in a wrong-gendered body would be treated with psychology; now it’s treated with surgery.
The body, like all external institutions, is given less authority to define identity.
People have started looking inwards instead to define themselves.
The Underlying Theological Issue
Today, “our words create our identities rather than reflect them” (Katie McCoy).
People attempt to ground their gender identities in language rather than bodily sex, which leads to this fixation on words (Abigail Favale).
But only God can create reality with words (Gen. 1; John 1:1).
Our task is to use words to reflect his creative work as Adam does (Gen 2:19–20).
The sexed difference between bodies is important in Christian faith.
God creates humanity as male and female (Gen 1:27) and Adam becomes conscious of who he is when he sees himself in contrast to Eve (Gen 2:23).
A bodily distinction in the context of bodily presence
The Bible doesn’t teach that we are a kind of spooky thing called a soul that dwells within the body like a spacesuit.
It teaches from Genesis onward that we are body and soul and our bodies are critical to who we are.
We will live eternally in physical resurrected bodies like Jesus’s (Philippians 3:20-21; Luke 24:39).
The Biblical Solution
Reflecting the importance of the body and God’s creation of humans in two sexes, the Bible expects people to express the gender that fits their bodily sex (see Deuteronomy 22:5; 1 Corinthians 11:3–16 and Dad, are boys and girls the same?)
Yet, in a fallen world, some people will struggle to live in accordance with their bodies, and, very rarely, the sex of some bodies will be difficult to discern (called “intersex”).
Christians are “uniquely equipped to handle suffering well, and to help others to do the same” (Andrew Bunt).
We worship a God who suffered in a human body and who loved people who experienced all types of suffering, from the physical to the spiritual.
Jesus also described himself as “the truth” and never lied, even in the pursuit of love (John 14:6; 8:45).
You should “love your neighbor” (Leviticus 19:18), but we should also “reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him” (Leviticus 19:17).
Love is expressed in leading your neighbor to the truth.
Love “does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth” (1 Corinthians 13:6).
Application
As Christians, our first instinct should always be love.
We should never treat a person as a political debate.
But, “Christian ethics assert that it is never loving to aid and abet a friend or family member who is in error, confusion, or sin—whether intentional or unintentional.” (Andrew Walker).
Using pronouns is buying into a philosophy that separates who people are from their bodies, to a faulty anthropology.
It encourages people who are already hurting down a road that leads to increased physical, emotional, and spiritual pain.
Yet, thorny issues often arise (see Practically, what should I encourage my kids to do if asked to use pronouns? in key questions).
Our kids are being asked to take stands we never had to take, which could cost them a lot and never cost us anything.
Though Christians disagree, so we should be charitable, preferred pronouns are best avoided (see Do Christians disagree on this issue? in key questions).
Proper names are less problematic because names are arbitrary.
We should model grace AND truth: “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person” (Colossians 4:6).
But we cannot deny God’s good created design or give approval to those who do (Romans 1:32).
