Posted on 12/13/2019 11:56:40 AM PST by xzins
JD Greear, Pastor of The Summit Church and the current President of the Southern Baptist Convention, explained his position on how Christians should address transgendered people during a recent podcast.
Greear raised some eyebrows but claiming he’d address folks with their “preferred pronoun.”
J.D. Greear, current SBC president: "If a transgender person, you know, came into our church, came into my life, I think my disposition would be to refer to them by their preferred pronoun." 😮https://t.co/sbbaTromvc
— Gus in Memphis (@F3_Gus) November 22, 2019 Chick-fil-A’s Dan Cathy Issues Blunt Response to Accusations of Caving to LGBTQ Activists
This advice, of course, caused some to express dismay that a pastor and leader in the church of Greear’s stature would consider disregarding the gender given to a person by their Creator.
Many Christians are conflicted between which Christian stance is best employed in this increasingly common scenario. Should one, in a “spirit of generosity” use the person’s preferred pronoun, as a courtesy and sign of respect? Or should one simply tell the truth?
ADVERTISEMENT Greear, in the podcast description, explains which approach he prefers:
I tend toward generosity of spirit.
Andrew Walker: “My own position is that if a transgender person comes to your church, it is fine to refer to them by their preferred pronoun. .. If and when this person desires greater involvement or membership in the church, a church leader will need to meet with them and talk about how they identify. … The best solution is to avoid pronouns altogether if possible. Calling a person by their legal name or preferred name is more acceptable because names are not objectively gendered, but change from culture to culture.”
Best if you use the proper name over and over, even if it means it sounds weird
Greear went on to explain why he feels using “pronoun hospitality” is the best approach, and even went so far as to say it’s biblically supported by Acts 17:
Preston Sprinkle, who heads up The Center for Faith, Sexuality, and Gender, has a similar approach:He calls it “pronoun hospitality.”
The Bible appears to use accommodating language. ACTS 17. We know there is only one God.
You might find a correlation in “wives” in polygamous society / to a divorced man: “your adulteress”
I wouldn’t invest too much into language–”oh, I am lying” You can be clear in other ways.
“I’ll argue in this paper that the most biblical response to transgender people’s pronouns is a posture of unequivocal pronoun hospitality.”
That is, I believe that all Christians can and should use pronouns that reflect the expressed gender identities of transgender people, regardless of our views about gender identity ethics. If a person identifies herself to you as ‘she,’ I hope you will consider it an act of Christ-like love to call her ‘she’ out of respect, whether or not you believe that the way she expresses her gender identity is honoring to God” (11.1).
Of course, as Christians, we want to be as charitable as possible while at the same time not contributing to a societal issue that is causing great confusion and distress among an increasing number of Americans.
Using a person’s name, as Greear suggests even when it’s awkward, may be a good landing place for any Christian struggling with trying to be hospitable yet unwavering to the truth.
How about just “You”?
Wow...not the Southern Baptists I used to know.
And now the Baptists are going wobbly? WTH is going on around here?
Hey Mr. President! F@ggots in dresses are mentally ill, and you do no one any favors by indulging them in their delusion.
What if someone identifies as the Queen of England and demands that you call them Your Royal Majesty?
Or they identify as Vlad the Impaler and demand that you call them Prince Dracula?
Ed
Enabling delusions is not true compassion.
AND NOT
If a person identifies himself to you as ‘she,’ I hope you will consider it an act of Christ-like love to call him ‘she’ out of respect, whether or not you believe that the way he expresses his gender identity is honoring to God” (11.1).
FIXED IT!
Sounds like SBC leadership is out of touch with the people in the pews. This is becoming an all too familiar dynamic. To whom is the leadership accountable?
I think doing this is to deny what God created.
Oh, wait, the leader of the SOUTHERN BAPTISTS said that?
Hmmmm. Well...
Nothing to see here, move along.
This is why the Muslims are winning. They stand up for their beliefs.
Idiot. Or is it Itiodit..or perhaps femidiot?
Sadly, the infection of western churches is widespread and growing.
They have a female pastor in the SBC, iirc, who is pushing this. Can’t recall her name.
That whole sentence I wrote just above blows my mind compared to the SBC I grew up with.
BillyBoy, this guy is a fraud. People should leave the Southern Baptist denomination too because of this and other abominations
Jesus exited a corrupt religious institution, so should we!
“How about just “You”?”
Or in other contexts “the person”
To MY simplistic, parochial, not terribly erudite mind; their basic problem isn’t pronouns. Their life paradigm is out of kilter because they haven’t arrived at a proper relationship with their Creator and Savior. My obligation in Christ is to do my best to love them to Christ, if they’ll let me. Once they see their need of Christ, and invite Him into their heart and life, the Word and the indwelling Holy Spirit will go to work in them to bring them into the likeness of God’s Dear Son, per Romans 8. It’s not our job to change them. We just help them find their way to the One who CAN. And know at the head end, that many will NOT respond as we’d hope; because they’re locked into their OWN schtick. Even Christ lost approximately 8.5% of His handpicked staff.
How you refer to the person in the moment isn’t so important, what is important is to keep your eye on the ball. They are where they are because they do not know who they are in Christ, they don’t know who God intended them to be, and who they can still be once God takes up residence in them. So don’t seek offense but don’t feed delusion... There is stuff going on that only God can heal... but which God can and will heal.
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