…unless your preferred pronouns align with your DNA.
Last week, Fox News host Sean Hannity interviewed “Caitlyn Jenner” and described the Olympic champion-turned reality TV star-turned transgender “woman”-turned California gubernatorial candidate using Jenner’s preferred pronouns. Hannity opened his show that night with: “And welcome to Hannity. Now, in just mere moments, California gubernatorial candidate Caitlyn Jenner will join us for her first exclusive interview.” (Emphasis added.)
After showing Jenner’s campaign video, Hannity said, “So, just how will Caitlyn restore that California dream, and can she actually beat the state’s very powerful Democratic machine?” (Fox News, by the way, is all in when it comes to using politically correct pronouns.)
There’s been much discussion about the violence being done to the English language in pursuit of politically correct pronouns, as well as the embarrassment the scientific community has become in its quest to appease transgender revolutionaries. In some circles there are ongoing, and often contentious discussions about how to respond to those who claim a gender that’s not in alignment with his or her biology. Should we use the person’s birth name and the pronouns aligning with his or her biological gender or use the ones that conform to the individual’s trans “identity,” e.g. calling the person formerly knows as Bruce Jenner “Caitlyn” and referring to him with feminine pronouns? Some say that, out of respect or compassion, we should call these individuals whatever they want to be called, the English language and biology be damned.
After much thought and research on the biblical view of gender, among other things, I’ve come down on the side of not using the preferred pronouns of transgender persons. Doing so would violate my conscience. Here’s why:
First, the Bible is very clear about God’s design for men and women, beginning “in the beginning” of the book of Genesis, where God says, “Male and female he created them.” Jesus echoes the inspired words of Genesis in the Gospel of Mark, declaring, “But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’”
To deny one’s immutable gender—something that’s ordained by God from the moment of conception—is to call God a liar. It’s a rebellion against the creation order, where every cell and strand of every human’s DNA screams “male” or “female,” regardless of one’s feelings or emotions. No amount of surgery or Photoshopping can change the way God created each and every one of us when he “knit us together” in our mothers’ wombs.
Those advocating for full acceptance of transgender delusions would have us believe that humankind has, since the beginning of time, been wrong to accept the existence of a gender binary. Only now, in the 21st century, are we enlightened enough to reject what’s plain to the human eye—that from birth we are either male or female. Now, we have reality TV stars (rocket scientists all) and “social scientists” to set the record straight about gender. Are you going to believe the enlightened ones or your lying eyes? That these fabulists must resort to the use of government force and threats of unemployment and social ostracism to get people to go along with their fool’s paradise gives away the game.
I cannot, in good conscience, participate in delusions that proclaim or promote other than what God has unequivocally declared about gender.
Further, referring to those with male DNA coursing through their bodies and referring to them with feminine pronouns is, simply, a lie. Not just a little white lie, but a WHOPPER that turns the notion of truth on its head. The wokes and postmoderns have spent an incalculable amount of time and energy over the last several decades asking, as the serpent in the Garden of Eden did, “Did God really say…?” with regard to gender and sexuality. The postmoderns tell us that truth is relative—that you can have your truth and I can have mine. They insist that all truth claims are equally valid, while declaring that their personal “truth” must be accepted and celebrated—or else. The whole scheme is, of course, a farce. Something cannot be at once true and false. If a thing is true, the opposite cannot also be true. The choices in truth claims are binary—”A” or “B.” There is no third option.
The principle of noncontradiction tells us that a dog cannot be a cat. A shark cannot be a tiger. Creme brulee can never be Jell-O, as Julia Roberts famously explained in “My Best Friend’s Wedding.” Likewise, a biological male does not become a non-male simply because he cuts off his genitals and takes female hormones. The truth is at stake, and I refuse to participate in the lie.
We live in an era where objective truth is denied in service to personal autonomy. Renowned Christian thinker Francis Schaeffer saw what was coming and brilliantly mapped out the trajectory that is, sadly, playing out in the modern era. In his 1968 book Escape from Reason, Schaeffer rejected the concept of autonomy and warned about where it inevitably leads. “Autonomous science or autonomous art is wrong, if… we mean it is free from the content of what God has told us,” wrote the theologian. “This does not mean that we have a static science or art—just the opposite. It gives us the form inside which, being finite, freedom is possible.”
Rather than autonomy, Schaeffer spoke of a “true truth” — wherein, although we don’t have exhaustive knowledge, “we know true truth about God, true truth about man and something truly about nature. Thus, on the basis of the Scriptures, while we do not have exhaustive knowledge, we have true and unified knowledge.”
Modern-day gender warriors reject all of that, making themselves and their whims their gods and the sole and irrefutable source of truth.
To be sure, the truth can sometimes be offensive to people with divergent beliefs. The biblical command to “speak the truth in love” often leaves a mark. But love demands truth. Lying to a person about his or her gender, or going along with someone’s delusions, is neither loving nor truthful. While we should not go out of our way to be hurtful or provocative (which is why I’m ok with using a transgender person’s legal name, which doesn’t require me to lie), the truth must not be sacrificed just so we can make someone feel good about himself.
Make no mistake: You will be made to declare where you stand in the gender wars. It may happen at work during diversity training or in a conversation with a family member you love. When the time comes, will you tell the truth or perpetuate the lie?
As for me, I’ll stand with Martin Luther, who, when faced with demands by powerful authorities to repudiate his beliefs, declared, “Unless I am convicted by Scripture and plain reason (I do not accept the authority of popes and councils because they have contradicted each other), my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God. Amen.”
