The more I think about it, the more diabolical things appear to be. We do not just have bad philosophies and bad ideologies and bad social policies and bad political agendas. We have satanic philosophies and satanic ideologies and satanic social policies and satanic political agendas. The god of this world is fully behind them all.
The truth is, Satan comes to steal, kill and destroy, as Jesus made clear in John 1:10. Name your poison: abortion on demand, the war on marriage and family, the scourge of drugs, the porn plague, the radical woke agenda items, and so on. They all cause tremendous harm and often death.
The devil does his evil work in so many ways, and children are especially in his sights. One of his most recent and most destructive assaults on us all is via the trans activists. Transgenderism is a diabolical war on reality, biology, truth and people, and it is mainly a full frontal attack on our kids.
But like just about anything that the enemy uses to cause carnage and havoc, plenty of clueless and carnal Christians will happily go right along with it. Thus we have pro-abortion “Christians,” pro-homosexuality “Christians,” and pro-trans “Christians”.
In my book, any Christian who supports and promotes the trans militancy in the name of ‘tolerance’ and ‘love’ is simply playing into the enemy’s hands. They have no clue what biblical love means, and they have no clue what Scripture actually teaches.
Simply put, if you love someone, you do NOT want them to go through invasive and irreversible surgeries and procedures that will leave them damaged for life. There is nothing loving about that. And even playing the pronouns game is unloving. Telling lies and denying reality is not how we help anyone.
Truth telling is what these confused and hurting people need – not falsehoods. Back in 2019 I penned a piece on why we should not buy the trans pronoun nonsense. Among other things, I quoted professor Robert Gagnon:
I am stunned that any leader of the Southern Baptist Convention, much less the President, would be contending that faithful Christians should practice so-called “pronoun hospitality” in addressing “transgender” persons by their delusional pretend sex. The idea that Jesus or Paul would have referred to a man as a woman or a woman as a man in anything other than satire and derision for abhorrent behavior is absurd revisionism in the extreme.
It is not an act of “hospitality” or “respect” to the offender but rather (1) a scandal to the weak and young in the church and a rightful violation of conscience for many that will lead many to stumble to their ruin; (2) an accommodation to sin that God finds utterly abhorrent; and (3) a complicity in the offender’s self-dishonoring, self-degrading, and self-demeaning behavior that does him no favor because it can get him (or her) excluded from the kingdom of God. Am I being obtuse here?
What’s next? Treating as a married couple an incestuous union involving a man and his mother, allegedly as a show of hospitality and honoring of their own perspective? Is that what they think Paul would have done at Corinth? Treating the man and his stepmother as “husband” and “wife” so as to extend “hospitality” and “respect”? What kind of revisionist lunacy is this?
I can’t believe that there is no serious push-back on this in the Southern Baptist Convention. . . . I don’t really see what the point is of the SBC having an inerrancy doctrine if it leads to leaders encouraging their congregations to call men women and women men, which in God’s eyes would be blaspheming his work as Creator. I would expect this kind of nonsense from the PCUSA, not the SBC. I am in utter disbelief. Is this something that Al Mohler would approve of? And if not, has he said anything against it? And if not, why not? https://billmuehlenberg.com/2019/11/24/he-she-or-it-trans-pronoun-etiquette/
Moments ago I posted on the social media some thoughts about this, and a few minutes later my American philosophy professor friend Douglas Groothuis posted a link to a brand-new article that is a must read. It is penned by an ex-lesbian who had been gloriously saved in 1999.
Rosaria Butterfield’s piece is called, “Why I no longer use Transgender Pronouns—and Why You shouldn’t, either.” Let me quote portions of the article here. She begins:
A civil war erupted within broad evangelicalism, and the idol of LGBTQ+ is dividing the house. This issue is personal, political, and spiritual for me. In 1998, I became one of the first crop of so-called “tenured radicals” in American universities, proudly touting my lesbian street cred. In 1999, Christ called me to repentance and belief, and I became a despised defector of the LGBTQ+ movement. But progressive sanctification came slowly, and I have failed many times during these past decades.
She says she has corrected course, and no longer believes she can in good Christian conscience keep pushing the trans pronoun lunacy. She believes it is sinful do to it, for these reasons:
-Using transgendered pronouns is a sin against the ninth commandment and encourages people to sin against the tenth commandment.
-Using transgendered pronouns is a sin against the creation ordinance.
-Using transgendered pronouns is a sin against image-bearing.
-Using transgendered pronouns discourages a believer’s progressive sanctification and falsifies the gospel.
-Using transgendered pronouns cheapens redemption, and it tramples on the blood of Christ.
-Using transgendered pronouns fails to love my neighbor as myself.
-Using transgendered pronouns fails to offer genuine Christian hospitality and instead yields the definition of hospitality to liberal communitarianism, identity politics, and “human flourishing.”
-Using transgendered pronouns isn’t a sin because the times have changed, and therefore, using transgendered pronouns isn’t sinful today but a morally acceptable option in 2012. Sin is sin. The Bible defines this as sin. Sin does not lose its evil because of our good intentions or the personal sensibilities of others. Changing cultural forces can bring sin into fresh light (as the Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision did for me). But a renewed focus is no excuse for sin and no dodge for repentance, not for a real Christian.
She notes how she now strongly disagrees with various evangelical leaders who think it is the Christlike thing to do to go along with these fake pronouns. She concludes with these words:
Transgender pronouns are one of the Achans in the camp of broad evangelicalism. But it shouldn’t be an Achan in the camp of the confessionally reformed. Preston Sprinkle, Mark Yarhouse, David French, Revoice, Side B Christianity, and any parachurch ministry that elevates “being winsome” as the endgame provide useful examples to defy. They nod in the direction of traditional values but then swap biblical clarity for postmodern pluralism, thus burning to the ground any legitimate theological bridge to gospel grace. Transgenderism is satanic. We who once promoted “pronoun hospitality” lent false credibility to a wolfish theology that fails to protect the sheep. Instead, it eats them alive.
Do you love your neighbor? Do you love your Lord? Do you believe that Jesus alone is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6)? Does Jesus save us from our sins, or do we delegate this task to the priests of our day—the therapists?
Do you know the difference between making false friends (“frenemies”) and loving your enemies? Yes, Jesus was a friend of sinners, which means that by His precious blood, he ransoms all who repent, believe, and put their trust in Him. He makes former enemies into his friends through his blood. The blood of Christ does not create an “ally” with the sin it crushes on the cross, for that stands in opposition to gospel hope. The world, the flesh, and the devil are not Christ’s friends. Trans identity and Jesus are not coterminous. It’s one or the other. Christians need to learn how to love their enemies, not pretend their enemies are their friends.
Christians who use the moral lens of LGBTQ+ personhood are not merely a “soft presence” in the enemy camp. Their malleability makes them pudding in the enemy’s hand. They make false converts to a counterfeit gospel that bends the knee to the fictional identity of LGBTQ+. This wolfish theology cedes the moral language to the left by using transgendered pronouns as a moral lens (“respect, courtesy, hospitality”). They reject the clarity of the word of God and replace it with garbage. By doing so, they have rejected the gospel truth that Jesus is the only way to salvation. Heidelberg Question 30 puts it like this: “for though they boast of Him in words, yet in deeds, they deny Jesus as the only deliverer and Savior.”
Heidelberg Question 30 has an ominous report for the pronoun hospitality camp.
We who have promoted this sin need to stand up and repent.
Hers is a very important piece indeed which deserves to be widely read and shared. It is time that we stop playing footsies with the enemy. It is time we stand for truth and biblical holiness. Praise God for Rosaria and others like her. We need more of these brave truth speakers in these devilishly dark days.
13 Replies to “Forget the Trans Pronouns – And All the Other Harmful Lies”
Paganism continues to be seen on the front pages of our daily newspapers as the Voice referendum advances. This racist Trojan horse has been promoted by a Prime Minister who marches in the gay Mardi Gras and who appears to be ignorant of the doctrine of sin.
Australian governments promote their social justice, inclusivity, diversity and equality agendas, while the Opposition joins in the woke delusion of tolerance as if equality was achievable.
They don’t seem to possess the intelligence to think it through, nor do they appear to understand the failure of utopian systems.
The enormous expense reminds me of the Scripture about counting the cost before you build.
Young people deserve better than this preposterous charade proposed by those who promote paganism under the guise of progressive politics.
Correct Russell.
Jesus said that if we continue in His Word, then we would be His Disciples indeed, and we would know the truth, and the truth would make/set us free.
The truth works.. whereas pandering, pretending and lying just damages people…
Quite right David.
Butterfield is inspiring. Good on her.
Yes she is Ross.
The question remains what pronouns to use. Suppose a newcomer to the church is known to have transitioned. It would seem rude to insist on using the pronouns of the birth sex. Is this what the above writers do? One might use circumlocutions to avoid using pronouns at all, or take refuge in the plural, “They”, “Them”, “Their” etc. What should one do?
Thanks John. I and others just spent some time here trying to make the case that the most loving thing we can do for others is tell them the truth, and that allowing people to live in delusion, lies and deception is not only unloving, but sinful. So I am not at all worried about being “rude” in this case. I AM worried about people destroying themselves because we might be too afraid to speak much-needed truth to them.
Excellent article. Thank you, Bill. Going along with preferred pronouns is a very easy sin to justify, particularly when Christian leaders recommend it. It can be justified as being polite while not otherwise approving of transgenderism. And it can be a result of fear of man, e.g., “if I don’t, I’ll lose by job or be socially canceled.” In that so many pastors rarely even discuss the 10 Commandments, I would guess that many Christians don’t make the connection to the ninth commandment, much less have any awareness of the extent of that commandment. May the Lord give us a repentant heart and strengthen us in these insane times.
Transgenderism IS in fact a religion as it teaches the transcendence of your body and new identity. You become a God of self. It becomes an all embracing cause and they totally surrender. It is their total identity and their cause for living. The cause, their transcendence becomes their identity.
Paganism continues to be seen on the front pages of our daily newspapers as the Voice referendum advances. This racist Trojan horse has been promoted by a Prime Minister who marches in the gay Mardi Gras and who appears to be ignorant of the doctrine of sin.
Australian governments promote their social justice, inclusivity, diversity and equality agendas, while the Opposition joins in the woke delusion of tolerance as if equality was achievable.
They don’t seem to possess the intelligence to think it through, nor do they appear to understand the failure of utopian systems.
The enormous expense reminds me of the Scripture about counting the cost before you build.
Young people deserve better than this preposterous charade proposed by those who promote paganism under the guise of progressive politics.
Correct Russell.
Jesus said that if we continue in His Word, then we would be His Disciples indeed, and we would know the truth, and the truth would make/set us free.
The truth works.. whereas pandering, pretending and lying just damages people…
Quite right David.
Butterfield is inspiring. Good on her.
Yes she is Ross.
The question remains what pronouns to use. Suppose a newcomer to the church is known to have transitioned. It would seem rude to insist on using the pronouns of the birth sex. Is this what the above writers do? One might use circumlocutions to avoid using pronouns at all, or take refuge in the plural, “They”, “Them”, “Their” etc. What should one do?
Thanks John. I and others just spent some time here trying to make the case that the most loving thing we can do for others is tell them the truth, and that allowing people to live in delusion, lies and deception is not only unloving, but sinful. So I am not at all worried about being “rude” in this case. I AM worried about people destroying themselves because we might be too afraid to speak much-needed truth to them.
Excellent article. Thank you, Bill. Going along with preferred pronouns is a very easy sin to justify, particularly when Christian leaders recommend it. It can be justified as being polite while not otherwise approving of transgenderism. And it can be a result of fear of man, e.g., “if I don’t, I’ll lose by job or be socially canceled.” In that so many pastors rarely even discuss the 10 Commandments, I would guess that many Christians don’t make the connection to the ninth commandment, much less have any awareness of the extent of that commandment. May the Lord give us a repentant heart and strengthen us in these insane times.
I forgot to mention a very good, short article on the ninth commandment.
https://tabletalkmagazine.com/article/2020/11/the-ninth-commandment-and-the-god-of-truth/
Many thanks indeed for that Mike.
Transgenderism IS in fact a religion as it teaches the transcendence of your body and new identity. You become a God of self. It becomes an all embracing cause and they totally surrender. It is their total identity and their cause for living. The cause, their transcendence becomes their identity.
Yes right Philippe.