TGC: Rachel Gilson Applies "Weak Brother/Strong Brother Passages Of Scripture" To Trans Pronouns

Rachel Gilson, author of "Born Again This Way," links the use of transgender non-Christians' preferred pronouns to issues of conscience, a la 1 Corinthians 8, in this Q+A for the Gospel Coalition.

—TRANSCRIPT—

I think the question of preferred pronouns...really can come down to a question of conscience. So if you've done a quiet time recently in the weak brother/strong brother passages of scripture, Paul has a category for the reality that some Christians are going to come to issues and fall in different spots. And one of the most important questions there is how are we going to relate to each other when we fall in different spots?

So, on the one hand, some of us would feel incredibly compromised using a transgender person's preferred name or pronouns, because it feels like we're complicit in a lie. It feels like we're breaking the ninth commandment, right? Like we're bearing false witness about a neighbor, and we need to take that really, really seriously. It is never safe to go to a place that your faith doesn't allow you to go against your conscience.

And if that is your position, you have to recognize that when you are interacting with a transgender person, your inability to use their preferred name or pronoun could actually be received as very offensive by them or deeply hurtful by them. And so I would encourage people in that category to think, "Okay, well, my truth is clear. How can I communicate clearly the grace of Christ here? How can I go above and beyond to show love, knowing that my posture on pronouns is going to be tricky for the person I'm talking with?"

Others of us have no problem at all using preferred names and pronouns. We're like, "Yes! This is a way of showing love! I'm ready to do this." And in that case, your conversation partner is probably easily going to feel loved and accepted by you. So then I would challenge you, since you have access to the heart of your friend, what would it mean for you to use that access to have truthful conversations either about who Christ is, maybe, if you feel competent about the nature of the body, even just beginning conversations of if your friend has thought about how God relates to these questions in their lives.

But no matter where we come down, I want us to be able to relate to each other with honor and respect, because the church has not had to answer these questions before, and we we need to have grace with each other, right? We know that God loves desperately the transgender people in our lives, and so we need to be thinking as a community: how can we expose them to the love that we have received ourselves?

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkaPSjxE5AE

h/t Protestia: https://protestia.com/2021/05/27/tgc-author-advocates-for-using-trans-personal-pronouns-suggests-not-using-them-makes-one-a-weaker-brother/

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