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Should Christians use preferred pronouns? Is it wise and biblically permissible, or not? While Sean has had this discussion before on the Think Biblically podcast, this episode features a conversation with Preston Sprinkle, and they go even deeper. They also discuss how the LGBTQ conversation has shifted in the church over the past decade.

Preston Sprinkle is Biblical scholar, speaker, and the head of the Center for Faith, Sexuality, and Gender. He is the best-selling author of multiple books including and Does the Bible Support Same-Sex Marriage? He hosts the popular podcast Theology in the Raw.

Episode Transcript

Sean: Welcome to a special episode of the Think Biblically podcast. I've got Preston Sprinkle, author and speaker, here in person in studio, and we had a two-hour conversation about some of the most thorny issues tied to the LGBTQ conversation today. So we decided to break it up into two different episodes. In this first episode, we talk about how the conversation has shifted over the past decade or so, and then we dive into discussing and really debating pronouns, whether Christians should use preferred pronouns. Now you might think, "Wait a minute, you had a discussion maybe six months ago with Tim Muehlhoff about this." Yes, that's true, but we go a little different direction, take it a little bit further. I think you're going to really enjoy this conversation.

[Pause]

Sean: What is the state of the church and LGBTQ conversation today? What does it mean to be faithful in our cultural moment? And how has this conversation shifted in the past decade since the Bergfeld v. Hodges Supreme Court ruling in favor of same-sex marriage? My guest today will be familiar to most, if not all, of our audience. Dr. Preston Sprinkle is an author, you're a speaker, you're the head of the Center for Faith, Sexuality, and Gender. And might I add a lightning rod of controversy. Is that a part of officially your bio?

Preston: (Laughing) Not intentionally, no, but yeah, that might apply in some cases.

Sean: You don't look for it, but it finds itself there. We're going to jump right in because there's so much to cover. And I'm really curious, there's probably not... You and I have probably been two of the people writing, speaking on issues of sexuality. And so we've seen certain things that maybe other people haven't seen. I want to know how you think the conversation has shifted. And I could say 50 years, let's just take 10 years, from the SCOTUS ruling a decade ago, since it's 2025, go back to 2015. How have you seen within the church this conversation shift?

Preston: That's a really, really good question. I guess it would depend on, are we talking about shifts within the church or the broader culture? Are we talking, do you want to include Europe in that and stuff? Because there's just so many layers.

Sean: That’s fair.

Preston: But for one, within the church, it's shifted in a positive way in that many churches, many more churches are wanting to talk about it.

Sean: Okay.

Preston: For so long, churches were just like, we are not touching this issue. And even now I get a lot of churches in parts of the world where they need to have this conversation and they're just not addressing it. They have too many people on both sides. They're scared to talk about it. They don't want to be a lightning rod. And so they avoid it. But I'm seeing more and more churches saying, we need to address it. And part of that's because, statistically, 28% of Gen Z identifies as LGBTQ. Many grandparents in our congregations 10 years ago were just living their happy life. And now they have five trans grandkids. And so they're forced to talk about or gain an understanding about it. There's many more people in the church that are coming out. And so I think that conversation is hard to avoid now. So that would be my first observation is that there are more conversations happening, which can be a good thing depending on the nature of the conversation.

Sean: Sure. By the way, before you go to the second one, you and I were talking last night how in the 80s, my dad really led the first church-wide response to the sexual revolution called “Why Wait?” This is before “True Love Waits.” No one was talking about sexuality then. So it's remarkable how far we've come. I think as a whole, that has to be a positive thing. But keep going. Your second one.

Preston: Yeah, yeah. Some conversation is better than no conversation. A big thing that happened in the Obergefell decision in 2015, legalization of gay marriage, a lot of, I'll say, LGBT people, gay, lesbian, bisexual people, especially older ones that had fought for gay marriage to be legalized for many years, this was kind of the end goal. Once they got that, some of the "gay rights activism" I think sort of slowed down. It didn't go away. But the sexuality part of it, they won the Super Bowl. They got the decision they were fighting for. What happened is that opened up a whole new lane for the "T" part of LGBT to really take center stage, the transgender conversation. In fact, I think that was the year, I think it was 2014 or 2015 when you had the Caitlyn Jenner on the front cover.

Sean: Yeah, that's right. Around that time.

Preston: And then there's another magazine that had a transgender actor on the cover as well. So I think since 2015, the trans conversation has really taken front and center with this sort of LGBTQ acronym. Now, that went, I think, a certain direction, getting to your question about what has changed. I think that, I almost want to say there was almost like a climax in like around COVID 2020 with the trans conversation where it was just full steam ahead. If you were pro gay rights, you were pro trans rights. But I think in the last few years, there's been a lot of, if I can call it like internal conflict within the LGBTQ, if you want to call it a movement, community, whatever. Yeah. Where there's been actually a lot of growing animosity between some of what the especially older LGBT people would say is some overly radical viewpoints of some trans activists. And especially when it comes to the L. Here you have lesbians, oftentimes they're really strong feminists. And the trans conversation is often led by what people would call trans women, biological males identifying as women. And that's created a lot of conflict between typical lesbian activists and some trans activists. In fact, there's a whole movement in the UK called Get the L out. We're like, we're going to go do our lesbian thing else, but this thing's gotten out of control. One of the fastest growing social media accounts is gays against groomers. These are all, I mean, they have hundreds of thousands of followers and they almost sound kind of politically conservative almost. They're all gay, but they are pretty aggressive against any kind of like trans ideology, especially the medicalization of minors, which I'm sure we'll maybe get to. So those are some interesting movements.

Sean: Yeah.

Preston: It's no longer a monolithic movement. It is really the differences, which ideologically were probably always there have now become, I think, front and center.

Sean: On the first one for years, when I was teaching high school, we would take a group of high school students to Berkeley. We were meeting atheist skeptics, Unitarian reverends. And for the first decade, we could easily get gay activists to come speak to our group. As the years went on, getting closer to 2015, it was actually harder to find certain activists. They're like just less inclined and less, I don't know, activated as they were in the past because you said they won the Superbowl. So I hadn't quite put those together. I think that's interesting. In terms of the internal tension, you're right. The idea of a lesbian implies that there's such a thing as a woman.

Preston: It's biologically defined.

Sean: Someone is born this way, right? Their body is born that way. But then when it comes to the T, there's a sense of no, it's my feelings, my attractions define who I am. So there's a tension built in. That has led to another conversation we don't necessarily need to have. But that's fair. The one thing I would add as far as the church is, I think this might illustrate it well, is if you look at the book on Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas, I'm not trying to quiz you, but do you know offhand who wrote the foreword for that?

Preston: No.

Sean: Tim Keller.

Preston: Oh, okay. Wow.

Sean: Now that's interesting. You kind of had this broader evangelicalism. We can agree on certain truths. There's maybe a Billy Graham type figure. We disagree on things, but they're secondary. Now, Metaxas and Keller have gone such different directions in terms of cultural engagement, politically, et cetera, that I can't imagine them working together in the same ways in the past. I think the conversation on sexuality is like a subset of that. When this started, there was kind of a sense of like, as long as you just hold the line of natural marriage, we're good. I disagree with that person. I see things differently. We're all on the same page moving forward. Now it's like, wait a minute, things have been fractured down and now there's more particular issues dividing us. Whether that's good or bad, we'll get to some of those issues like preferred pronouns, gay identity, sinfulness of same-sex attraction. That wasn't on the radar 10 years ago. So it's been fractured and maybe nuanced, I think, in a way. Now that leads me to ask the question, I'm curious how you have personally changed. You've been speaking on this maybe a dozen years or so. Is that right? How long have you been addressing issues of sexuality?

Preston: About a dozen years.

Sean: About a dozen years. So roughly the same for us. And I don't know how, like, some people would say you've moved to the left, you've softened. Have you shifted? Has the conversation shifted? How have you changed in the time you've been a part of this conversation?

Preston: That's really interesting. Because I would say, I don't think I've shifted in any major area. If anything, I have been more outspoken and forthright and stronger, the more I study it, on my view that God has designed marriage to be between a man and a woman. Not that that strength wasn't always there, but I would say early on in my journey, when I started writing my first book, People to Be Loved, it came out in 2015. So 2013 is when I started, 2012, when I started really researching it. And I really came at that with a very, very open mind. I was blank, trying to clear the mind and to say, what does the text say? Not what does everybody else say? And man, there were some counter arguments to traditional marriage, like, "Oh, I didn't consider that," whatever. And I took a very diplomatic tone in the book. It was really just almost like my investigation of the issue, and I landed on traditional marriage. Since then, the more I revisit the theology, the stronger and stronger and stronger I keep getting. I do not think this is a secondary issue. I do think it's outside the bounds of orthodoxy. I do think it is a significant departure from historic Christianity and God's most basic design of one of those basic institutions for creation. I don't know if I wouldn't have said that early on, but I wouldn't have emphasized that as much. Maybe I was more eager to have more cross-dialogue and find some common ground. And now, while I'm always willing to dialogue and listen to people, that's always there. But now I see this theological view of same-sex marriage to be a significant departure from orthodox Christianity. It's something I would take a bullet for. And so if anything, and people who actually read my... People who actually listen to what I say read my books have all noticed that. In fact, when I came out with my book on transgender identities, the critique I got was, "Oh, you're getting a lot more conservative. You kind of seem like you're hunkering down." And whatever that means. So any shift theologically has been a more... Maybe I'll say it this way, a stronger passion to defend and promote the creator's design for marriage. Beyond that, there's little minor things. We talked offline about... I mean, this is gonna get really technical with me to camp out here, but the phrase "one flesh" in Genesis 2:24…

Sean: Yup.

Preston: I originally did not think that it implied that necessitated sex difference, that one flesh itself, that one phrase didn't necessitate sex difference. I now have completely switched to where I think that's a very fundamental piece of marriage being between a man and a woman. So I have really shifted on that. In fact, there's a professor at Southern Seminary who was really excited because he loved my book and then he's like, "But how could you say this about one flesh?" So he was excited in my more recent book where I not only changed, but that was a main piece of my argument now. So there might be little minor things like that, but I still am very passionate about welcoming and loving and listening to gay and lesbian and trans people. I think they have been really hurt, genuinely hurt by the church, not just hurt by the truth, but hurt by, I think, an unhelpful posture. So all that side of the conversation is still very much there. I just don't see that as incompatible with holding to a traditional view of marriage. Yeah.

Sean: So for me, here's kind of the shift in my mind of how I think I've processed this. And then it kind of raised the question, what does it mean to be faithful in this cultural moment? I should go back 10, 15 years ago and it was like, as long as we hold the line on natural marriage, I'm good. Let's go. Lock arms, united front. So people differ on the ex-gay issue. People differ on whether you should identify as gay. That wasn't the pronoun issue yet, but it was starting to emerge maybe a decade ago. And since that time, I'd have to say I've gotten more and more concerned over certain issues. And some would probably say I've moved to the right on this and these characterizations we got to be careful with. But for example, I would say things like probably 12 or, I don't know, 15 years ago, I'd say, "Hey, black, white, male, female, gay or straight." Now the intention of that is to say, "Hey, everybody, no matter where you're from, no matter where you are, God loves you, you're made in God's image." But then increasingly over time, that language makes me uncomfortable. And we're going to come back to this in more detail because that might be an area we see differently that like male and female built into creation, that's a part of our identity. Gay and straight, is that an objective ontological part of our identity? So I won't use that language anymore. I think it's misguided. I think it's mistaken. I don't think it helps people. That's an area that I've shifted on. Pronouns, I mean, you know me, I want to, like one of my life principles is I want to be as gracious as I can be without violating scripture or just violating my conscience. So I try to lean in with that. My pronoun position, we get to this one, was much more like, "Hey, agree to disagree, not a big deal." Now I'm not quite to the position yet where I'm willing to call it a sin of someone who uses preferred pronouns. Maybe I'll get there. But I think it's really mistaken and misguided in a way I didn't 10 years ago. Those are some examples of the shifts. In fact, I don't think I would have talked about even maybe two years ago, same sex attraction itself as something that is not only disordered, but sinful by its very nature. And we need to mortify that flesh. I've moved more and more that direction. And so I think there's a nuancing of the conversation today and we just have to be clear where we stand on some of these issues. So I guess it raised a question before we jump in. What does it mean to be like faithful? Because I know you and I both care about being faithful to Jesus, being faithful to scriptures, being faithful to be ambassadors for Christ. What does that look like today? Now give me your thoughts and then I'll give you mine. And maybe in some ways you already answered it, but if you're going to say, "Today in this cultural moment, what we need to be faithful is this." How would you answer that?

Preston: It's another big question. I mean, it's going to sound cliched. I don't know how else to say it, but continuing to bring your viewpoints back to the text of scripture to see either confirmation or confrontation. So reformed and always reforming kind of thing. So having the confidence in a well-studied position, but having the... To hold to that, but having the humility to continue to say, "I need to keep bringing this back to scripture and a Christian worldview to make sure my current observations about that Christian worldview or whatever topic we're talking about is continuing to become further aligned with scripture." I feel like that's a kindergarten Christian Sunday school answer, but I still believe it.

Sean: No, that's fine. I'm not pushing for any more than what you thought. So I heard Christopher Yuan say this and it resonated with me. He said, -maybe I can't remember the timeframe, maybe 20 years ago, and we started really having these kinds of conversations. “We needed to lean into the grace component of truth and grace." You have that on your website, truth and grace. I don't know anyone in this conversation from the far left to the far right who's like, "No, we don't need grace or we don't need truth. We just differ over how to apply that." And there was a lot of like say culture war, maybe some misunderstanding, some confusion, less concern that the church is gonna compromise biblically. More important, we lean in relationally. Because now in our cultural moment, we need clarity and we need biblical truth. So we have a conference last year about Andy Stanley's conference and I think it was promoting a third way. I mean, he wrote the forward for evidence that demands a verdict in 2017. I mean, he did. And I think this shift, I did a whole deep divinite with Alan Schliemann, profoundly concerns me opening up what's called a third way within the church, his influence and his name. I'm like, time out, we need biblical faithfulness and clarity. And I see certain voices that are interesting to me. I mean, this is somewhat of a different point, but I see people like Dawkins and Steven Pinker, two atheists, who've been like kicked out or had to resign from these atheist organizations because they refuse to give in to certain kinds of gender ideology. And Dawkins is like, "No, actually, biological sex matters and it's a part of who you are." Now, I don't think he can ground that ontologically, but I look at that, I'm like, wow, he's willing to pay a price for this and not go along with a cultural narrative. That's interesting.

Preston: Yeah. It's common among evolutionary biologists like a Pinker and others that they come out very conservative in their... And they're very not conservative holistically, but when it comes to this issue, when you're messing with basic biological foundations, they're like blowing the whistle on it. It's funny.

Sean: But they get called out for it and criticized, which is interesting. So I think that clarity, I look at people like Megan Kelly, interestingly enough, she was kind of in favor of like pronoun hospitality. She's like, "We gotta be kind, lean in relationally." And maybe some would say she's gone too far the other direction, but I think she has leaned in really boldly and been like, "Time out, there's a lot at stake.” Shifted course with this. So I think as Christians, I guess one last thing to say, I was just reading an article from Jonathan Rauch, who's a gay atheist Jew. And he literally has a book coming out and he said, "Basically for America to survive, it's key that we maintain Christianity. Not a thin Christianity, which is like cultural, not a sharp Christianity, which is like us versus them cultural confrontation, but a thick Christianity." He said, "Christians are onto something with family values." Now, I don't know how he reconciles all those things. I'd love to talk with him about it, but I think we're in a moment where we've got to be clear, lean into scripture and make sure we're not borrowing anything that comes from culture that's not grounded in scripture and identify who we are within our historic roots. I think that's kind of a call to clarity that we have. Now, I assume in general, you agree with that. We might differ over the particulars. Any thoughts on that before we jump into some of these?

Preston: I mean, I would not only agree with that, but almost push it farther. I would be worried to put something like grace and truth against each other. In fact, I wrote this curriculum, people often call it grace and truth. It's not called that, it's called grace truth. There's a line between to get rid of the and.

Sean: I missed that memo.

Preston: No, everybody has, but that was actually intentional. It was probably lame. I don't know. My designer didn't do a good job. But if you're not embodying this radical grace of God, you're not being truthful. And if you're not speaking truth, you're not being loving or gracious. I just don't think scripturally these concepts should be separated. And I would say, I would to not only agree with you on, but push it farther. I would say we needed clarity 10 years ago. Clarity should have always been part of the conversation. And I think hindsight's 20/20…

Sean: Of course.

Preston: …sometimes you look back and I think that's where it's like, oh, I should have been clear about that. I find that with myself all the time. I'm constantly looking back and saying, oh, this was actually unclear, but I can say I was trying to be clear. I just didn't have that hindsight 20/20, where what I was saying maybe was communicating something I wasn't attending to. But grace, truth, clarity, all of those are very important.

Sean: I think you're right with looking back on things. So I had a 2018 debate with Matthew Vines.

Preston: I remember that.

Sean: And I, looking back on that, I use some language like referring to kind of gay identity. Now, looking back at the time was on the radar, but I'm like, I think that was a mistake. I was conceding too much to him in the cultural conversation that needs to be walked back. So I can't beat myself up for not seeing what really nobody was talking about at that point. But I want to look back and go, okay, wait a minute. Was I conceding too much here, not being careful of doing a pivot now? That's the question I ask. We'll come back to that topic, preferred pronouns.

Preston: (Laughing) Diving into the deep end.

Sean: This is perhaps one of the biggest topics. And I had an hour long plus substantive friendly debate with Tim Muehlhoff, a 911������ communications professor, who I think would more agree with you on this than I would. But why don't you just clarify what you think about preferred pronouns and why. And then I'll tell you why you're wrong. No, I'm kidding.

Sean: Well, you will and I'm going to love it. I just talked to Tim recently and we made a distinction between trying to be right and trying to be truthful. I made that statement. He's like, what do you mean by that? And I said, well, trying to be right means I'm going to defend at all costs the position I currently hold…

Sean: That’s fair. I like that.

Preston: …rather than trying to be truthful is, “I think I'm right. I have reasons for it.” Otherwise I wouldn't hold to a viewpoint. But ultimately there's a truth out there that I'm striving for. So all that to say, I want to bring it on. And I want to get closer to the truth, so if there's something I'm saying or believing that's off, I enjoy moving away from falsehood and closer to the truth.

Sean: By the way, before you keep going, I appreciate that about you, that you're willing to talk with people and hear them out. I think we need more of that, and I'm hoping this conversation contributes to more of that, but keep going.

Preston: Preferred pronouns. People assume they know what we're talking about. I do take the view that in many or most cases, I will use someone's pronouns and we can get to the cases that maybe I wouldn't. Let me, I guess, let me back up and say, first of all, I believe that biological sex is a binary. There is male and female. Even someone with an intersex condition is that that's atypical features in one's male or female anatomy. Those two sex categories are not only true, but they are the most basic foundation of what it means to be human. And biblically, I might even say philosophically, but biblically, I believe that biological sex determines whether one is a man or a woman. Biological sex is a fundamental part of human identity. God created us with Genesis 1:27 in his own image. And then he says in his Hebrew parallelism, male and female, he created them. So that being male and female, not just being human, not just being embodied, but being specifically sexed bodied people, that is an essential part of how we bear God's image. Every time, the few times, cross sex identification is addressed in scripture, it's some more directly, some more indirectly, but whenever it comes up, it is always confronted. It's not part of God's way. So in here, we're 100% in agreement. I totally agree with that. And this is where I very much resonate with the concerns that using someone's preferred pronouns, namely the pronoun doesn't match to biological sex, is affirming in them a viewpoint you don't even hold. So why would I use someone's preferred pronouns? For me, a lot of it comes down, there's several reasons. I guess the biggest one would be it comes down to my view of the flexibility and complexity of language. Language is, if I can illustrate it, it's shared social space between people that might have different viewpoints. The language is that bridge that unites these two people in relationship, and yet the words they're using might reflect different worldviews. So I come up, this is me, and I meet Pam, and I say, "Hi Pam, I'm Preston, I'm a Christian, who are you?" And Pam says, "Well, I'm Pam, I'm a trans woman, and my pronouns are she/her." And I said, and I'm thinking like, "But Pam, you're clearly a dude." I'm like, "Well, your pronouns should be he/him because you're a biological male." And Pam says, "Well, yes, many people use pronouns to match their biological sex. My pronouns match my gender identity." “What's that?” “Gender identity is my internal sense of who I am.” And I'm like, "I don't agree with any of that. I don't like that. I don't like gender identity." “Well, it's a big deal for me, and the way I use pronouns, it matches my gender identity, not my biological sex.” So I have an option here. I can either, in this shared social space, force my worldview and my language that reflects my worldview, which I think is correct. I think objectively it's correct. I could either force that person on, force that on somebody else and demand that they use language that reflects my worldview, or I can accommodate to their use of language. And this is where I'm going to say, I resonate with somebody who says, "No, I'm not going to accommodate. I'm going to use language that only reflects my worldview, because I disagree with their worldview." And I'm going to resonate with kind of maybe their concerns there. But I do, yeah, I take the position. I think there is some gray here. I think Christians, there are cases when we do accommodate. And so yeah, I'm going to step in, and out of an accommodation to where this person is currently at in their journey, I'm going to use the pronouns, because they actually do factually match their gender identity. I can disagree whether pronouns should resonate with gender identity. I can disagree with gender identity as a philosophical concept, which I've got many problems with that. And I would tease it. Yeah, we've talked about that. Yeah. So it's not about agreement or disagreement. So I'm going to accommodate, given the flexibility of language, the complexity of language, a shared social space, not because I agree with what they're saying. Now, if they turned around and said, if Pam, biological male says, "Well, do you think I'm a woman?" I have to say no. I don't want to give the impression that I am agreeing with all of their ideology and worldview. Now, in a five minute conversation at the grocery store, we might not unpack all that. But if a relationship progresses, then I want to make sure I'm not giving the impression that my accommodation is affirmation. So that's where I would agree with you and people who hold your position, that fear of affirming their worldview and reinforcing error. I'm sympathetic to that. So if I sense that in the relationship, I am doing that unintentionally or intentionally, then yeah, I do want, this is where clarity comes in. I do want to be really clear. Yeah, I've got more, but I would love to-

Sean: Yeah. Okay. So this is helpful. I appreciate the clarity on it. For me, if somebody goes, "Hey, my name is Pam and here's my gender pronouns," I say, "Hey Pam, I'm Sean." The most intimate part about somebody is their personal name. I know there's debate about whether names are gendered or not, whether we should use them. I'm less concerned with names because there is a flexibility built in to make your point about linguistic flexibility. I was in high school and I was, we were talking about sports last night, you're a baseball guy, I'm a basketball guy. I remember this six foot eight African-American guy, stud basketball player, older than I was, and he told me his name was Stephanie. I didn't think, "Oh, he's a girl." I thought, "Well, okay, maybe this name has more flexibility." So names do seem to have some linguistic flexibility, but he and she is built into our language, reflecting a biological reality. That's why some languages are actually gendered by their very nature. Why? Because they reflect not just a relativism of language, but something built into the fabric of our bodies and the universe that we know comes from a creator. I agree with linguistic flexibility to a degree, but I'm concerned when it goes, and it seems to me if I'm willing to say, "Well, somebody identifies as a woman, even though they're biological and male," because we have this concept of gender, some people may use it that way. But then that seems to also buy into the idea that gender can be separated from biological sex. So if I'm able to say, the one concern is that if I say, "He to a she, I'm lying," one way around that is, I think if I heard you correctly, is to say, "Gender is what is meant by she." So if I say, "She," I'm not really lying because that's how that person understands himself. So you get potentially out of the lie objection, but then now adopted with that is an acceptance of language that gender does not necessarily connected to biology, which I think is hugely problematic from within a Christian worldview. Does that make sense?

Preston: Yeah, there's a lot there. The gender piece, maybe we come back to that. I actually think you're being inconsistent with the name thing.

Sean: Okay, tell me why.

Preston: Because while names are socially constructed and aren't intrinsically connected to... They're not universally necessarily always connected to a certain sex. In this case, Pam, assuming they had a male typical name before, has chosen Pam specifically because they believe they are a woman in terms of gender. So while... And your basketball friend, Stephanie, is not identified as a woman, so there's no cross-sex connection to this name. But for Pam, it's one of the most fundamental parts of her transitioning, is a name that is female typical. So in that moment by affirming that... Or Caitlyn Jenner. Why does Bruce call himself Caitlyn now? Because he says he's a woman now and Caitlyn is a female typical name. Now, if somebody else is named, Caitlyn, that doesn't identify as a woman, but they're male and they have like your friend, Stephanie, I think that's a different scenario.

Sean: So this is interesting. And I've thought about the point about it being inconsistent and maybe I should go further and not use names at all to keep my point in line. Maybe if I'm inconsistent, it just means I need to be more consistent and not even use it. Doesn't mean that my argument itself doesn't stand. Now, in the case of Pam, I don't know who this person is. I don't know the backstory. The scenario was you literally just meet somebody. That's different than somebody who I knew was Steve. And then they shift to Pam. That's a different scenario. Do I use it in that case? I don't know. It depends on my relationship with that person.

Preston: But if you knew clearly this is a male... Yeah, I understand if they’re like passing as a female. I got a friend who's transitioned male to female and you would never know. In fact, they hung out with us for a while. And after they left...

Sean: Then you knew.

Preston: Well, I already knew, but my wife didn't. And I told her...

Sean: That's interesting.

Preston: So you know so-and-so was biologically male. And she flipped it. She's like, "What?" But anyway, we're getting a little lost in the weeds here. But I would say if you believe you should not affirm any kind of social self-affirmation that this person identifies as a gender different than their biological sex, whether it's names or pronouns, and I would think you just would need to consistently refuse to accommodate to those social indicators, whatever it might be.

Sean: So maybe. I guess one difference I would say is that there is a flexibility with names that change. And we know this. Over time, I met a girl that's named Sean. I know guys who are named Stacy and Kelly. But he and she is not the kind of thing for which there is linguistic flexibility at all. I think there's a difference there.

Preston: Neither you and I are experts in linguistics per se. But I would say... Terms... If you want to think broadly, terms do change over time. Back in Chaucer's, I use this illustration back... When's Chaucer writing? 15th century, I don't know.

Sean: You're asking the wrong person.

Preston: …But back then, apparently in older English, girls, little girls just meant little kids, like it was boys and girls, and they were called girls. Even now, some really persnickety linguists would say, well, given the fact that a growing number of people use pronouns to refer to gender identity, language rules shift. They follow movements of culture. Just like the word gay used to be happy. Now it means same sex attracted. Or there's many other examples we can give.

Sean: That’s true.

Preston: And they would say, we're in the middle right now, like it or not, that there's a growing consensus that pronouns are more flexible. And even, I think the Oxford English Dictionary adopted they/them as a valid way to define somebody who's non-binary or something. I don't quote... There's something like that. And a lot of people got upset, well, the dictionary shouldn't do that. And maybe it shouldn't, but that's just kind of like language does morph and shift with usage. And then the dictionaries kind of follow behind and start to flex with that usage. But I agree. I agree that he/she in the English language in Western countries right now predominantly refers to biological sex.

Sean: And I think we're going to maybe get too down a train here, but you're right, language changes. But also as Christians, there are times where we go, I'm not going along with that. So guys being used to a group in general, like that's pretty commonly understood. That's not implying any confusion between men and women. It's just using a term for men, like sometimes the Bible does, to refer to everybody. That's a different shift than language undermining the existence of biological distinctions and differences. That's where I draw the line. So here, I'm curious how you would answer this. Would Jesus or Paul use a preferred pronoun? And what's the biblical evidence they would do so?

Preston: The clear answer is near you or I. We don't know the answer to that question. We cannot answer it.

Sean: Oh man.

Preston: And we could say my viewpoint is what Jesus and Paul would do, but that would be a little presumptuous.

Sean: Isn't the burden of proof upon somebody who would? I would argue so we don't have any evidence of them doing that. Both are very clear about the creation norm. I can't think of any instance, there's a big difference, like Tim made this argument, I become all things for all people so I can reach them. But that's different than what using a preferred pronoun would be. I don't think you get from A to B in that one. I can't imagine that Jesus would look at a biological male and refer to that man as a female for the sake of reaching him. I'm going to need a pretty good argument or precedent biblically.

Preston: But we're dealing with categories of the distinction between biological sex and gender identity, which didn't exist back then. These aren't categories they were working with then. It feels like a little almost like a red herring trump card to say, clearly Jesus would agree with me when he did not address this specific issue. If my view conflicts with Jesus, then I'm wrong, we could go to a different topic. That's just not... But he just didn't address it. The closest we come, and I know you and Tim talked about this, is in... I think Acts 17, I know you guys talked about this, you've done a lot of work on Acts 17, way more than I have, but it is interesting that Paul there quotes from a pagan poet, Eratos, I think, “In him, we move and live and have our being..." Oh, and then he says, "And we are all his offspring." That poet's talking about Zeus. Even Theos in the Greco-Roman world, our word for God, meant Zeus. So here you have, he's quoting a poet where the words mean Zeus, he quotes the same thing, and he sort of, Paul says, he sort of in their Zeus world introduces a bit of Jesus into that. So totally inexact, it's not an exact parallel at all. I think he is... Here's where I think there's maybe some common ground. And I'm not even going to build a big argument from this, but he is using a term that his audience has a different definition for. Same term, two different definitions, and he's sort of negotiating that tension a bit to sort of introduce them a more biblical understanding. Again, totally inexact parallel, but I think exploiting the flexibility of language might be the one commonality, but I'm not going to build a big case on that.

Sean: So here's how this strikes me. And you can tell if I'm totally wrong. This strikes me like I have my mind made up on what preferred pronouns are, and I'm going to find the biblical passage that doesn't perfectly match up, but gives me enough precedent to sit comfortably where I sit, so to speak. That's how it could sound to some looking at this. Like for me, I think the key question is like biblical, not linguistic, it's biblical. Now, of course, this is a modern debate that might not perfectly match on. I get that, but the question is it biblical? So if I look at Acts 17, what's Paul doing? He's reaching out to, at the Areopagus, an audience that's spiritually interested to an unknown God. And his whole point is that God is not unknown. So he quotes their prophets to say, actually built into your system is the sense that God can be known. So he's building common ground with them based on something they believe, but of course, it's not Zeus, it's Jesus who came down in the incarnation. So I don't think you can get from that and map it on to using a term for somebody as you admit, but I just don't see biblical precedent for it. That's what I guess and maybe we just differ on where the burden of proof is on this, because I think if I'm going to use a term that arguably confuses a creation account, I better have some biblical precedent forever doing so. Sounds like your assumptions are a little bit like, if it's gracious and respectful, if there's flexibility in language, the Bible doesn't violate it. And there's maybe some hooks that can get me 50% of the way there, I'm good. Maybe I mischaracterize that, but...

Preston: That's a little bit of a... Yeah. And the only reason why I brought up Paul is because you brought up Paul. I typically don't say...

Sean: But isn't it in here? Is that an example you use if I'm not mistaken?

Preston: Yeah, I bring it up. Yeah. But again, the point is not, I'm not trying to, like you said, map it on. I'm just trying to say we do have at least some evidence of Paul exploiting a single term phrase in this place, a quote about God, where the audience means something different than what Paul means. And he's exploiting that tension within this shared social space of language. So again, not at all a perfect... I'm just trying to say, 'cause you asked me what Paul did as Jesus, I'm like, we don't have an example of this situation. We have zero examples of Jesus meeting somebody who is a biological female, identifies as male, and he's trying to reach them. And we don't have that example. If you ask me, does Jesus affirm that God created the male and female, I'm gonna say Matthew 19:4, 100%. That question is explicitly raised and addressed by Jesus. Where the questions we're asking are not at all raised by scripture and not addressed by scripture or Jesus or Paul, that's where I'm gonna hesitate saying, "Well, I don't wanna read into the text situation is just simply not there. I wanna try to extrapolate maybe principles of accommodation." We have a lot of... Maybe I should have gone there. You have a lot of times when God accommodates, meets people where they're at to bring them where they should be. It's why we have... The whole law of Moses is one big accommodating to Israel's ethical and moral situation in the ancient Near East. That's not the perfect ethic revealed for all time. You compare the law of Moses with Sermon on the Mount, it's like, "We got a long way to go here." Even... Well, this is gonna be a bad example. I almost wanna say God even speaking Koine Greek or Hebrew and Aramaic, that's not his language. That's a good thing. Let's erase that. I'm not even trying to use that as an argument. I'm just saying God meets us where we're at to bring us to where he wants us to be.

Sean: So I don't know any Christian who could disagree with God meeting us where we're at to bring us. But I think when that includes affirming something that's not true in the shared space of language, especially when there's so many cultural debates going on about what it means to be human, and that very idea contains within itself certain ideas in conflict with the biblical worldview, I just can't imagine it would accommodate that. But...

Preston: But again, I think you still see, you seem to keep assuming that when they use the pronoun, they're referring to biological sex. They're referring to gender identity.

Sean: Agreed.

Preston: And is there... Okay, genuine question. It's not a gotcha. Gender identity, internal sense of self as male or female. Do they really have an internal sense that they're a male or female? Do they have that internal sense or is their internal sense wrong? I would say they do have the internal sense. To me, if you want my view, I'm like, your internal sense says nothing about whether a man or woman, that's an object of biological state, but this person does have that internal sense. I can disagree with that whole worldview, but I'm not affirming by using a pronoun that they actually are the opposite biological sex. I'm not actually affirming that. I'm simply meeting them where they're at with what I would call a... I don't want to be demeaning, but yeah, maybe a warp anthropology. I think they have a problematic view of human nature, separating gender identity from biological sex, internal sense, over rules, however they're believing. There's lots of worldview conflict here. So I'm not agreeing with that worldview. I'm simply meeting them where they're at in their current worldview state in their journey.

Sean: So we agree it's a confused warped, to use that term, internal state, but where does that come from? There are a few individuals, a minority that have gender dysphoria, didn't ask for it, find themselves with this state. There's a whole lot in our cultural moment now that have been shaped by, hence we've seen Gen Z increased to 28%. There's no way that that's just now science is matching how we really see ourselves. This is a massive amount of this generation that is now confused because of the shared space of language and Christians who go along with it, in some sense are contributing to that by not refusing to do so. That's how I see it. I think more is at stake than just being in a conversation with somebody, whether they believe that or not, they're bringing in ideas from our culture that actually says, "My feelings define who I am." You let the camel's nose underneath the tent, and now we are seeing more and more people adopting this and accepting it. I think in the name of compassion, which is a misguided compassion, we go along with it, but we have some complicity there, is what I would argue. Now- go ahead and make a point.

Preston: I guess I would make it as... I share those concerns. I guess when we're talking about using an individual pronouns, we're talking about an individual conversation with an individual on their journey or something. I guess I have the advantage of... I've written books on the theology, the ideology, I've stated very clearly what I think the Bible says about being male and female and concerns over the trends happening in our environment and extensive conversations with the... I have been very public with what my worldview is, which I think is correct.

Sean: Of course.

Preston: I think it's biblical. I don't know if I'm feeding this major cultural confusion going on, if on an individual level, I meet them where they're at. And we haven't even talked about this. With the goal that maybe this could open up a relationship that could lead to this person actually maybe identifying them with their Bible.

Sean: So that raises a ton of questions about how effective that is. We're not going to answer that, but also in this conversation, do we need a nuance? Are we talking into business? Are we talking adult and child? Are we talking Christian and non-Christian? Are we talking public versus private? We haven't gone through some of those nuances, but you and I both have made our case publicly and encourage people to do so, so we don't get off the hook, even though we could clarify where and when we wouldn't use it. So we can let that go. So would you agree that someone who believes, I think you said earlier, biological male believes he is a woman is mistaken in that belief?

Preston: Yes.

Sean: Okay.

Preston: My only hesitation was because I could think of several different ideological ways in which they get there. And so there's going to be...

Sean: I agree. So I agree with that.

Preston: There’s going to be a lot of differences…

Sean: How they get their aside.

Preston: …but yeah, I define women as an adult. An adult human female as a woman. That's how I define woman. They might define it differently, but yeah, I think you are not an adult human female. You're an adult human male.

Sean: Okay. So somebody believes they're something that they're not. I can't remember if I asked Tim Muehlhoff this question or not, but can you think of any other instance that's medical and or moral where someone believes they're something that they're not and the loving thing is to affirm something that they're not? I can't think of one. And if you can, maybe I got to rethink my question. If you can't, then why is it on this issue we do it and not others?

Preston: Again, I do want to bring us back once more time to the distinction between their view of sex and gender. So I don't think I'm accommodating, not affirming. And again, if they ask me, do you think I'm a woman? I would have to answer truthfully, because that's a more direct objective question that's now asking me about my worldview. And I'm going to be very honest with where I'm at. I guess I would... If you are concerned with people who are, I think you would probably use it to say gender confused. I don't know, it's not my preferred term, but they're confused over their ontological state as a human being, maybe. Have you seen much success in helping that person come to a more accurate view by beginning the relationship by refusing to use their pronouns? This is a pragmatic question. It's not a... This isn't like an ethical argument, but you were kind of raising it under the umbrella of a practical situation.

Sean: So let me say this, this is totally a fair question, both ways. I don't know all the data on this. Let me shift it back to this. I think if somebody... The closest example I could think of when somebody's mind doesn't match up with their body would be like anorexia or bulimia. And somebody who is struggling from this says, "I want you to call me fat or call me overweight." Well, I want to meet that person where they're at because that's what they believe about their state. And then I'm in relationship with that person, then I can begin to change them. I think as far as I'm mistaken, when I asked my nursing students here at 911������, medically, you cannot affirm something that's false. You cannot do it. I wouldn't do that. Would you do it in that circumstance as well? Or if not, why is that different than gender dysphoria?

Preston: No, that's a good... I think there's some overlap to that analogy for sure. I think there's some differences. Most trans people I talk to, they know 100% what their biology is. Their gender identity is not a claim about their biology. My friend, I just think of one good friend who's a biologically male identifies as female. They would say more often than I do, "I am male." I would be delusional to look down and say, "Hey, I'm obviously female." He's not. Not in every case. If somebody is actually looking into the mirror and they are in their mind saying, "I am the opposite biological sex," they actually believe that. I think that might be a more serious, very rare, some psychological condition. I think because there's so much diversity within a trans conversation, in my anecdotal experience, they do not disagree with their biology. Through transitioning, they try to present in that way. Maybe they transition everything.

Sean: So here's the overlap. The overlap is regardless of... Let's say with the distinctions that you've made for this individual to flourish, gender identity, to use that term, needs to match up with biological sex. They might be suffering in a way different than somebody with anorexia or bulimia, but it's the same disconnection. The human flourishing is only going to take place when those line up. I guess it's not clear to me. If you're like, "I just need to think about this and come back to you," it's fine. I want people to think about it. I just don't see a sufficient distinction between those two that justifies in one case, not the other, which makes me ask the question, are we tempted to do this because there's something different about the trans issue coming from the culture, what it means to respect, what it means to love that's not biblical, we apply here, not there? That's where my radar goes off. I think there's inconsistency there. You agree or disagree?

Preston: If I was affirming their worldview and then later on saying, "Actually, I don't affirm your worldview," then that would be, I think, very misleading. All I can say, yeah, I don't have the studies in front of me. All I can speak is anecdotal, personal experience and many other people who have shared stories and stories. I've met countless, yeah, I can't. There's so many examples of people where... Let me just use one example. So this is concrete. A friend of mine, she's very public, Kat, came to Christ like seven years ago.

Sean: You've interviewed her- I think I've heard- or him. I don't know who it is.

Preston: But anyways, keep going. Biological female, was identified as trans, dating a woman, came to church. One of those just scared to come to church, shows up, she finds herself in tears, puddle of tears, comes to Christ, radical conversion. A mutual friend of ours actually befriended her, I think, a couple of weeks later, met her at church. My friend happens to be same sex attracted, that she didn't know that at the time, but reached out to her and started befriending her and used her pronouns. She was still using pronouns then. This person, Kat, was just fragile, has been through so much, had this radical encounter. She's the foundation of Christianity is being built. My friend, Lori, said, "You know what? There's pronouns, there's this, there's that. I'm going to focus on Jesus. I'm going to focus on walking with this person, loving with them, being with them, listening, show them that I am invested." Well, that took a while. She even said, Kat asked Lori, "What does God, I've heard what all these people think about my gender, what does God think?" And Lori, this is where you and I might even be tempted to say, "Okay, let's go to Genesis." Lori said, "You know what? I'm not quite sure, but I'm going to figure this out with you together."

Sean: Which I totally... That's awesome. Every Christian should do that.

Preston: A couple of years later, Kat now, biological female, is okay with female pronouns. I even asked her, "What if Lori from the beginning refused to use your pronouns and told you exactly what God thought?" She said, "I would have ran the other way. I would have just been too much all at once. I was just baby steps trying to figure out God and Jesus." That's just one anecdotal story. I don't base arguments on just anecdotal or pragmatics like, "Hey, see this worked, therefore it's true." But that does... I don't know. If our concern, most of our concerns is that people would move to a place to where maybe they don't experience gender dysphoria, maybe they're identifying with the biological sex, I've just seen practically that sometimes that unique path of their sanctification takes some nuance and grace and takes a while. We don't need to front load everything we want them to believe or to do right at the beginning. I have another friend who transitioned, de-transitioned after she met Jesus, but it was a couple of years after she came to Christ. She had a pastor friend of male, female, that brought her in to live with them. They just took her in and she ended up de-transitioning. But the pastors, they didn't actually say right at the beginning, "You're a Christian now, you need to de-transition." They just really got to know her. They talked a lot about Jesus, they worked through stuff and she ended up on her own, her and Jesus saying, "Yeah, I think I need to de-transition." And she said again, if the pastors had really jumped in and forced that at the beginning, she's like, "I probably would have been scared off and ran the other way." It was that encounter with grace and love and kindness that led to that. So I don't know a situation where somebody says, "From the beginning of the relationship, I want you to see Jesus and I'm going to refuse to use your pronouns. Let's go for it." I've never seen, and maybe had, I'm sure it has happened.

Sean: Well, I do. I could give you specific cases of when that happens. I'm not going to cite my sources, but somebody specifically saying there was a relationship that was there and I identify this way and it's like, "I know you, that's not true. I'm not going along with your fantasy." And it took that boldness to reach in to bring the person out of it. So we can tell stories. That's what anecdotal evidence does.

Preston: It does.

Sean: Even when somebody says, if you might use my pronouns, I bailed, I go, "I don't know for sure. Maybe." Are there ways to navigate that lovingly and graciously without doing so? I think there are, but I do agree with you as a whole, the principle is that I'm not going to clean up everything overnight with somebody. I've got to let grace sink in and there has to be a season of growing. And sometimes we are just so quick to make sure somebody lines up. There's some grace that can be a part of that. We might differ over how that's nuanced.

Preston: And let me just say really quick, because sometimes people describe my position as, "Oh, because of kindness, he does that." That is not it at all. If I'm lying to the person or if I'm affirming their worldview, then that's wrong. If that's what I'm doing, then I need to not do that. I don't care if that is kindness. It's not about fluffy secular kindness that I'm doing this. It is about, I think for me, it stems from just that flexibility of language and maybe a more missiological way in which I think we should live in the world.

Sean: We have been spending a lot of time on this one. This is one of three we're talking about? Man, we're going to see. Hopefully they'll give us a little bit more time to flesh this out. I guess there's one more point that I want to make. I think it's interesting. The Cass Report has come out and said the idea of socially transitioning, even using pronouns, there's no evidence that this leads towards greater health for kids. That's an interesting piece of this. Now it's for kids. It's in the UK. I think we're going to see more and more evidence come out that supports that more largely. We should question us using it.

Preston: Can I add something? It's a really important piece too. I actually don't advocate for parents using pronouns of their kids, younger kids especially. If it's an adult child or something, that might be a different story.

Sean: That's another distinction we could make between.

Preston: Yes.

Sean: Okay.

Preston: We agree that affirming their social transition, which is pronouns and names, often leads to puberty blockers, hormone treatment and sometimes surgeries. If a person in authority, like a parent, affirms their social transition, that often can be nudging-

Sean: You have culpability towards that. That was my question, but you made a distinction. This gets personal for me because my daughter, you met last night, we had a wonderful meal, loves volleyball, coming here next year at 911������ to play. Her sophomore year in playoffs, I believe it was the semi-finals for what's called CIF, kind of the Southern section where we live championship. Game to get to the finals. The single best player I've ever seen on a volleyball court dominated us. We had no idea at the time that it was a biological male. Now, in the entire run to winning the CIF championship, you have to win three out of five sets to win a game in volleyball. They lost one set to us, which means had this player not played, we would have won the championship. We would have. I can hear people going, "Oh, it's sports. Calm down." And I go, "I'm sorry. You have no right to tell me what's important to me and what's not important to me." My daughter loves this. She sacrificed for it. I played college hoops here and I was up day and night. I just poured myself into it. To have something taken from you that's not right is totally wrong. That individual, I want to show compassion. I want to show kindness. But everybody who said, "He is a she," in some ways contributed to all the other people that lost that championship, time on that court, et cetera. I don't know that we can separate that from the larger cultural narrative that roots our identity in our attraction and our gender. That kind of stuff to me is a part of the larger issue that gets personal as well. That's where I think we got to say, "No." Now, I'm not one who says, "I'm going to go out of my way and make sure if you're Pam, I'm going to say, "No, you're not. Here's why and call you out." I don't feel the duty to do that. I'm going to do everything I can to stay in a relationship with you. In fact, one of the things I do appreciate saying in your book is we should listen and understand people. If somebody says, "I view myself, my gender this way, different from my biological sex as a Christian," I'm going to say, "Tell me about that. I'm going to lean in. I'm trying to understand. I'm going to listen. I'm going to build common ground." Then say, "Would you be willing to hear as a Christian how I see the world differently?" Then gives me a chance to speak to them. Any comments on that? Are you good, ready to move on?

Preston: I'm very much opposed to biological males and female sports. I got three daughters. They haven't had this situation. There's other situations where female-only spaces, I think, should be female-only spaces. A lot of the broader societal things, I think we're going to agree 100% on that. My only caveat is for every male in a female-only sport, there's 99 people who are not doing that, that are often swept up in this anger, conservatives. When you were sharing that story, I was literally getting angry because I'm like, That is such... We've talked about being all feminism and women's rights and stuff. This is like reverse-patre. This is harmful towards women and not right towards women. I think we need to absolutely stand up. But I know so... If I could think of 10, 12 trans people I know, I think they would all agree with us on that. Like there are...

Sean: A lot of them do. My question is just if I'm going to say to a biological male, "Oh, you are a she," then how do I say she can't play sports? She can't go in the male bathroom. She can't go on the church retreat. That's where things are at stake here, more than just the relationship.

Preston: That's a good point. I don't want to kick a dead horse, but I would say this person who has an internal sense of being female is still male. So no, she's not going to sleep with the girls. So anyway...

Sean: All right. We need to take deep breaths.

Preston: There's very valid things here. 

Sean: Thanks so much for listening. Don't forget we have part two coming up next week in which I will talk with Preston Sprinkle about the question of gay identity. Should Christians with same-sex attraction identify as gay? Make sure you join us. This has been an episode of the podcast, Think Biblically, Conversations on Faith and Culture. We have programs here at Talbot and 911������ in which we discuss and debate the very topics today. We want a place where you can go to the scriptures, to the Bible, wrestle with the big issues from a biblical perspective. We'd love to have you study with us in theology and Bible and Old Testament and apologetics and worldview marriage and family. To submit comments or ask questions or suggest issues or guests, please email us at thinkbiblically@biola.edu. If you enjoyed today's conversation, please give us a rating on your podcast app and think about sharing it with a friend. We appreciate you listening and remember, think biblically about everything.