One of the most famous public intellectuals of our day, Jordan Peterson, first came to prominence for fighting a bill that would legally mandate us to use other people’s preferred pronouns. What many people don’t know about him is that he would gladly use a transgender person’s preferred pronouns, but argues that using the government to enforce it is crossing a dangerous line.
As soon as you give the government power over our freedom of speech, we’re offering up our lines of thinking and communication to government censorship, manipulation, and control. We have the capacity for self-governance, and using a transgender person’s pronouns shouldn’t be an issue in the long-term, but I can see why it would be an issue now.
Most people don’t realize that each state is at a different stage in coming to terms with progressivism, as many conservatives in right-wing states cling to the status quo as their worldview’s intellectual justification. For conservatives in left-wing states, however, we’ve had to learn the intellectual foundations of our political philosophy and faith just to survive.
In existentially turbulent times, we cling to our spiritual anchor for stability, intentionally devoting ourselves further and further despite what the people around us may be doing. If we don’t have this basis for our identity, we could literally go insane, and unfortunately, that’s what many people seem to be doing.
The devil loves to taunt you, and will do anything to make you lose your cool when confronted. Every time we get hot-headed, we’re really displaying a lack of confidence in our own identities. Maybe that’s why these things bother us so much. Despite that, we innately do know the truth of our identities, but it’s up to us to dedicate the time to studying the intellectual foundations or we may easily be just as confused by the enemy.
For Christians, however, we’re not just called to tolerate people who don’t believe in our theology, but to love them despite their sins because God loves us even as we sin.
Identifying a transgender person by their birth sex is only going to anger them and push them further away from God. That is the trap the enemy has set for you, and until you’re secure enough in your own identity to stand before a self-identifying trans person, and call them by their preferred pronoun, we will never be able to lead them to Christ.
If you can, however, recognize a person’s current identity, while realizing that they are at a different point in their walk with God than you are, then your witness will be extremely powerful. The other day I gave a Kabbalah diagram poster to my agnostic Jewish roommate telling him I had no need for this, but that if he wants to hang it on the wall, he may. While he’s been questioning his spirituality and not sure where to turn to, he knows he can always discuss faith with me and that I’m confident enough in my faith to be able to address why I did not become Jewish.
Another time I was offered $1,000 to pay off a debt by somebody who told me they agreed with all of my religious beliefs except that we didn’t need a priest. I’m devoutly Catholic, and to me this was an invitation not to free money, but to believe in his theology. He handed me a check, and I decided not to cash it. I ripped it up and prayed that he would see the devil couldn’t make me doubt my beliefs for any amount of money. Since then the Lord has blessed me financially, and I can see I’ve made the right decisions.
I want everybody to become Catholic because I believe our faith is objectively true, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to go around labeling self-identifying Protestants as confused Catholics. Jesus meets us where we are at, and we must meet them as they are. In you, they will see the person of God, and the joy you have for him will lead them to desire him too.
We need self-identifying transgender people to see that we are not afraid to handle these issues, even if it means opening up our own vulnerability to what they believe. We must mutually let down our defenses before peace can be achieved. If human nature is truly self-interested, we will ultimately believe what is truly best for us.
William Nardi (@williamznardi) is a contributor to Red Alert Politics. He is a student at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and a former intern for the Washington Examiner.
