JD Greear AFFIRMS Transgender Pronouns?!

Fight For Truth

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Hey guys, Colin here, and welcome back to the channel where we bring you Christian commentary about the things that matter.

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As ever, please know this video isn't a sinful attack, but rather a biblical critique. In today's video, we're going to be talking about J .D.

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Greer. Now, J .D. is the former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, and he's also the pastor of Summit Church in Durham, North Carolina.

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Long story short, Greer is one of the foremost Baptist leaders in the entire United States.

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Typically, you would assume that a Southern Baptist leader would not work to appease the transgender community at the expense of biblical truth.

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The SBC has become known as perhaps the most politically and theologically conservative denomination in the country.

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But over time, the denomination has slid in a distinctly leftward direction, both politically and theologically.

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And despite this compromise, thankfully, there are still many solid pastors and leaders holding their ground, fighting for the soul of the

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SBC. And for these people, we must pray and be thankful. And with all that context in mind, let's turn back to J .D.

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Greer. In this audio recording, he's responding to the question of whether or not a Christian should refer to a transgender person by their preferred pronouns.

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That is to say, if someone was a biological man with male genetics and male reproductive organs, and then they were to put on a wig and say,

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I'm a woman today, should a Christian call them a he or a she? The answer may seem obvious to you, but unfortunately,

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J .D. Greer would disagree. Listen to this. You know, some people on one side are going to say, hey, we got to tell the truth.

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And the truth is this person is male or female. So I would be lying if I called somebody who was female identified as male.

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There's others that say, well, you know, look, as a courtesy, you should refer to a transgender person by their preferred pronoun.

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And it's sort of a generosity of spirit kind of approach. And you see evidence in the Bible of that.

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And so you kind of got those the arguments that I've heard go basically along those two lines. Is it a generosity of spirit or is it you telling the truth?

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Personally, I think, again, this ought to be a charitable discussion. I lean a little bit toward generosity of spirit.

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That's where Andrew Walker, you know, that's where he also is. Now, when I heard that clip for the first time, I was shocked.

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How is it that the former president of the SBC could refer to a transgender person by their unbiblical pronouns and cave into the desires of the

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LGBT lobby? It's really quite astounding. And basically, JD says that there are two sides of the

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Christian spectrum on this issue. Some professing Christians would say that calling a person by the pronouns which do not correspond to their true biological gender is tantamount to lying.

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And other professing Christians would say that you're at liberty to use their preferred pronouns out of love and respect for them, even if you disagree with it.

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They would even say that this is a good way to get your foot in the door and eventually give them the gospel message.

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And in response to all of this, JD Greer says that he, quote, leans a little bit towards generosity of spirit.

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And the answer at first glance isn't super clear in this situation. He talks about a spectrum and leaning more towards one side and the other and generosity of spirit.

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But it's hard to know what this means specifically. But in the next clip, he answers that question. Watch this.

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You know, it's if a transgender person came into our church, came into my life,

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I think my disposition would be to refer to them by their preferred pronoun. When we want to talk about gender,

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I will be clear with them on the truth. Yeah. So now we know, practically speaking, what he meant in the first clip.

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If a transgender person was a biological man and came into JD Greer's Summit Church, and he was aware of this,

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JD would gladly call that person a she, despite what the truth is. So with all of this talk about spectrums and leaning one side or the other, this is what the real answer is.

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He doesn't really lean more to one side as much as he actively stands fully on that side.

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But in any case, we need to ask the obvious question. Is this biblical? Is this ethical for Christians to use incorrect pronouns for transgender people in order to love them or be generous?

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And the answer to that question, in our estimation on this channel, is a resounding no. When you actively and intentionally call a biological man a woman, you are lying to them.

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More than this, you are actively encouraging them as they lie to others. In other words, you're helping them sin.

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And to indicate that something sinful and against God's design is somehow acceptable or okay is wrong.

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Isaiah 520 says, quote, Woe to those who call good evil and evil good. As Christians, we need to have ethical categories that are in accordance with reality, even when it comes to gender.

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Colossians 3 9 says, quote, Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices, end quote.

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So you see, by definition, when you call a man a woman, you are lying to them. And as a Christian, we shouldn't be doing that.

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But the argument that teachers like J .D. Greer would offer in response is that it's okay to sort of stretch the truth with transgender people in this case, because that's being generous, that's being loving.

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Yet Romans 13 10 says this, quote, Love does no wrong to a neighbor, and therefore love is the fulfilling of the law, end quote.

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So you see, love is not a special feeling you get when you speak to a transgender person and make them feel good about themselves by lying.

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You don't get to make up your own definition of the word love, because biblically God has already defined it.

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Love is treating one another by God's standard. And God's standard, when it comes to transgenders, is that we not lie to them or encourage them to lie to others, both of which you would be complicit in if you call them by a false pronoun intentionally.

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Ephesians 4 5 puts it rather simply when it says this, quote, Having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, end quote.

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There is absolutely no consistent biblical argument to be made in favor of using false transgender pronouns.

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In fact, enabling people in their unbiblical rebellion against God is the opposite of what we should be doing as Christians in the church.

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Ephesians 4 15 says this, quote, Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head into Christ, end quote.

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So we can see that the Bible does not tell us to withhold the truth for the sake of love or to promote lies temporarily for the sake of love.

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Instead, we are to speak truth in love. There is no reason that you cannot be perfectly loving to a so -called transgender person and still refuse to use their false pronouns.

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So there are plenty of examples that we have used in this video in favor of the telling the truth in love position.

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But let's take a look at J .D. Greer's argument in favor of his generosity of spirit position.

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Watch this. The question is just is, is that the battlefront that you want to choose? I do think, and Andrew Walker points this out,

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I got another guy named Preston Sprinkle, had some good thoughts on this. That's that you do see in the

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Bible, this kind of evidence of generosity and accommodation of spirit in simple things like, you know, when they refer to different gods in the

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Old Testament, we know there's only one God. And but there's a sense in which I don't know if I'm going to draw the battlefront there.

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I'm going to declare the truth. And then I'm going to speak with clarity. And I don't know if I'm, you know, if the pronoun is exactly the place that I have to, you know, do it.

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So the example that J .D. gives us here is that the Bible calls the idols of other nations, gods, when in fact there is only one true

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God. How is it that the Bible can call these fake beings gods when in reality they don't even exist?

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In J .D.'s perspective, this is a distinct example of when one can stretch the truth in a way in favor of generosity of spirit so that we can love people of other worldviews.

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But respectfully, I don't think we should find any of this convincing at all. The argument doesn't work in practice whatsoever.

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Let's take a look at practical biblical demonstrations of this playing out in real time. In the book of Acts, Paul is talking to the men of Athens.

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These are men who worship other gods. It's a perfect example for this situation. Here's what Paul says in Acts 17, 29 through 31, quote,

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Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man.

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The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, end quote.

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So you can clearly see that when Paul calls their deities gods, and he even uses the same

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Greek word for the true God, by the way, he is not in any way reinforcing the validity or existence of these idols.

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He's not actually calling them real gods. He's simply calling them by the name that is prescribed to them in that society.

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In fact, Paul tells them directly that the true God is not like their false idols and that the true

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God calls them to repent. So using this kind of discourse as an example of transgender pronouns in Christianity is just nonsensical.

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It's not the same thing at all. Paul used the word God, but his audience knew that he was not validating their worship of their false gods, and he made that abundantly clear.

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But when someone like J .D. Greer calls a man a woman, the person whom he's speaking to will perceive that as a statement of fact about their gender identity.

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That's the difference here. Paul was not enabling or affirming sin, but the example that J .D.

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Greer gave is definitely doing that. In other words, Paul used a word accurately in order to rebuke a false worldview, but J .D.

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Greer's example uses a word inaccurately in order to affirm a false worldview. It's completely different.

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There's no comparison between these two things. In closing, let's take a look at Genesis 127, which says, quote,

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So God created man in his own image. In the image of God he created him, male and female he created them, end quote.

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When you tell a man that they are a woman or vice versa, you are practically and effectively telling them that God's design is untrue, or at least untrue for them.

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You're implying that God's word is false when it comes to that person's gender specifically.

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Yes, the Bible says that God made them either male or female, but if you change your mind on that and say

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God's wrong, I'd be more than happy to say that you're right. Again, how on earth is this biblical?

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When you use these false pronouns so that you can get your foot in the door, so to speak, in order to spread biblical truth to this transgender person without offending them, you're shooting yourself in the foot.

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You cannot violate biblical truth in the name of pragmatically spreading biblical truth later down the road.

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You're undercutting your own worldview. Yet that is precisely what J .D. Greer and many others are advertising here, and this kind of compromise to the culture is what will damage the

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SBC and the Evangelical Church immensely if it is allowed to continue. So we need to dig in our heels, stand up straight, and oppose this compromise by God's grace with God's love.

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I pray that this has been a blessing to you, and please know this, I do not offer any of this correction from a high and mighty position.

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I am nothing but a wretched sinner saved by the grace of Jesus Christ. So let's pray for J .D. Greer, that he would stop this false teaching by God's grace and turn to the truth of God's word.

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If you also want to help and become part of the solution today, hit the link in the description.

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Truth Army today, and until next time, fight for truth, never surrender, and keep your eyes open.