Should Christians Show Pronoun Hospitality?

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...found in Christ, therefore forfeit any hope of salvation, any hope of heaven.

The issue is that humanity is in sin and the wrath of almighty God is hanging over our head. They will hear his words, they will not act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment, when the fires of wrath come, they will be consumed and they will perish.

God wrapped himself in flesh, condescended and became a man, died on the cross for sin, was resurrected on the third day, has ascended to the right hand of the Father, where he sits now to make intercession for us.

Jesus is saying there is a group of people who will hear his words, they will act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment come in that final day, their house will stand.

The Question of Pronoun Hospitality

Welcome to Bible Bash, where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask. We're your hosts, Harrison Kerrig and Pastor Tim Mullett, and today we'll seek to answer the age-old question, should Christians show pronoun hospitality?

Now this is a topic that I think has been really, it's been talked about for a very long time. I remember, Tim, when I first started at seminary, one of the big talking points with my peers in class was this idea of should we use people's preferred pronouns even if we disagree with their understanding of sexuality and gender?

And it's funny, because I remember my professor was actually arguing that we should. We should show pronoun hospitality. What was he teaching? It was a, man, what was it? It was my first semester. I think it was some sort of family counseling class maybe.

I don't remember the official name of it, but it was something like that. And it was actually, I don't know how old she was, but I think a younger woman who was teaching the class, probably maybe not even 30 yet.

I never asked her, but she looked really young. And she was arguing that we should actually show pronoun hospitality, but then a lot of my fellow peers were saying, no, no, I'm not going to, if someone says, hey, I'm a duck, I'm not going to start calling them a duck.

I remember that line very clearly from those conversations. But one really interesting thing is actually J .D. Greer, of all people, has weighed in again on this topic, right? And I guess I don't listen to, he has a podcast that I don't listen to.

For good reason. Right. And I guess he had talked about this, and I stirred up some controversy by, at the very least, implying that we should use people's preferred pronouns. But to his credit, he came out with a second episode trying to clarify some points that he made in the first one.

And we actually have this article that I just wanted to show a brief snippet of. And this article is from Protestia. But right here, I guess we can leave a link for this article in the description on the video on YouTube.

But I thought this paragraph was pretty interesting, really because when I read this right here, I want to clarify some things that I said. I was expecting, Tim, I told you this already, but I was expecting a very vague non-answer, something that doesn't really actually clearly define his stance on the issue, but would probably be enough for a lot of people.

But to my surprise, I'll read this last paragraph, and it was at least pretty encouraging. It says, Let me actually use a phrase I first heard when Andrew Walker, because I really liked this framing. The answer to that question begins and ends with no.

And the reason I say that is because I think as believers, we have to be crystal clear on the truth. So the answer begins and ends with no, that we should not use someone's preferred pronouns when we know that Tommy is a male, because that's how God created him.

So when I read that, I was pleasantly surprised, because like I said, I was expecting a non-answer from him in general. And now there's some other things in this article that are, I think, concerning still from him.

But at least with that section, I was like, oh, okay, good. At least you didn't give some kind of, well, you know.

I think it's still, I mean, I hear what you're saying, but I think it's still pretty weasley. You think it's still weasley? Okay. No, I mean, I'm glad that at the very least he's clear about the answer begins and ends with no.

I mean, he's mostly clear, but I'm glad that at the very least, the obvious is being pointed out that we shouldn't deny reality. But then, as is the case with many of these guys, when they make statements along these lines, they don't come across clear in terms of the nature of the error that's being made.

So he is an individual that is arguing for pronoun hospitality, and now he's packaging the response as a clarification on what he originally said, which is then excused, right? So it's excused by the fact that, well, the cultural conversation has evolved and changed over time and clarified.

And it's like, well, no, it hasn't changed at all. The same thing has happened since then. Typically, when biblical counselors encourage people to ask forgiveness about things, we typically encourage them to use the word, to say, I've sinned.

Please forgive me. I was wrong. And to be very specific about the nature of their sin, to not excuse it with if, ands, buts, or maybes, to not try to explain their error away. I sinned, but then things have changed, and let me clarify what I've done.

And so I think the nature of the clarification itself, clarification isn't really a strong enough language to use in a situation like this. You actively led people into error. You encouraged them to sin.

And then not only that, you were scandalized by the fact that people were rebuking you for it. And those individuals who were rebuking you were the unloving ones, the intolerant ones, the ones who are basically, in your mind, what he did was throw them under the bus.

And then now he's come around to the good side. And I'm glad that he's come around mostly to a positive position, but let's not pretend like nothing wrong happened there. And that you're simply just clarifying your position.

No, this isn't a clarification. This is a total 180 different position that you're adopting now.

My understanding, because I don't really keep up with him at all, my understanding was that he put out an episode before this that I guess in his mind wasn't clear. But it sounds like you're saying, no, he was actively encouraging people to use pronouns.

Oh, yeah, he was definitely encouraging people to use pronouns. And that's been something that's been going on for quite some time now. This isn't some kind of clarification. This is just a change of position here.

This isn't something that's crystallized in his mind. There's two options here. You either show pronoun hospitality or you don't. You're encouraging people to follow Preston Sprinkle's example of showing pronoun hospitality, and now you're not.

Now you're saying it's wrong, mostly wrong. So I'm glad that he now realizes it's mostly wrong, but you do have to deal with the different situation.

Yeah, and like I said, I was trying to clarify. I do think there are still some concerning things. I mean, you can go read the article later, but later on he basically does say, still call someone by their preferred pronouns in a hypothetical situation that he gives.

And so he hasn't really fully committed to the position.

Pronoun Hospitality as Lying and False Witness

Yeah, the situation he had in mind was if you're in some kind of counseling situation, and I guess the dad of someone is there, and the dad is using the pronouns of his gender confused person, right? If you want to put it that way.

And then in order to advance the conversation, you may use those pronouns just to move the conversation along. But then what needs to come before or after that is very clear. I don't believe that these pronouns are actually what you're saying they are.

But let me use them for a minute just to move the conversation along. And I think, well, that's the whole point of pronoun hospitality in general. That you're arguing for is that somehow it's loving and gracious in certain situations to use the wrong pronouns in order to get you into a door, to have a conversation, to be loving.

But now he's just basically narrowed the acceptable range of doing that and then added a qualifier to say that it can only be a temporary strategy that needs to be followed up with a repudiation of it of some sort.

It's like, well, yeah, let's just not use them at all.

Right. Yeah, so when it comes to the question, should you show pronoun hospitality, your answer is no, right?

Yeah, no, under any circumstance, no. Okay. Absolutely not, never. Oh, you know, you'll have to kill me before I do that. No, that's the right answer. How are you going to do it if you're dead, Tim? Yeah, well, you'd have to like kill me and then like possess my corpse and make it, you know.

With the AI chip that can

Yeah, yeah, that's the only way that that's going to happen.

Okay, okay, so why not show pronoun hospitality? What's his name? Andrew Sprinkle, right? Preston Sprinkle. Preston Sprinkle, Preston Sprinkle. Who is that, by the way? I don't know who that is. I'm unfamiliar.

He's just, you know, yeah, he's a guy. I think he graduated from Master's Seminary, but then he's basically just become kind of a woke guy out there who is arguing for a lot of crazy stuff, particularly as it relates to, you know, sin of sodomy and things along those lines.

So he's just an unreliable person that you I mean, his name is Preston Sprinkle. Come on.

That tells you all you need to know, you know. Okay, a sound argument if I ever heard one. Yeah, that's right. Okay, all right, so no, we shouldn't show pronoun hospitality. Why not?

I mean, it's just a dumb expression. I mean, if nothing else, it's just a dumb expression.

I mean, it does feel cringey to say pronoun hospitality.

I mean, if you don't cringe when you hear the expression, like you should, you know.

But no, I mean Yeah, spell it out for those who maybe aren't cringing but think, okay, well, maybe I should be cringing, but I don't know why I'm not cringing.

Well, I don't know how to explain that part, but I'll like if you don't know to be cringing, and you're not cringing, and you don't understand why you should be, then I just I don't know what to say to you, like as far as that goes.

Like you're just something's messed up there, and you should pray about that. But no, I mean, it really is about bearing false witness. It is about lying. It is about affirming something that isn't true.

So this is a demand that's being made, and this is just generally the left's tactic as it relates to a lot of these issues and a lot of these subjects. The left's basic stance is to try to seize control over the dictionary and to compel speech in certain ways and to force individuals essentially to deny reality in a wide variety of instances, and this is just denying reality.

Yeah, and I mean, even to the point of basically just hijacking biblical sayings, right? Right. Not that pronoun hospitality is a biblical idea, but then like hospitality is a biblical idea, and so they're hijacking it to mean something else.

It's the same as, you know, like we just recently did that episode on, you know, should you love your neighbor by eating bugs, right? Right. Like, they're hijacking those types of things and trying to make them mean what God never meant them to mean, right?

Right, so you're trying to basically take a biblical idea of showing hospitality to someone, and then you're perverting that idea and co-opting that idea and putting it in service of an evil agenda. Right.

In order to show hospitality to individuals, you don't lie. You never have to sin in order to show hospitality to someone. We're just talking about a very different concept here.

Basically what they're asking you to do is show hospitality to their sin.

That's right, yep, yep, yep.

Which obviously, like, Jesus never did. But, I mean, you know, you can go and read through the Gospels and see how He interacts with sinners. Now, He's definitely spending His time with sinners. There's no arguing there.

No one's pushing back on that idea.

Well, not the way people think, you know.

Yeah, it's not in like a, hey, we're all buddy-buddy kind of.

Hey, let's all get together and watch Game of Thrones together, you know, for three years before I ever get to share in the Gospel with you. Right, right. Because I want to be your, you know, because I, you know, let me go hang out with you while you're engaging in prostitution, you know.

In a non-judgmental way. I'll work up the courage to share the Gospel with you in six years and then you'll still get mad at me anyways, you know.

Right, and then I'll waste it all my time, yeah. No, I mean, certainly Jesus was a friend of sinners, but then that doesn't mean what people think it meant, for one, you know. And for two, I mean, He did, He certainly, you know, loved sinners, but then Jesus, you know, if you look at His evangelistic strategy, it was pretty direct and it was pretty quick, you know.

So the woman, you know, you have the woman at the well and you see His encounter with her and, I mean, immediately He brings up like the nature of her sin, that she's had seven husbands and the one she's living with now isn't, you know, her husband.

And so, like His strategy certainly isn't the one that most people think. I don't know if I've ever been that bold. So I still have a ways to go. Yeah, I think, you know, in biblical counseling, you know, there's opportunities at the very least to go there, you know, fairly quickly.

But, you know, I think most of the time Jesus goes there pretty quickly.

Why Pronoun Hospitality Is Not Loving

So is it, okay, so we shouldn't be showing pronoun hospitality. Is it a sin to use someone else's preferred pronouns? So not to have, you know, preferred pronouns for yourself, to use someone else's pronouns.

Yeah, I mean, that would be what the concept of showing pronoun hospitality is. You're essentially using the pronouns that they prefer as a means of hospitality that's meant to say, hey, I love you, I care about you, I'm on your side.

And, you know, I may disagree, but I'm going to show you the respect to call you, you know, the way you identify as far as that goes. And so, no, I can't think of any conceivable situation where anyone should ever do that.

I mean, that's just, I mean, part of the problem is that we've done that at every single level in our society. We think in order to love people, we have to essentially lie to them. And that's what we do.

I mean, that's what we were told to do with the COVID stuff. Like we're told to lie to people in order to love them. Like lying to you means I need to put a cloth mask over my face that I know doesn't work.

You know, selectively as I walk into buildings, you know, stand certain arbitrary distances apart, you know, like put like plastic barriers up between me that only go up to our face and there's an air hole underneath, you know, or even air holes to the side, you know.

We're basically living in a society that demands that you lie to people, you know, in a fairly comprehensive way. I mean, we've been asked to lie to people in a fairly comprehensive way as it relates to the race discussion.

So you have to deny everything that your eyes are seeing as it relates to the race discussion and basically just pretend as if like you're living in some, you know, pervasively racist society and show special, you know, privileges to members of certain skin colors who are engaging in destructive patterns and habits.

And you have to pretend like all that as a result of something else other than their own personal choices. You know, we're told comprehensively to lie to women, like as men. You have to, like if you want to love your wife, you want to have a good relationship with her, you basically lie to her in a pretty systematic way and tell her the things that she wants to hear in order to make her feel better and not, you know, challenge her in any way with the reality.

And so the same thing is true of this pronoun hospitality stuff. It's just, you know, another example of, you know, a secular understanding that's better to lie to people because, you know, what it's about is it's about their feelings are king, you know, their feelings are sovereign.

And whatever they feel, you have to validate that and you have to affirm that. And, you know, you can read comments on the internet that are basically saying, what does it cost you just to say someone's, you know, preferred pronouns as far as that goes?

Well, it cost me my integrity, right? It makes me a liar, like Satan is the father of liars. Liars go to hell, you know, Jesus is the way, the truth, the life, you know. So, yes, we're to be individuals who love the truth, defend the truth, speak the truth.

We're to put away all falsehood and speak the truth with our neighbor, as the Bible says. So, like what it means really to love someone is to speak the truth to them. And that doesn't mean you have to say everything that is true that you can think of in your mind.

But it certainly doesn't mean lying to individuals in order to make them feel good. And so, you know, as it relates to this kind of discussion, one of the worst things that we can possibly do is lie to these individuals and tell them, you know, call them by their preferred pronouns.

They're engaging in a delusion. They're trying to deceive themselves. They think that if they just chop off all these parts and, you know, somehow they can be a member of the opposite gender. And, I mean, it's just, it's a destructive lie to them, right?

I mean, you can just, right now, you know, there's been a lot of these, you know, post-transition, gender transition stories that are coming out that are being shared now that have been suppressed for so long.

And, I mean, it really is a horrendous thing that people are engaging in to basically castrate themselves or remove, like, you know, remove their healthy breast in order to pretend like they're a member of the opposite sex.

And, you know, the end result of that is that they, you have individuals who basically have scarred and mutilated themselves, destroyed any ability they have to have children. And, you know, like the worst thing you can do is just come along and just try to enable them in this delusion.

I mean, this is the kind of thing that they, you know, there's going to be a lot of suicides that come from that. It's not going to come from, you know, people on our side who are mean. It's going to come because that's the natural thing that a person, like, wants to do when they realize that they've totally destroyed, like, the image of God and, you know, removed any chance they have of having a normal life because they were, you know, engaged in some kind of pervasive society-wide delusion.

So it's not loving to them to do it, and it's not loving to other people, you know. And that's part of the thing that you're not allowed to say. But, I mean, it's not loving to, you know, those girls in the locker room who don't want that guy who's pretending to be a girl in their locker room with them.

So it's not loving to them. It's not loving to all the female athletes out there in the world. It's not loving to, you know, to the children that these individuals are, you know, parading themselves around half-naked and, you know, encouraging to put, you know, money in their underwear, you know.

Like, it's not loving to anyone. And, you know, beyond that, more importantly than all that, it does not honor the Lord, just a lot of people. So the truth will set us free, man. Like, Jesus says, you'll know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

The lies are not going to set anyone free. And, I mean, for people listening, you know, you might be listening to Tim and thinking that some of those situations must be exaggerated that he described, like, especially, like, children being paraded around half-naked, you know, like, homosexuals and, you know, men pretending to be women, women pretending to be men, being forced to put money in their underwear.

But those are, I mean, just go on Twitter. Just go on Twitter for, like, 30 seconds, and you can find those videos. They're out there, and they're, I mean, they're disgusting.

Transgenderism as Moral Rebellion, Not Mental Disorder

Yeah, it's interesting because I think right around Pride Month, everyone started sharing all those videos. And then, you know, you had a lot of people who were essentially saying, Hey, you know, we don't want to see this kind of thing.

And I didn't want to see my timeline, you know, blowing up with, you know, all these individuals in state of undress. But then, you know, there is, like, there is something about Christians that we do.

I don't think we should, what I'm trying to say is, I don't think we should, we shouldn't be sharing those kind of things. But then there is the sense in which we are very sheltered from the realities of the kind of things that go on at, you know, gay pride parades and that are happening at these drag queen story hours.

And, you know, if you did actually see the kind of things that are actually going on, you would react in a more visceral way than what you are when you're sheltered from them.

Yeah, sort of take things more seriously, probably.

And the same thing with, like, you know, all these pictures on Twitter of, you know, girls who essentially have scars, you know, right across their chest. You know, the pictures of the post, you know, top surgery kind of thing and all that.

And it's just, it's the kind of thing that, you know, no one wants to see. But then it's just, it's horrible, you know. And it's, and just listening to them tell their stories of, you know, sorrow that as a result, when they finally wake up and realize what they've done, like, this is the worst thing we can possibly do.

Right. But, I mean, you didn't have to know, you know, maybe some of those things are the kind of things that woke JD grew up a little bit to where he offered his non-retraction retraction. Right. Which at least, you know, it seems like he's mostly on the right side now.

And I'm thankful for that. But, I mean, I don't, you know, if you're going to have a retraction, I do think you should do it more like Rosario Butterfield kind of retraction to say that, you know, the previous statement you made was one of the most stupid things you've ever said, you know, as an adult Christian.

That's better, you know.

That's better, you know. You're owning it, yeah. Yeah, to a much greater degree.

So I respect that a lot more. But then I'm glad he's on the right side. But it may be that he's seen, you know, a lot more now and woken him up a little bit, you know. And part of it, you know, I just, I wonder about his own, you know, moral judgment with some of these things.

It doesn't seem like it takes, it's not all that complicated to, like, this isn't a complicated subject. Yeah. And it doesn't, like, this isn't something that's like a deep mystery or something like that.

And I think what, the only reason why it's complicated for a person like him is because he has, there is a philosophy of ministry that kind of gets in the way that, you know, the philosophy of ministry is essentially to kind of cuddle on believers and tell them what they want to hear, period, you know.

And so that just kind of goes along with it. That's his basic instinct is just to, you know, it's not a truth teller instinct. It's a, you know, basically a cuddle on believer kind of instinct, you know.

Right. So, there's that.

Why You Should Not Answer Preferred Pronouns

So, is it the same situation if someone were to ask you your preferred pronouns? Like, if you give, if you answer that question, are you legitimizing pronoun usage at that point?

Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I wouldn't even answer that question. You know, I would just say that there are, there's no such thing as preferred pronouns. There's only those pronouns that correspond to biological realities, right?

So, I don't get to pick my pronouns any more than you get to pick your pronouns. God's assigned my pronouns, you know. Essentially, you know, they're assigned by virtue of the language we speak, which is corresponding to created realities that are, you know, not up to my personal whim here, you know.

Yeah, I prefer you use my, my only preference is you use my pronouns in English so I can understand you. Yeah, yeah. Oh, okay. Well, I think, I think that's pretty clear. So, what if a person refuses, so like, okay, biblical counseling situation.

That's what, that's what one of the issues that I had with what J .D. Greer said. He brought up a hypothetical situation that you mentioned where, you know, you have a, you have a parent and a child. The child is confused, right, on their gender.

They think they're a boy, but they think they're a girl, and they refuse to talk to you unless you use their preferred pronouns. In that kind of situation, do you use their preferred pronouns and maybe like, you know, say, hey, I'd, like, you are not a girl, but I will say she in order to share the gospel with you and tell you why this is sin.

No. No, okay. Why not? Same, so that's still lying? Yeah. Even if you say, I do, like, you are not a, you are not a girl, right? I mean, yeah. It makes my head hurt.

There's a lot of moving parts here. No, I mean, like, that, I, I understand that you're bringing that example up because that's the kind of example that people use, but that kind of example makes my head hurt, you know.

So, it's like, yeah, I mean, like, I'm trying to give, like, a comparable situation that could bring some moral clarity to that kind of arrangement as far as that goes. But, I mean, just, you know, just imagine that you're counseling a woman who, like, demands that you refer to her as your wife in order to, like, as a precondition for counseling her or something like that.

It's like, you're not, you know. Right. It's like, yeah, well. I'm married already. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that, yeah. So, I mean, it's just a matter of, like, yeah, well, okay, well, let me just, like, if the only way you'll talk to me is that I have to do that.

It's like, well, no. Like, that's, we're not going to go that route.

We're not going to go there, you know. Would you just, like, would you push it and say, no, you're a guy, and then purposely, you know, say him or his. Yeah, part of it. Or just go to, like, the I'm just going to use your name.

Yeah, it has to be a specific kind of situation for that to happen anyways because, like, him and her are, like, third person, you know. Right. Singular pronouns there, and so you're not going to naturally use that in a one-on-one conversation, you know, in general.

Right, yeah. So, like, it would have to be kind of a situation like he brought up where, you know, you have the father there, and then he's referring to the son as a she, you know, and then demands that you go along in when you refer to her in his presence to call her a she.

Does that make sense? So, it'd have to be that kind of situation for it to make sense. But then, I mean, generally, you don't appease Hitler, right? Mm-hmm. Like, meaning, you know, you don't, what I'm trying to say is, like, you can, you know, if the entirety of our counseling relationship, like, it's dependent on some kind of lie or something like that in order for it to function, I just, you know, come to me when you're ready to have a real conversation because all I'm going to say is I'm going to encourage you to turn from this sin.

Yeah. Like, you know, so I'm not going to pretend like you're a unicorn. I'm not going to pretend like you're a fairy. I'm not going to pretend like you're a dragon. I'm not going to, you know, I'm not going to do that, you know?

So, like, just maybe, you know, like, just to help people understand because, like, there's one area where you can't do this anymore, and that would be with, like, the racial discussion, right? Mm-hmm.

So, like, if you had a white person who was demanding you call them an African American, right, or something like that, or a black person, like, everyone would know that, no, I'm not going to counsel you if you demand that I, you know, pretend like you are a different ethnicity than what you actually are, right?

So, just imagine how that would go. Like, that's, like, you're, for some reason, that's, like, worse than the gender pronoun things in the minds of other people. Like, it's cultural appropriation and all that.

You can't do that. That's, like, a scandal of sin. But, no, like, that's not going to be, like, that's not the way that this is going to work. And if you want help, like, you're not going to get help.

We're not going to have help on your terms, right? Mm-hmm. And so, like, a precondition of me helping you is not for me to, like, validate your delusion to some degree. Like, that's just not the way that it's going to work.

And I'm not going to go along with it. And if you want help, like, and this is something I tell people in counseling in general. Like, just in general, when I'm counseling them, it's like, hey, you know, my, I have them sign a statement that basically says, like, the counselor is going to give you his interpretation of scripture.

You know, that's what we're doing here. And so, like, what I tell people over and over again is if you want counsel, I will give you counsel. Mm-hmm. You may or may not like it, okay? You may or may not like it, but I'm going to give you what I believe, like, biblical counsel here.

And if you want it, I believe it will help you. You know, but if you don't want it, then I don't have any, I can't be of help to you as far as that goes. Right. So either you want it or you don't. You know, like, and, you know, there's, you know, I used to watch Dr. Phil back in the day.

Uh-huh. But he had this, you know, he had this funny line that he would say, like, when he was dealing with a stubborn and obstinate counselor or whatever, they're basically arguing with him and disagreeing with him.

And you just look at him and you basically say, well, how's that working out for you? You know, it's not working out. It's not working out for you very well. You know, but that's kind of the point. Like, you, people come to counseling because they want help.

They want help solving their problems. And if you want help, I'll give you help, but you're not going to put strings upon the kind of help I'm going to give you. You either take it or you don't, you know?

Yeah. So we don't, we're not going to start out with like a hostage negotiation to where you're holding my head up, holding a gun to my head and basically demanding the kind of counsel you want. Like, if that's what you're doing, you don't want me, you know, like, and I'm not going to be any good to you because I'm not going to play that game at all.

You know, so like, that's just, we're not going to go there with it.

You know, it's funny you bring that up because I remember there was a time I was meeting with someone and trying to share, I was sharing the gospel with them and we had met, you know, several times up to that point.

And it was a college student and they told me that they had spent their entire weekend drinking alcohol. And I knew why they were doing that. They were doing that to, you know, cover up with all of their emotional, you know, baggage that they didn't want to feel anything because I knew that they were really sad and pretty weighed down by their sin.

They knew what they were doing was wrong. And so, you know, I thought about, hey, all right, like, it's really hard to get through to this person. Do I just tell them what they're doing is wrong? No, maybe there's another way.

And as I was listening to them, they told me like, hey, I did this, I did that, I did this, I did that. And they're trying to get, I think at a certain point I came to the realization, they're trying to get a response out of me.

And so, I just asked them, okay, like, all right, you drank all weekend to make yourself feel better. Did it work? And they kind of just stared at me for a second because they weren't expecting that. They're expecting me to say, well, you shouldn't do that, right?

And they just kind of stared at me and then they're like, well, no, I guess it didn't. Okay, all right, maybe there's a better way, right? And so, it's funny, I didn't know Dr. Phil did that. I didn't pick that.

I guess great minds think alike, right? Well, I don't know.

I mean, he's crazy in a lot of ways. I think it's a normal kind of impulse, though, when you're trying to help someone. Like, they're coming to you for help. It's a normal kind of impulse to where, like, I mean, there's a lot of people who say they want help, but they don't want help help.

Most people, they come to counseling. They want you to basically tell them that everything that they're thinking and everything that they're feeling and everything that they're doing is absolutely right.

None of their problems are their fault. Everyone else is to blame. And what they want, then, is you to basically just validate and affirm everything about them, about their response, about how they're thinking about it and everything else.