Christian pronoun hospitality: The hidden problem that leads to compromise



Should Christians engage in so-called gender pronoun hospitality?

Gender pronoun hospitality refers to the concept of using someone's "preferred pronouns" or a trans-identifying person's transgender name despite otherwise disagreeing with LGBTQ ideology.

God's truth about human identity and sexuality trumps anything we internally perceive for ourselves.

The idea behind gender pronoun hospitality is that using preferred pronouns or a trans name when requested by LGBTQ-identifying people preserves a relationship with that person. Not to practice gender pronoun hospitality, its practitioners argue, risks offense and, ultimately, the potential destruction of relationship, which could be a barrier between LGBTQ-identifying people and the Gospel. Bible scholar Preston Sprinkle has even described pronoun hospitality as a "common courtesy."

But according to famed pastor John Piper, Christians should not engage in gender pronoun hospitality — and for good reason.

On a recent episode of his podcast "Ask Pastor John," Piper answered a question he received from a concerned church elder about gender pronoun hospitality and whether Christians can use it in relationships with non-Christians in evangelism contexts.

What Piper said

At the outset, Piper spotted the problem with the phrase "gender pronoun hospitality."

He explained that it connects a "beautiful biblical word" (i.e., hospitality) with an "unbiblical concept" (i.e., gender pronoun ideology), which renders the phrase "unhelpful and misleading."

"We ought to be hospitable, but we ought not to be affirming of pronouns that designate a destructive choice and a false view of reality," Piper advised. "It is possible to be hospitable and honest."

Even more important, using "gender" in the context of LGBTQ ideology, Piper said, is a "compromise with sinful views of reality."

Instead, Christians should use terms for biological sex because it distinguishes between male and female, whereas gender is a "reality-distorting designation."

He explained:

Gender (as a designation for persons, not grammar) was pushed into our vocabulary by radical feminists fifty years ago, in the seventies, who believed that the givenness of sexual distinctions forever condemned women to kinds of existence they may or may not want. Therefore, to create the freedom to define their existence, “gender” was used as an alternative to “sex” because gender can be chosen and sex can’t be. Sex is bondage; gender is freedom — so it was thought. I think using the word “gender” where the right word is “sex” is like using the word “marriage” for a relationship between two men or two women. It’s not marriage. It is so-called “marriage.”

After advising Christians to be up-front about the Gospel's "implications and purifying power" in evangelism contexts, thus undercutting one of the primary arguments for gender pronoun hospitality, Piper explained the serious issues with pronoun hospitality.

Most important, Piper said, "it defies God."

Gender pronoun hospitality, moreover, involves endorsing lies that distort the God-designed true nature of humanity, promotes a "deeply anti-God commitment to human autonomy," contributes to our culture's disordered sexuality and persuades more people to become members of it, and situates sexuality as core to human nature, Piper explained.

Another major problem

Practitioners of pronoun hospitality claim not to agree with or to affirm LGBTQ ideology per se.

But here is the major problem: Using the grammar of LGBTQ ideology — like preferred pronouns or a trans-identifying person's transgender name — affirms the legitimacy of those categories despite their incoherence with objective truth.

This is why professor Carl Trueman, in his book "The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self," warns against Christians using the grammar of LGBTQ ideology.

"Societies," Trueman explains, "have categories for thinking about people and identity, and a real problem occurs when those categories are simply not adequate or appropriate.

"That is the question the church needs to ask about sexual identity: Are the categories that society now prioritizes actually ones that are appropriate?" he asks. "If the post-Freud taxonomy represented by the acronym LGBTQ+ rests on the basic category mistake (that sex is identity), should Christians not engage in a thoroughgoing critique of such and refuse to define themselves within the framework?"

Conceding the "categories" of LGBTQ grammar, Trueman warns, leads to "unfortunate confusion." It also creates the illusion that one legitimizes not only the categories themselves but the moral and philosophical propositions on which they are built.

That is the exact reason Piper warns against engaging in pronoun hospitality and instructs Christians to think seriously about the implications of such "hospitality" before handing it out.

God's truth about human identity and sexuality trumps anything we internally perceive for ourselves. Christians must stand on — not compromise — God's truth.

Pastor goes scorched-earth on ‘pronoun hospitality’



Donald Trump’s election revealed plenty about those who voted against him, and Pastor John Piper was no exception. The pastor reacted to the win in a post on X, writing, “Having delivered us from one evil, God now tests us with another.”

While Allie Beth Stuckey of “Relatable” was disappointed in Piper’s response, the pastor has quickly earned himself a place back in her good graces after showing that while he might not like Trump, he doesn’t buy into the left-wing insanity either.

This was made crystal clear in a recent episode of “Ask Pastor John,” in which the pastor was asked what to do when confronted with the question of using “gender pronoun hospitality” on a local campus.

Allie says John Piper stated that “the entire idea of ‘gender pronoun hospitality’ is a misleading slogan" and that "connecting the beautiful biblical word ‘hospitality’ with the unbiblical concept of gender pronouns is unhelpful.”


“We ought to be hospitable, but we ought not to be affirming of pronouns that designate a destructive choice and a false view of reality. It is possible to be hospitable and honest,” he continued, before listing ten clear reasons he disagrees with “pronoun politeness.”

“It defies God. … Self-conception as male or female should be defined by God’s holy purposes in creation,” he began. “It involves living a lie. A woman cannot become a man nor a man a woman.”

“Being a man or a woman is not like being left-handed or right-handed. It goes far deeper and touches the depths of our created nature,” and “it regularly leads to destructive and irreversible surgeries and treatments” — which “destroys the God-designed potential of procreation and will bring sooner or later profound and sometimes suicidal regret.”

Piper went on to say that so-called transgenderism “expresses the deeply anti-God commitment to human autonomy over against the will of God” and that it “contributes to the cultural disorder of sexuality that tends to undermine God’s pattern from male and female and confuses and destabilizes our young people.”

Pronoun hospitality also “overlooks alternative ways forward that take seriously a person’s sexual confusion or rebellion,” “is the prelude to future perversions,” and “therefore, the greatest possible care should be taken before one gives any impression of approving or even being mildly disagreeable toward so-called transgenderism.”

“I think that is a perfect response, and I am so grateful for his clarity,” Stuckey says, adding, “Clarity is kindness.”

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

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Moral relativism isn’t courage: Why Christians should celebrate Trump’s victory



Liberals were fragile before Trump’s win, and they’re even more fragile now. So fragile, in fact, that some Christians are asking Trump supporters to temper their celebrations in order to spare the left’s feelings.

“Christians, Whether your candidate wins or loses, there will still be hurting people who need you to give them hope and be a sober and thoughtful advocate for them. Don’t let the outcome defeat you or compel you to pretend the battle is won. Avoid bitterness and triumphalism,” political strategist Justin Giboney wrote in a post on X.

While Allie Beth Stuckey of “Relatable” agrees that we should avoid bitterness or pretending that the spiritual battle has been won, she thinks this messaging is attempting to make voters feel guilty “for being happy and rejoicing.”

And Giboney wasn’t the only one trying to steer Christians from celebration.



“Presidential election results. Having delivered us from one evil, God now tests us with another. ‘The Lord your God is testing you, to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.’ Deuteronomy 13:3,” Pastor John Piper wrote in a post on X.

“I don’t think these cryptic messages are all that helpful, and he wrote an article back in 2020 which he recently reposted arguing that yes, abortion is evil, but Trump’s personality is equally as evil and is also a curse to our nation,” Stuckey explains. “Pastor John, they are not the same thing.”

“The other person’s policies, which affect our children, our grandchildren, our neighbors, the most vulnerable among us, were far more wicked and disorderly,” she continues. “I think some Christians think that moral relativism is courage, and it’s not. It’s actually a form of confusion and cowardice.”

“Certainly, I don’t think that John Piper is a coward, but I do think that his interpretations of the election in this current political moment is lacking wisdom,” she adds.

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

Man asks popular Christian pastor if porn has broken his future marriage. Pastor issues a heartfelt and damning response about dangers of pornography.



Pastor John Piper, minister and founder of Desiring God, detailed the damage that pornography inflicts on a marriage in a no-holds-barred response to a young man trying to overcome his compulsion to view pornography.

What are the details?

In a viral Sunday podcast, Piper tackled one man's struggle with pornography.

The man, a listener named Ben, told Piper, "Beginning as a 10-year-old, I became addicted to porn videos. It was my primary battle for the next seven years."

"There have been wonderful victories along the way, but I also know these videos are unrealistic and perverse," he added. "God's design for sex must be a lot different than what I've seen. But what I have seen is the only model I know. As I look forward to marriage, I fear that what I watched has already patterned my expectations. What advice do you have for me? Is there any hope that I will experience loving, godly, healthy intimacy in marriage? And what can I do now to ensure it?"

Piper's response

Pulling no punches, Piper responded that Ben's "wonderful victories" simply aren't enough, and that God's mercy via a "cluster of miracles" taking place in Ben and his future wife is Ben's only hope — but Ben is solely on the hook for pursuing those miracles.

"One of my concerns in even addressing Ben's question or talking to him directly in this way is that I can't tell from his question whether he has gotten victory over this or not, because he says, 'There have been wonderful victories along the way.' That doesn't sound like ... the pornographic videos are behind him, but that he keeps returning to them, perhaps with less frequency," Piper insists. "That's not going to do. You can't set your sights that low."

He continues, "Here's my suggested path toward hope, Ben. First, humble yourself by admitting that, for the rest of your life, those seven years of poisoning your mind are going to have consequences that you are responsible for and that will require unusual self-abasement in relation to your sexual expectations and your wife."

Piper also implores his female listeners who are considering marriage at any point in their lives and emphasizes the importance of confronting their future partners about pornography.

"And you should insist on victory, never to look at pornography — not simply infrequent exposure," he adds. "Too many people today think that pornography is just inevitable; it's a given, and marriages should just cope, just adapt to it. I think that's like saying, 'Poison is inevitable, and I'm just going to get used to taking poison.'"

Piper says that Christians' bodies are not their own, but belong to God.

"If you are a Christian, your perversely distorted brain belongs to God," he says. "He bought you. He knew what he was buying. He bought you, body and soul, by his blood. You are not your own. He bought you so that he could indwell you. And the one who indwells you is explicitly called holy. And that is your calling: Be holy, because you are bought to be holy and indwell by the Holy One."

Piper explains that it is up to Ben to speak frankly to a future partner about his past misgivings and indiscretions and be willing to be open and vulnerable to what comes with that.

"She will need to know all about this ahead of time so that she can decide if she's going to take a risk on you," he warns. "Don't you dare hide this from her, spring it on her after you're married, and know then that there's no way out. That would be very disingenuous, dishonest, evil of you to do that."

Trust and a dedication to brutal honesty, he says, will only further build intimacy in a relationship.

"I think it would be fair to say that every mature, healthy woman in marriage wants to enjoy her husband and wants to be enjoyed by her husband, but not used by him," Piper says. "So, what's the difference between your wife being enjoyed by you and being used by you? I'll put it in one sentence as best I can, and then mention three ways to make it a reality."

Three ways to cherish a person

Piper writes, "A woman will feel properly enjoyed by her husband, rather than used, if she can tell that he is delighting in her body and her person as one. If physical enjoying and personal cherishing are united, it will be crystal clear when and how the husband is enjoying her body."

"But," he warns, "it needs to be made clear that in this enjoyment he is cherishing her person. In other words, it's pretty obvious to a woman when he's enjoying her body. It may not be as obvious to her that he is cherishing her person."

Those ways include using words, eye contact, and a dedication to protecting and preserving the sacred intimacy that only God can build through trust, honesty, and respect.

"He may not be a poet, but he can say to her in the moment, 'I love you. I want no other. My eyes and my hands go after no other with the desire to do what we are doing now. You are precious to me. I cherish you,'" Piper says.

He continues, "Don't either of you give the impression that, as you move toward the height of delight, you lose personal contact and float into some dream world abstracted from the person in your arms. Open your eyes. Look as deeply into your spouse's eyes as you can, down into the very soul, and say with your eyes, 'You, you only, you only and forever — you.'"

Piper adds, "Finally, and this is true for everyone, but especially, Ben, for people with your background. Through all the communication and experimentation, build that beautiful garden of pleasure with a hedge around it made out of her glad desires and permissions."

He concludes, "So, set your face, Ben, in these next years to pursue holiness and purity and deep transformation, and there will be hope for you."

Has Porn Already Broken My Future Marriage? // Ask Pastor John www.youtube.com

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