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On Preferred Pronouns, Professional Neighbors, and Proximity to Those Who Reject the Church
In other words, being a Christian in the West these days ain’t what it used to be.
Being Professional Neighbors
The late Rev. Tim Keller saw the arrival of post-Christianity in the West and sought to prepare the evangelical church for it. In his 2020 book, How to Reach the West Again, he laid out his concern plainly: “While religion was broadly seen as a social good, or at least benign, increasing numbers of people now see the church as bad for people and a major obstacle to social progress.”
Like other evangelical leaders, Keller saw the challenge to the church primarily through the lens of evangelism. As the book title makes clear, his interest was in encouraging Christians in the West to remain committed to “reaching” their post-Christian communities with the good news of the Kingdom of God in the face of, as he puts it, the “social cost to espousing faith.”
To fully prepare for life in the post-Christian West, however, evangelical discipleship efforts must go beyond evangelism and apologetics. These efforts must encompass the various ways we can, so far as it depends on us, “live peaceably with all” (Rom. 12:18, ESV). This will require equipping those who hold to traditional Christian doctrines for the risky work of living and working alongside those who do not, as the culture around us increasingly encourages open rejection of orthodox teachings. As a good friend once put it, we must answer the call to become professional neighbors.
Navigating Preferred Pronouns
Consider the evangelical posture towards the LGBTQ community. Living in a post-Christian culture means that, in a welcomed development, the days of people working out their sexuality or gender closeted away from view are gone. However, this also means that evangelicals like me who hold to the traditional church doctrines on gender, sex, and marriage can now expect to find themselves regularly sharing classrooms, offices, or homes with people who openly and unabashedly do not.
What does life together with these neighbors look like? Do we use a co-worker’s preferred name after they transition? Do we invite our grandchild and their same-sex spouse over for Thanksgiving dinner? Can they spend the night at our house if they travel far to be with us? Do we offer one room or two? The work of being a professional neighbor, it appears, requires much wisdom and discernment — what the authors of The Great Dechurching refer to as “relational wisdom.” This is a task for which evangelicals seem to be particularly ill-prepared, at least judging by the panic over LGBTQ issues in our churches. We saw some of that panic earlier this year in the overwrought reaction to Pastor Alistair Begg’s comments about whether Christians could attend same-sex weddings.
For those of us who belong to faith traditions that put great stock in “being right,” navigating uncharted cultural territory can be frightening, especially when those fears become entangled with broader culture war fears about a diminished Christendom losing ground to post-modernity. Writing for reformation21 last Spring on the issue of “pronoun hospitality,” evangelical speaker, author, and former lesbian activist Rosaria Butterfield declared the accommodation an outright sin and sounded the alarm on its fatal danger. Pronoun hospitality, she warned, “cedes the moral language to the left” and lends credibility to “a wolfish theology that fails to protect the sheep” and instead “eats them alive.”
Although using someone’s preferred pronouns can be a move toward rather than away from an individual and can strengthen relationships, fears like Butterfield’s are not entirely unfounded. For some, becoming proximate to their post-Christian neighbors has been but a way station on the road to abandoning the Christian faith altogether. Wise discernment is an inherently risky business, limited by our fallibility. Yet, the alternative — lobbing apologetic truth bombs from the safety of walled-off doctrinal enclaves — is not an option. Sooner or later, someone will have to leave the safety of the walled city and chance living among those whom God so loved that he sent his Son so that “the world might be saved through him” (John 3:17, ESV).
Jesus Gives an Example
One of the most illuminating biblical passages dealing with neighborliness is Jesus’ famous parable about a certain Samaritan (Luke 10:29-37). In the story, three characters — two religious leaders and a member of a despised ethnic and religious group — have an opportunity to come near and help a stranger left for dead by robbers, but only the outcast takes the chance. He risks his life (the robbers could return while he tended to the stranger) and his wealth (taking on the stranger’s medical expenses) to help. He becomes the story’s unexpected hero by risking moving toward, rather than away from, the stranger. In Jesus’ eyes, the Samaritan’s actions define the scope of professional neighborliness — and he expects his followers to do likewise.
Moving toward neighbors who see the church as an obstacle to social progress is not without spiritual hazard. But I believe the “Good Samaritan” tale compels us to err on the side of proximity, trusting that the God who declared the gates of hell would not prevail is faithful enough, powerful enough, and gracious enough to protect His sheep and convict us of error.
According to Keller, to reach the West again, Christians “must have deep relationships with non-Christians.” This requires a new approach to spiritual formation. An approach that ups our “relational wisdom” game by emphasizing training in neighborliness as much as apologetics and wise discernment as much as correct doctrine. An approach that understands our fallibility and abounds in the grace we have received from Jesus Christ. Most of all, it will require a discipleship approach that equips us to draw near to those who reject Christianity — sometimes alarmingly so, viewing them not as puzzles, problems, or enemies but as what they’ve always been: neighbors.
Yes, being a Christian in the West these days is not what it used to be. But the loss of standing, difficult as it may be to accept, does not exempt us from our responsibility to draw near to our neighbors. Regardless of shifting cultural currents, our Lord remains “the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb. 13:8, ESV). And so does his call for us to continue loving our neighbors as ourselves regardless of our diminished position in the new post-Chiristian pecking order.
In other words, we are all Samaritans now.