Is It Worth It?

Would you be willing to be fired for “misgendering” a fellow employee?

Unsurprisingly, Christians disagree on this one. One school of thought is that it’s “unloving” not to use a fellow employee’s designated pronouns, that it presents an unnecessary barrier to sharing the gospel. Others feel that actively validating someone’s cultivated false image or delusionary impression about themselves is a form of dishonesty, and Christians ought to be committed to truth. The third (and probably largest) group of Christians just hopes the whole issue will go away before they have to confront it in a situation where there is anything financial at stake.

Well, good luck with that, fence sitters. The fence is already wobbling under you.

Too Hot to Handle: Brimstone and Deceit

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

Tom: Here’s a hot topic we’ve yet to discuss, IC — at least, it’s generated some serious heat for Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, sufficient to rate an article in The New York Times.

At issue is the government’s determination to tie federal funding for youth job programs to the expression of politically correct opinion. It’s about $113 million annually, give or take, and approximately 70,000 jobs are at stake.

The Prime Minister dismisses the very predictable negative reaction from Canadian conservatives as a “kerfuffle”.

Too Hot to Handle: Brimstone and Deceit

The most recent version of this post is available here.

A Compelling Argument

Compelled speech is the new line in the sand some believers (and a few unbelievers) are not prepared to cross.

Jordan Peterson’s refusal-in-principle to use invented pronouns made him a household name. Taking a page from that manual, a Christian music teacher from Brownsburg, Indiana declined to address transgender students by their preferred names. Doing so “would go against my Christian beliefs,” John Kluge told an NBC affiliate. Another, Madeline Kirksey of Katy, Texas, could not bring herself to call a six-year-old girl in her care by her preferred (male) name.

No points for correctly guessing that Kluge and Kirksey are currently unemployed. Even Peterson has not taught a class in some time, though he does quite well with the combination of YouTube and Patreon. (The bestseller probably didn’t hurt either.)

Expect plenty more of this.