WHY I DON’T TRUST THEY [W, 10-12-22]

Following up on my last column on gender pronouns… especially the use of they… [And check Nina’s comments at the end of that column.]

First, my friend, Bob, says in the comments that he is told the proper pronouns for a trans person is he/she. But I know a trans woman pretty well who uses only she, because for her that’s the point: she’s totally and only  a she, not a she/he.

With individuals, you can just find out what they prefer, like I prefer to be John now even though in the family and professionally I have always been John Robert. [Which is still okay.] But I’m old, with only a short time left, so let’s not waste time. Just call me John. Or Your Most Holy Eminence. I like that, too. Old seminary friend, Ed Tucker, calls me St. John. That's okay, too.

With groups, though, we are told different things by different people, as to what is preferable. We’re always going to be wrong with some folks.

Often it’s generational. When I was campus minister at ILSU, I hosted a late-night call-in radio show on WGLT radio. Talked about lots of values stuff. Often had a guest. One night it was the first and then only black faculty member at ILSU. At one point I referred to “blacks” and he quite sincerely explained to me that the correct term was Negro. But I hung around with students all day [more like all night], including Lonnie Pruett, the first black student body president at ILSU. I knew him pretty well, officiated at this wedding. Lonnie and the other black students thought that Negro was Uncle Tomish. They preferred black. Our new prof friend had been so busy getting a PhD he hadn’t been able to keep up.

But back to they…

 

I learned as a young preacher not to trust they.

I was a bit surprised at how often they criticized me. After all, I was a preacher, for God’s sake. I thought preachers were great. I was a Welfare kid, but the preachers called me by name and acted like I was important.

I had been in the church all my life, but I was the only person in my family who went to church, so I had never heard the preacher criticized.

I did not know that many church people had roast preacher for Sunday dinner. Until I started preaching, I thought people went home from church and tried to use what they had heard in the sermon to get closer to God and be more like Jesus. That’s what I did... If I couldn’t get into a basketball game somewhere.

Yes, I was a nice boy and doing the will of God. I was also, however, the preacher. They called me Rev. McFarland, even though I was only nineteen. [However, this remained in place for the next 40 years.] I was fair game. I should have been pleased when they criticized me. They obviously took me seriously, despite my youth and inexperience.

I was not pleased, though. I did not like being criticized. It’s not that I thought I was perfect. I knew I said and did stupid stuff. But I was just a regular person, too. Regular people don’t know how to deal with criticism. I had not yet learned from church sociologist Ken Haugk how to distinguish critics, who really are trying to help you, from antagonists, who just want to give you a hard time.

When someone wanted to criticize me but did not want to take responsibility for it, they would blame it on they. They say that you should not tell jokes when you preach. They say you should not use so many sports illustrations. They say you should stick to the Gospel and not talk about race relations. They say you should talk about the blood of the lamb more…

That last one was particularly difficult for me. I had heard “blood of the lamb” in church, but I had no real idea what it meant. I certainly did not think that people in general wanted to hear about it more. But there was that one man who said every Sunday… oh, no, he wasn’t just one. He was they!

So, it’s not just concern for clarity of communication that causes me now to be slow about using “they” as singular, the way God intended. To me, they are those amorphous and anonymous antagonists who don’t want to take responsibility for their own criticisms.

On the other hand, I should know by now that they was always singular, always just that one.

Now I’ll probably get criticized for not knowing what I’m talking about… at least by me, who is also he/him/his…

John Robert McFarland

I don’t understand the him and his, though. Once I’ve said my pronoun is he, shouldn’t his and him follow naturally…