Pronouns in the WELS

An Evangelical Admonition to Faithful Confession

I am concerned the WELS has a pronoun hospitality problem on its hands. For any of you that followed the ‘Honest Conversation’ arc that occurred August of last year, the facilitators’ guide had a comment about being sensitive to pronouns that was quickly redacted after feedback. A few months later a video by Dr. Nichole LaGrow at MLC, the WELS’ worker-training school surfaced. In this video she introduced herself with her preferred pronouns and intersectionalities. I was assured that she was ‘dealt with.’

However, in the last few months things seem to have accelerated bigly.

On October 19, Paul Wendland, Seminary-President-Emeritus, was interviewed by seminarian Charlie Ungemach on the Gird Up! podcast. In this interview the Reverend-Doctor Wendland was asked about the use of preferred pronouns, and his advice was that pronouns are not a hill to die on; quickly followed by the comment that we can’t avoid the taint of living in the kingdom of God’s left-hand, where you look for the lesser of two evils more often than not.

On November 25, Rev. Greg Lyon was interviewed on the Life Challenges Podcast where he left the question of pronoun hospitality and attending gay weddings open, “not at the expense of truth but because of truth” because “Biblical integrity is not just law, biblical integrity is also gospel.”

Predating all of these things - but having only stumbled on it after - is a ‘pronouns’ page on the madeknown.net website which makes the claim that using a preferred pronoun is not necessarily a sin. Two steps back: the madeknown.net website is a product of the WELS committee on Gender, Sexuality and Identity which reports to the COP. The membership of this committee is not listed publicly anywhere for ‘OPSEC reasons’, but having listened to a few interviews it is clear that Wendland is a part of it along with (according to sources) Bill and Ben from the Honest Conversations videos. You can find Ben’s name in the source code for the website, anyways.

And of course, there’s Mike Novotny who claims that both gay weddings and pronoun choice fall in the realm of Christian freedom, and that you shouldn’t talk to LGBTQ+ friends about their lifestyle choices until they profess Christianity (Mike Novotny, Taboo, pg 81)

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These are concerning developments. The WELS has a statement on human sexuality, authored by Rev Wendland prior to 2020, which states:

“We cannot accept that changing one’s birth sex through hormone therapies or surgeries is right or even possible. While we reject the false ideology of transgender theory as contrary to natural law and Scripture, we retain every sympathy for individuals whose sinful natures are adversely influenced by the powerful voices of their peers and their culture. We pledge to express our love to them in every way possible that remains consistent with our biblical confession.”

Since calling a “he” a “she” would be inconsistent with out Biblical confession, the statement would seemingly preclude the use of preferred pronouns. When Jesus was asked about divorce in Mark 10, He did not appeal to the Law of Moses, but to creation: male and female, He created them. Jesus defines marriage as a physical first-article reality that we know is also a spiritual reality (’but I speak of Christ and the Church’). If God calls a thing a thing, I as His servant can only say what my master says (’a disciple is not about his teacher, nor a servant above his master’). So, if God calls “him” a “him”, I have no authority to say otherwise. That would be the catechism definition of sin (’missing the mark’) it would be a failure to confess (ὁμολογέω, ‘same-say’). This is true without questioning the motive or reasoning of the person who would accommodate a pronoun - it’s sin, full stop.

In Galatians chapter 6, Paul tells the Galatians that the circumcision party are looking to accommodate the Jewish cultural norm of circumcision to avoid the cross of Christ. While none of us can read hearts, there is certainly a temptation to accommodate pronouns when interacting with the LGBTQ+, in part due to a desire to avoid that confrontation. We may clothe it in a pious desire to build a relationship. We speak highly of the theology of the cross, rightly so - but how many of us suffer for the Gospel? How often do we euphemize sin like Wendland’s comment earlier in the same podcast, that “we all have stuff”? How often don’t we say “well, all sin is the same, all sin damns” when we know full well there are other dimensions to sin, like how it impacts our neighbor and how it impacts our very soul. Paul makes it clear that certain sins are the product of God handing people over to a depraved mind. We fail to be His witnesses (μάρτυς, “martyr”) because we fear martyrdom. The martyrs of the early church lost their lives, we merely have to deal with social ostracization or perhaps loss of income.

Finally, when the rich young ruler came to Jesus, Jesus loved him and he told him the one thing that he could not accept to hear. Being told that he had to give up his wealth in order to follow Jesus struck at the root of his sin - you might even say it struck at his identity. But Jesus loved him, and He brought every facet of himself to the situation. In the same way when we encounter the LGBTQ+, we love them, and we tell them the one thing that they cannot bear to hear. We tell them in love that their lifestyle of sin is not right. It violates God’s law. By doing so we love them in the Biblical sense so that their hearts might be opened to the sweetness of the Gospel to heal and restore.

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The biblical witness is clear, and throughout the ages God raises us great Christian men who proclaim the clear Biblical witness to their time and place. What might Wauwatosa theologian August Pieper think about accommodating preferred pronouns?

“[T]here is no excuse for those who think it unnecessary to tell unbelievers about their sins right to their face and to condemn their ways with the written law, since the gospel alone is God’s power for salvation, and so it is enough to make these tidings known to the world. This opinion is not based on Scripture, but on their own wisdom. It is born of their fear of men and of the curse of the cross... Wanting to be silent about sin and win the impenitent only with the sweetness of the gospel amounts to denying God’s zeal and holiness and suppressing his threats. It amounts to hypocrisy, practicing spiritual quackery. It means leading the poor people to fleshly security instead of to faith and casting pearls before the swine. Under all circumstances the impenitent need the law, and only next, afterwards, the gospel.” (August Pieper, Wauwatosa Theology, Vol 2, pg 60)

One of the greatest hymns to come out of the Reformation, Paul Speratus’ Salvation Unto Us Has Come, reminds us of the proper use of law and gospel

“The law reveals the guilt of sin

and makes us conscience-stricken.

But then the Gospel enters in

the sinful soul to quicken

Come to the cross!

Trust Christ, and live

The law no peace can ever give

No comfort and no blessing”

And finally, an evangelical admonition from Charles Porterfield Krauth:

“When error is admitted into the Church, it will be found that the stages of its progress are always three. It begins by asking toleration. Its friends say to the majority: You need not be afraid of us; we are few, and weak; only let us alone; we shall not disturb the faith of others. The Church has her standards of doctrine; of course we shall never interfere with them; we only ask for ourselves to be spared interference with our private opinions. Indulged in this for a time, error goes on to assert equal rights. Truth and error are two balancing forces. The Church shall do nothing which looks like deciding between them; that would be partiality. It is bigotry to assert any superior right for the truth. We are to agree to differ, and any favoring of the truth, because it is truth, is partisanship. What the friends of truth and error hold in common is fundamental. Anything on which they differ is ipso facto non-essential. Anybody who makes account of such a thing is a disturber of the peace of the church. Truth and error are two co-ordinate powers, and the great secret of church-statesmanship is to preserve the balance between them. From this point error soon goes on to its natural end, which is to assert supremacy. Truth started with tolerating; it comes to be merely tolerated, and that only for a time. Error claims a preference for its judgements on all disputed points. It puts men into positions, not as at first in spite of their departure from the Church’s faith, but in consequence of it. Their recommendation is that they repudiate that faith, and position is given them to teach others to repudiate it and to make them skillful in combating it.” (Charles Porterfield Krauth, The Conservative Reformation and its Theology, (the CRT I gladly affirm) pg 195-6)

May the Lord grant us opportunities to be His faithful witnesses.