The Right Pronoun Issue

What are the right pronouns to use? He/him/his? She/her/hers? Lots of conversation surrounds pronouns these days.

But we are having the wrong conversation about the “right pronouns”. That conversation speaks to which third-person pronouns we ought to use. Wrong conversation. The right conversation, the more helpful and ultimately more salutary one, centers instead on a better distinction between use of the first-person and the second-person pronouns.

Specifically, it is the issue reflected in Psalm 115:1. “Not to us, O LORD, not to us, but to your name give glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness!” Is our accent in life on first-person pronouns (I, me, mine, we, us, ours) or on second-person pronouns (you, your, yours)? How we sort, accent, or apply these two types of pronouns to each other makes all the difference in the world… and in the one to come.

In David Brooks’ The Road to Character he concludes with a discussion about moral realism and moral romanticism. To perhaps twist his words into mine, moral romanticism focuses on the Big Me (first-person) and moral realism focuses on That Which is Not Me, You and you (second-person).

Moral romanticism, the prevailing view today, centers around self: fulfillment, expression, autonomy, dominance (accenting the root domine- lordship). What is good, best, most pleasurable for me, mine, us and ours. The ancients summed all this up long before the Who asked the question, “Can you see the real me” with the word “pride”. In the ancient world it was a vice. Today it is one of the few virtues. It is life driven by first-person thinking.

Moral realism acknowledges the weakness of the first-person (as in “I a poor miserable sinner”) and directs us outside of ourselves to another, to second-person thinking. You, as in not me, are where my hope is. This language directs us to God. It is also the language that directs us to others, to relationships, to love.

All of this shakes out most clearly in Psalm 115:1. “Not to us, O LORD, not to us, but to your name give glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness!”

If conversation in the world spent more time sorting out things relative to first-person and second-person pronouns instead of the issue du jour of third-person pronoun usage, there would be far less strife and division.  How am I related to You (God). How are you (God) related to me? How am I related to you (other person). How are you (other person) related to me?

The world can only learn to have that conversation when it overhears the Church speaking and thinking thus. Let the conversation begin. That’s the right pronoun issue. Here. With you. With me.