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In Defense of Proper Pronouns

     Recently, I've noticed a disturbing trend within the church: the refusal to use pronouns when referring to God and Jesus. I had noticed the deacon at my church doing it, and while it annoyed me, I thought that it was just one of her quirks. Then, I noticed the same thing happening in the Lenten devotion I am doing. Now, they are still using You and Your during their prayers, but they are not using He, Him, or Himself. What they seem to be forgetting is that the entire reason why proper pronouns exist as a part of speech is to use them to refer to God and Christ.

    Imagine, if you will, that St. Paul also had this aversion to pronouns. In that case, Philippians 2:6-9 would read like this:

    "Christ was like God in every way, but Christ did not think that Christ's being equal to God was something to use for Christ's own benefit. Instead, Christ gave up everything, even Christ's place with God. Christ accepted the role of a servant, appearing in human form. During Christ's life as a man, Christ humbled Christself by being fully obedient to God, even when that caused Christ's death--death on a cross. So God raised Christ up to the most important place and gave Christ the name that is greater than any other name."

And had St. John also shared this viewpoint, John 3:16, the most quoted verse in the Bible, would now read like this: "For God so loved the world that God gave God's only Son so that everyone who believes in the Son may not perish but may have eternal life." Both of these passages become much clunkier and much less quotable using this formula. So why would we want to use it within our worship service?

    Our job as Christians is to make Jesus well known and make Him look good. When we refuse to use the proper conventions of our language, we are perceived as people who don't know what they are talking about. No one will want any part of a religion they perceive as being full of idiots. So let's make good use of the language we speak, and put proper pronouns back in their rightful place in our devotions and worship services. 

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