Jared Moore’s Response to Pre­ston Sprin­kle’s Teach­ings on “LGBT”

This arti­cle is a repost­ing, with per­mis­sion, of Moore’s post found here. Links to added by EWTC News

I went on Pre­ston Sprin­kle’s pod­cast, The­ol­o­gy in the Raw, on Tues­day, 11/21/23. He accused me of lying. He said I lied about what he teach­es by quot­ing Rosaria But­ter­field­’s speech at Lib­er­ty Uni­ver­si­ty below. But what’s more prob­a­ble? That Rosaria is a bul­ly, seek­ing to mis­rep­re­sent Sprin­kle, or that Sprin­kle and his min­istries have been, at best, unclear in their writ­ings and speech­es, or at worst, hereti­cal?

I told Pre­ston I would read all that he wrote and what his min­istries have argued, and if indeed, I have mis­rep­re­sent­ed him, I would pub­licly repent. Here are the quotes from Rosari­a’s speech at Lib­er­ty Uni­ver­si­ty’s con­vo­ca­tion, and the quotes I found from Pre­ston or his min­istry or speak­ers at his Exiles in Baby­lon con­fer­ence, that jus­ti­fy Rosari­a’s state­ments:

1) “Same-sex attrac­tion is a sin­less temp­ta­tion, and only a sin if you act on it?” (Pre­ston said this was accu­rate)

2) “Peo­ple who expe­ri­ence same-sex attrac­tion are actu­al­ly gay-Chris­tians called to life-long celiba­cy?”

My sum­ma­ry response:

By Pre­ston argu­ing that a Chris­t­ian who “expe­ri­ences same-sex attrac­tion” “is gay” onto­log­i­cal­ly, (by nature, i.e. bio­log­i­cal ori­en­ta­tion) and that this per­son can nev­er act on his ontol­ogy, he’s argu­ing that they’re called to life-long celiba­cy, that is, nev­er act­ing on their “gay­ness.” His heresy is in teach­ing that same-sex attrac­tion is who a per­son is, and in argu­ing that same-sex attrac­tion is not sin.

Quote from Pre­ston:

“Some con­ser­v­a­tive Chris­tians say that “being gay is a sin.” But when they say “gay,” they typ­i­cal­ly mean sex­u­al lust, gay sex, and affirm­ing same-sex mar­riage. Again, how­ev­er, the term gay sim­ply means “attract­ed to peo­ple of the same-sex” and doesn’t have to include details about a person’s sex life or views about mar­riage. This means that being gay is not in itself a sin, since same-sex attrac­tion is not itself a sin. Many of my gay friends are com­mit­ted to celiba­cy because they love the Bible—yet they’re still gay. Some of my gay friends are mar­ried to peo­ple of the oppo­site sex (often called a “mixed ori­en­ta­tion mar­riage”) and believe in a tra­di­tion­al Chris­t­ian sex­u­al eth­ic, and they still iden­ti­fy as gay. Are they in sin for “being gay?” How are they sin­ning.” I can’t tell you how many peo­ple have been dam­aged by the state­ment “Being gay is a sin.” A kid comes out to her par­ents and says she’s gay, and her par­ents flip out and accuse her of liv­ing in sin—just because she said she’s gay. Sticks and stones will cer­tain­ly break your bones, but words used wrong­ly will crush your soul. If same-sex attrac­tion is not a sin, and gay means “to be attract­ed to the same sex,” then being gay itself is not a sin” (27–28).¹

My response:

The dam­age done to a kid who “comes out” is not due to the par­ent call­ing same-sex attrac­tion sin, it’s the dam­age from peo­ple like Pre­ston that tell the kid “being gay” is who she is. If the kid saw her same-sex attrac­tions as par­tic­u­lar instances of sin­ful desire rather than “who she is,” she would­n’t be in despair. The par­ent could point her to Christ to be cleansed, com­plete­ly. But, instead, Pre­ston sends such a kid to the mir­ror to self-jus­ti­fy, say­ing, “I’m gay,” “but I’m not sin­ning in my heart,” and “My homo­sex­u­al­i­ty can be sanc­ti­fied” rather than teach­ing her that her homo­sex­u­al desires can be for­giv­en and changed in Christ. After all, the Bible nev­er says any­one is born “gay” or “trans,” rather men and women exchanged the nat­ur­al use of the man or woman in Romans 1:24–27. They were not onto­log­i­cal­ly dif­fer­ent than any oth­er men or women; they just chose to walk in sin.

Quote from Pre­ston:

“And since same-sex attrac­tion (i.e., being gay) itself is not a sin, I’m not anti-gay. I’m actu­al­ly pro-gay. I’m pro-gay in the sense that I am for gay peo­ple and I want God’s best for them and believe they can ful­ly fol­low and hon­or God while being gay. Because same-sex attrac­tion (being gay) itself is not a sin” (29).²

My Response:

If Pre­ston is “pro-gay,” and believes that “ ‘gay peo­ple’ can ful­ly fol­low God and hon­or God while being gay,” then how does he not argue exact­ly what Rosaria said, “Peo­ple who expe­ri­ence same-sex attrac­tion are actu­al­ly gay-Chris­tians called to life-long celiba­cy?” And why would a Chris­t­ian ever repent of same-sex attrac­tions if they are “pro-gay?”

In a “Pas­toral Paper” on Pre­ston’s min­istry’s web­site, Nate Collins and Gre­go­ry Coles, two “gay Chris­tians,” argue,

“…rec­og­niz­ing that same-sex ori­en­ta­tion is not a sin will free sex­u­al minori­ties with­in our con­gre­ga­tions from the bur­den of unnec­es­sary guilt and shame. Same-sex ori­ent­ed Chris­tians have often been told that they are in sin mere­ly for being gay—even if they remain sex­u­al­ly pure. This false accu­sa­tion weighs peo­ple down with an unbear­ably heavy load, demand­ing that they can­not tru­ly expe­ri­ence the love of God unless they also expe­ri­ence a change in sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion. By rec­og­niz­ing that no ori­en­ta­tion is more or less inher­ent­ly sin­ful than anoth­er, we become equipped to tru­ly preach the gospel to sex­u­al minorities—a gospel in which all are equal­ly invit­ed on the dan­ger­ous jour­ney of self-denial and obe­di­ence to Christ.“³

My response:

First, there is no such thing as a “sex­u­al minor­i­ty” because there is noth­ing onto­log­i­cal­ly dif­fer­ent in a per­son God cre­at­ed male or female who is hav­ing same-sex attrac­tions. They’re still male or female, not some oth­er thing.

Sec­ond, bib­li­cal­ly, only God’s design is good (Gen 1, 2:18–25). Evil attrac­tions or desires, what the apos­tle Paul calls the flesh (Rom 7:7–25, Gal 5:16–24), can­not be sanc­ti­fied because they are moral­ly cul­pa­ble sin. We must turn from the flesh and walk in the Spir­it, for the flesh is opposed to the Spir­it. The flesh is not good or neu­tral. Moses tells us that God for­gives iniq­ui­ty (Ex 34:6–9), which is a twist­ed or bent char­ac­ter against God. Sprin­kle and his min­istries teach you do not need for­give­ness for a bent sex­u­al­i­ty against God. Jesus says we must love God with all of our hearts, souls, and minds, and our neigh­bors as our­selves (Matt 22:37–39). Gay attrac­tions come from the flesh not the Spir­it. They do not love God or our neigh­bor, nor can they. Rather, they are con­trary to God’s design of us as male or female; they hate God and our neigh­bor (Gen 2:18–25). All sex­u­al­i­ty was designed for mar­riage accord­ing to Gen­e­sis 2:18–25. And sex­u­al­i­ty can­not be sep­a­rat­ed from God’s design of us as male or female, but that’s exact­ly what Sprin­kle does when his min­istry refers to “being gay. This is not a “sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion,” not ontol­ogy; rather, “same-sex attrac­tion” is patho­log­i­cal sin-pat­tern that, in the pow­er of the Holy Spir­it, can be repent­ed from; and can be healed by God through repen­tance and faith in Christ. If you nev­er talk to a “gay Chris­t­ian” and only read the Bible, you’ll come away believ­ing that God can save and trans­form any­one from any sin. But, if you prac­tice anthro­pol­o­gy, the study of human feel­ings, like Nate Collins, Gre­go­ry Coles, and Pre­ston Sprin­kle do, and you sub­mit to per­son­al expe­ri­ence as equal­ly author­i­ta­tive as the Bible, you come away teach­ing what these men have argued.

3) “Peo­ple who expe­ri­ence same-sex attrac­tion, rarely, if ever, change, and there­fore, should nev­er pur­sue, het­ero­sex­u­al mar­riage.”

My Sum­ma­ry Response:

Pre­ston says that peo­ple who have same-sex attrac­tion rarely, if ever, change. And, because he believes they rarely change, he teach­es some­thing called “mixed-ori­en­ta­tion mar­riages,” rather than het­ero­sex­u­al mar­riage, for “same-sex attract­ed Chris­tians.” But he even views “mixed ori­en­ta­tion mar­riages” as a rare option. In oth­er words, in you are always “gay,” and you mar­ry an oppo­site-sex per­son, you’re still not in a “het­ero­sex­u­al mar­riage” accord­ing to Sprin­kle; there­fore, he does not teach that a “gay Chris­t­ian” must pur­sue or even can pur­sue het­ero­sex­u­al mar­riage, since he or she is “homo­sex­u­al.” At best, a “gay Chris­t­ian” can pur­sue a “mixed-ori­en­ta­tion mar­riage,” accord­ing to Sprin­kle.

Quote from Pre­ston:

“A “mixed ori­en­ta­tion mar­riage” is where one spouse is straight while the oth­er oppo­site-sex spouse is attract­ed to the same sex. His­to­ry has seen many such mar­riages end in much pain and confusion—especially if kids are involved. Giv­en their destruc­tive poten­tial, mixed ori­en­ta­tion mar­riages are rarely viewed as an option for peo­ple who are same-sex attract­ed (or gay).”⁴

4) “Sex and gen­der are dif­fer­ent, and God does­n’t care if men live as men or if women live as women, because all you need to do is grow in the fruit of the Spir­it, as if the fruit of the Holy Spir­it can grow from sin.”

My Sum­ma­ry Response:

Pre­ston advo­cates for pro­noun hos­pi­tal­i­ty, encour­ag­ing Chris­tians to use the pre­ferred pro­nouns of those they inter­act with. He also per­mits Chris­tians to write for his min­istry and to speak at his con­fer­ence, who post pro­nouns in their bios on Twit­ter. To per­mit “exer­cis­ing pro­noun hos­pi­tal­i­ty” is to sep­a­rate sex from gen­der, as if some­one can self-iden­ti­fy con­trary to his or her bio­log­i­cal sex.

Quote from Pre­ston:

“Trans* peo­ple are need­ed in the church. The church will look more like Jesus if it has more trans* peo­ple in it, not few­er. Jesus loves and val­ues such peo­ple and wants to be in rela­tion­ship with them” (1).d

My response:

Does this not sound like what Rosaria said? If the church “will look more like Jesus if it has more trans* peo­ple in it, not few­er,” does­n’t that sound like Pre­ston argues that “God does­n’t care if men live as men or if women live as women, because all you need to do is grow in the fruit of the Spir­it, as if the fruit of the Holy Spir­it can grow from sin”? A trans per­son, in his heart, is not liv­ing as a man. I mean, imag­ine say­ing the same thing about any oth­er sin. And that’s the issue. Pre­ston does not believe “being trans*” in your heart is sin. Imag­ine say­ing, “The church will look more like Jesus if it has more mur­der­ous peo­ple in it, not few­er.” “The church will look more like Jesus if it has more racist peo­ple in it, not few­er,” or any oth­er sin. It’s pre­pos­ter­ous. He’s treat­ing trans desires as dif­fer­ent than all oth­er sin, though all sin comes from the same place, the heart, accord­ing to Jesus (Mark 7:20–23).

Quotes from Pre­ston:

“What does it mean for a trans* per­son to live as a fol­low­er of Jesus? First of all—and I can’t say this loud­ly enough—many trans* peo­ple are already fol­low­ing Jesus more faith­ful­ly, more pas­sion­ate­ly, more con­sis­tent­ly, more bold­ly than oth­er non-trans* Chris­tians” (1).d

“The fact that so many Chris­tians with dys­pho­ria are still pur­su­ing Christ—in the face of ridicule, mis­un­der­stand­ing, or deaf­en­ing silence about their

existence—should send non-trans* Chris­tians to their knees ask­ing God for the same spir­i­tu­al pow­er and resilience. Jesus wants more trans* and dys­phor­ic peo­ple in His church, not less. So should we” (7).d

My response:

Again, this clear­ly sounds like Pre­ston is say­ing that trans* peo­ple are god­ly exam­ples to fol­low, even argu­ing that Jesus wants more of them in His church, not less. This, at the very least, implies exact­ly what Rosaria said, Pre­ston teach­es that “God does­n’t care if men live as men or if women live as women, because all you need to do is grow in the fruit of the Spir­it, as if the fruit of the Holy Spir­it can grow from sin.”

Quote from Pre­ston:

“Expe­ri­enc­ing gen­der dys­pho­ria is not a sin. That is, feel­ing an unwant­ed sense of dis­tress over your bio­log­i­cal sex is not a sin; it is not a sin to suf­fer from a psy­cho­log­i­cal con­di­tion. What we do with this expe­ri­ence could lead to sin, but the expe­ri­ence itself is not sin. I see no bib­li­cal rea­son for with­hold­ing mem­ber­ship, bap­tism, or oth­er church prac­tices from some­one sim­ply because they expe­ri­ence gen­der dys­pho­ria. If some­one is suf­fer­ing from severe dys­pho­ria, it may not be wise for them to serve in a lead­er­ship posi­tion, both for their own health and for the health of the con­gre­ga­tion. (This goes for any aspir­ing leader, trans* or oth­er­wise, who is suf­fer­ing from severe psy­cho­log­i­cal dis­tress.) But this kind of deci­sion should nev­er be made on eth­i­cal grounds. We should nev­er give the impres­sion that a per­son with dys­pho­ria is moral­ly unfit for lead­er­ship mere­ly by virtue of their dys­pho­ria” (7).d

My response:

Pre­ston con­fus­es med­ical with moral. If gen­der dys­pho­ria is mere­ly a psy­cho­log­i­cal con­di­tion, then it is not moral­ly cul­pa­ble in either desire or action. It’s like Alzheimer’s in that way. And it’s not a sin to act on one’s Alzheimer’s. But that’s not what Pre­ston says. He wants Chris­tians to treat gen­der dys­pho­ria in one’s heart, like a dis­ease or birth defect, but then tells the Chris­tians they can’t act on it, which reveals that it’s not a dis­ease, sick­ness, or birth defect. Again, he’s direct­ly say­ing that God does­n’t care if you desire to be the oppo­site-sex in your heart.

Quote from Pre­ston:

“If Jesus were a pas­tor today, I sus­pect he’d have loads of trans* peo­ple attend­ing his church. Do they want to attend yours” (13)?d

My response:

No. Jesus would­n’t have “loads of trans* peo­ple” attend­ing His church, because the unre­pen­tant did not con­tin­ue fol­low­ing Jesus. The unre­pen­tant cru­ci­fied Him.

Quote from Pre­ston:

“Pro­nouns. God­ly Chris­tians dis­pute whether Chris­tians should use the pro­nouns that trans* peo­ple choose for them­selves. For instance, some say that call­ing a bio­log­i­cal male “she” (or vice ver­sa) is lying and affirm­ing a person’s inac­cu­rate view of them­selves. Oth­ers, how­ev­er, say that using a person’s pro­nouns can be an act of Chris­t­ian hos­pi­tal­i­ty and love.__ Hav­ing wres­tled with this issue, our church lead­ers believe that using someone’s pro­nouns can be a hos­pitable act. For some peo­ple with gen­der dys­pho­ria, hear­ing cer­tain pro­nouns can trig­ger their dys­pho­ria and ignite feel­ings of self-hatred, even lead­ing to self-harm or sui­ci­dal thoughts. While one goal of dis­ci­ple­ship for a per­son with gen­der dys­pho­ria is learn­ing to accept their bio­log­i­cal sex, this can be a very slow and imper­fect jour­ney. We believe that using someone’s pro­nouns can be an act of rela­tion­al love that opens up rela­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties for oth­er believ­ers to come along­side trans* peo­ple in their jour­ney” (26).⁵

My Response:

In order to use some­one’s pre­ferred pro­nouns, you have to go along with their sep­a­ra­tion of their sex from their gen­der, which is what Rosaria said Pre­ston’s min­istry argued.

Quote from Pre­ston:

“Iden­ti­ties. Peo­ple iden­ti­fy as trans* (includ­ing trans­gen­der, non­bi­na­ry, and oth­er iden­ti­ties) for var­i­ous rea­sons, and we do not feel that using these terms is intrin­si­cal­ly sin­ful Our fam­i­ly does believe that our pri­ma­ry, ulti­mate, and all-con­trol­ling iden­ti­ty is that we are “in Christ.” That is, we are fol­low­ers of Jesus, for­giv­en sin­ners deemed saints, adopt­ed chil­dren of God who are lovers of neigh­bor and ene­my alike. And yet, as diverse chil­dren of God, we all have var­i­ous expe­ri­ences in life, and some­times terms can act as short­hand descrip­tors of our unique expe­ri­ences. Con­sid­er this imper­fect anal­o­gy: Going through a divorce can shape a person’s life in sig­nif­i­cant ways. If this per­son says, “I am divorced,” they don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly see their entire exis­tence and iden­ti­ty as cen­tered on their divorce. This label is just a short­hand descrip­tor of a sig­nif­i­cant aspect of their life. In a sim­i­lar way, some­one might say “I am trans*” and mean sim­ply “I expe­ri­ence gen­der dys­pho­ria” or “I don’t res­onate with gen­der stereo­types of mas­culin­i­ty and fem­i­nin­i­ty.” In short, we believe that some­one could use a trans* iden­ti­ty label and still believe that Jesus reigns supreme in their life” (26).d

My Response:

No. You can­not use a “trans iden­ti­ty label” and also believe that Jesus reigns supreme in your life. A trans-iden­ti­ty label is inher­ent­ly sin­ful. It’s a result of the Fall. It would not exist with­out sin enter­ing the world, and it will not exist in the new heav­ens and new earth. It can­not be jus­ti­fied. It’s sin for a Chris­t­ian to use a “trans iden­ti­ty label.”

My Final Response:

By Pre­ston argu­ing that “being gay” is not sin, and by say­ing that he is “pro-gay,” he is telling men and women that they do not have to live accord­ing to God mak­ing them male or female, in their hearts. Because about the most effem­i­nate thing a man can do is to “be attract­ed to anoth­er man.” In order for a man to be attract­ed to anoth­er man, he has to look at men the way that Eve looked at Adam. And Eve is a woman. There­fore, in teach­ing that men and women do not have to live accord­ing to their God-designed sex­u­al­i­ty, as male or female in their hearts, that they can actu­al­ly desire the same-sex in their hearts and it’s not sin, Pre­ston teach­es exact­ly what Rosaria said he is, “God does­n’t care if men live as men or if women live as women, because all you need to do is grow in the fruit of the Spir­it, as if the fruit of the Holy Spir­it can grow from sin.”

Pre­ston Sprin­kle, not Rosaria, should pub­licly repent. For, Pre­ston, his min­istry, The Cen­ter for Faith, Sex­u­al­i­ty, and Gen­der, and his con­fer­ence, Exiles in Baby­lon, are teach­ing heresy.

Dr. Moore’s book, ‘The Lust of the Flesh,’ which great­ly expands on this top­ic can be found here. We hope to pro­vide a review of the book soon.

SOURCES:

1. Pre­ston Sprin­kle, “Grace//Truth 1.0: Five Con­ver­sa­tions Every Thought­ful Chris­t­ian Should Have About Faith, Sex­u­al­i­ty, and Gen­der,” https://www.centerforfaith.com/…/grace_truth_1.0… ↩︎
2. Pre­ston Sprin­kle, “Grace//Truth 1.0: Five Con­ver­sa­tions Every Thought­ful Chris­t­ian Should Have About Faith, Sex­u­al­i­ty, and Gen­der,” https://www.centerforfaith.com/…/grace_truth_1.0…  ↩︎
3. Nate Collins & Gre­go­ry Coles, “IS SAME-SEX ATTRACTION (OR “BEING GAY”) A SIN?,” https://www.centerforfaith.com/…/cfsg_pastoral_papers_3… ↩︎
4. Pre­ston Sprin­kle, “What is a Mixed-Ori­en­ta­tion Mar­riage?” https://theologyintheraw.com/what-is-a-mixed-orientation…/ ↩︎
5. Pre­ston Sprin­kle, “GUIDANCE FOR CHURCHES ON MEMBERSHIP, BAPTISM, COMMUNION, SERVICE, AND LEADERSHIP FOR TRANS* PEOPLE,” https://www.centerforfaith.com/…/cfsg_pastoral_papers… ↩︎