The Battle for Control of the Evangelical Dictionary

There are many concerns that I have with Preston Sprinkle’s doctrine and teaching, but there are some main issues I want to point out here at the top. Firstly, I believe his teaching on homosexual desires to not be in alignment with the teaching of scripture. Secondly, I believe his teaching on what he calls “gay Christians” to be not only false but dangerous, as he attempts to domesticate evil. Thirdly, I believe his teaching and rhetoric on “gay Christians” “coming out of the closet” rather than confessing and repenting of their sexual sin is tricking people into the mistaken belief that they are being obedient to God, when they are in fact embracing their sin as a fixed part of their being. Fourthly, I believe his teaching being exclusively on a “biblical sexual ethic” to be incomplete and a half-truth, as ethics focuses on behavior and not on sinful desires from our flesh.

Language and Ideas

The first struggle in this conversation is the issue of semantics, and different sides of the argument using different terms. Preston Sprinkle and others like him in the Side B camp have adopted the language of the world when they discuss sexuality. This is their first error. By conceding our language to the world, we start the discussion from a false starting line on the wrong track. By allowing the world to dictate the terms, they thus control the outcome of ideas and concepts. George Orwell said, “there is no swifter route to the corruption of thought than the corruption of language.” Furthermore, we have all heard it said, “the fight for truth is a fight over the dictionary.” These sayings are wise and we should take heed.

On the topic of homosexuality, Preston Sprinkle likes to use terms he got from the world like “same-sex attraction”, “same-sex orientation” and “gay”; he asserts that these concepts are not inherently sinful. The problem with these ideas, concepts, and terms is that they are entirely made up by our culture. The Bible does not use these terms, nor does it present these ideas or concepts on homosexuality. Building his theology using the world’s terms, ideas and concepts is partly how Preston arrives at his erroneous conclusion that they are not sinful. It appears he is discussing biblical theology when he has actually been “taken captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ,” as Colossians 2:8 outright warns us not to do. He also often appeals to organizations like the American Psychological Association, which can no longer define what a man or a woman even are anymore, as a source of authority to support his ideas. Let us not forget that one of the tenets of the protestant church is our adherence to Sola Scriptura. If we build our theology on any other “authority” other than the Bible then we are beholden to it and not to scripture and Christ.

“Same-sex Attraction”

The world’s terms are not what they seem on the surface, and we would be wise to look at them closer. Preston, Revoice, and the others in the Side B camp often speak of “same-sex attraction” and try to sell this idea as people who are merely more relationally fond of others of the same sex. We would be wise to make note that this term throughout the history of the church and even the history of the culture would have previously been stated as “homosexual desire”. Preston and Side B ideologues conveniently leave off the sexual part from their term, in a conversation on sexuality. If we were to adopt their term, which we should not, it would be more accurately stated as same-sex sexual attraction, but even this term hides the desire part and is thus incomplete. Side B’s terms are meant to soften the edges of biblically accurate language and ideas for a world that hates God and the Bible. We need to build our theology on the Bible’s terms alone and discuss “homosexual desires”. This subtle clarification shows the term for what it truly is, a term that describes people who have, will, or do desire sexual relations with others of the same sex.

“Same-sex Orientation”

They also like to use the term “same-sex orientation” which again conceals meaning. Again, historically in the church, we would have said “homosexual desire” and even historically in the culture, they would have said “homosexual orientation.” In this term “same-sex orientation,” we continue to see the pattern emerge of Side B conveniently leaving the sexual part off of their terms, in a conversation on sexuality. Even with the word “gay”, which once it became historically attached to homosexuality, the church understood it to mean, again, people who have, will, or do desire sexual relations with other people of the same sex. Preston and Side B’s terms, whether consciously or unconsciously, conceal meaning and thus lead to false conclusions.

“Biblical Sexual Ethic”

Preston and Side B also speak exclusively of what they call a “biblical sexual ethic”. This phrase is actually good and an important part of the conversation. It is not their use of this phrase that is the problem, but their exclusive use of this phrase that is the problem. Ethics is a conversation about fair and right behavior. Again, a very important part of the conversation, but ethics does not focus on the thought life, or desires of a person, rather on the behaviors of a person. The Bible is not just concerned with our behavior, it is also very much concerned with us repenting of our sinful thoughts and desires just as much as our sinful behavior.

“Coming Out of the Closet”

Preston speaks of “gay Christians” “coming out of the closet”. It goes without saying that he got this phrase from the world, which is misguided. That said, the main issue that I take with this type of language is that it is built on his false ideas on homosexual desires. Preston believes that people with homosexual desires are just “same-sex attracted” and “same-sex oriented” by default of who they are as an individual person. Furthermore, he believes these desires are not sinful. In light of this belief, his ministry teaches people with homosexual desires that for them to be truly known and loved by the people around them, they need to “come out of the closet.” Preston’s ministry has even provided tips on “how to come out”. This is a completely unorthodox way of speaking about and handling what the bible calls sin. Biblical teaching and wise pastoral counsel does not tell us to “come out” but rather to confess and repent of our sin. By “coming out” a person with homosexual desires is officially identifying with their sin and conceding to the flesh that these desires are a part of who they are rather than a sin to be repented of.

If we are going to build a biblically faithful theology on sexuality, we need to build it around the terms, ideas, and concepts we see in the bible. We need to address not only behavior but also thoughts and desires. We need to submit completely to the scripture. We submit our terms only to God because language has the power to define our perception of the world, but God has already defined our world for us in his design and his holy scriptures. God allows the world no contribution to fundamental truth, so we shouldn’t either. On the topic of sexual sin, the bible uses terms like desire, sin, lust, etc. It will be in the best interest of truth-seeking to use these terms to build our theology, rather than the terms the world chooses. These are the terms that God has used in his holy scripture to help us make sense of the world, so let us submit to him in all ways, including in our language.

The Source of Homosexual Desires

I want to address the term “sexual desire”, but not only do we need to talk about what a sinful sexual desire is, we need to also determine where our desires come from.

Song of Songs 7:10 — “I am my beloved’s, and his desire is for me.”

This verse from the Song of Songs is an example of a sexual desire that comes from God’s design. The husband’s desire is for his wife as God designed it to be. This desire is sourced purely from the way God designed the human body to work and human sexuality to work, showing us that one of the sources of our sexual desires is from God’s design.

Galatians 5: 17–18 “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

These verses from Galatians show us two other sources of our desires, the spirit of God and the flesh. As we grow in sanctification and intimacy with Christ, our desires become more in tune with the Spirit, and our desires become righteous in nature. On the other hand, when we are beholden to our sinful flesh, our desires are sinful. The flesh gives us sinful thoughts, desires, motives, and the like. The flesh produces nothing but sinfulness in opposition to the Spirit of God within us.

These verses (and many others) teach us that our desires, whether sexual in nature or not, come from either God’s design, like the way we desire to eat when we are hungry, from God’s Spirit, like the way we desire to seek the Lord in prayer, or from our sinful flesh, like the way we desire what God calls sin. We can see from the Bible that human desires can be either righteous if they come from God’s design or from the spirit, but they are sinful if they come from our sinful flesh. Homosexual desires surely do not come from God’s design, and they do not come from the Spirit of God, they come from the sinful flesh. All homosexual desires are thus sinful, and Preston’s teaching denies this truth. He teaches that some homosexual desires are not sinful and can be embraced and even sanctified.

Identity in Christ Alone

This brings us to the next issue with Preston’s teaching, specifically his teaching on so-called “gay Christians.” Preston and Side B make the argument that the word gay only means someone who experiences same-sex attraction. Using these kinds of titles makes several crucial errors.

First, it is teaching people with homosexual desires that these desires are immutable, when only God is immutable. That these desires are a part of their “lived experience”, a part of their humanity. What they are doing here is elevating what is sinful to the same level as God’s design in any other bodily desires. As examples, desires that are a part of God’s bodily design are things like hunger and thirst. These are a part of God’s bodily design and are in fact unchangeable. No matter how hard we try, if we were to stop eating or drinking water, our body’s design would kick in, and we would become filled with the desire to eat and drink. Furthermore, God’s sanctification never renews us out of God’s design on this side of eternity, meaning God would not sanctify us out of our desire for nutrition and water because this would contradict his original bodily design. So, if you were to call yourself a “hungry Christian” or a “thirsty Christian” (not that you would) this makes sense in that the hungry desire or the thirsty desire are a part of God’s bodily design that is compatible with the Christian part of these titles.

Homosexual desires are not like this. Homosexual desires are completely counter to God’s design, and it is something that God very much desires to sanctify out of the life of Christians. To call oneself a “gay Christian” is to attach to your identity the purity of Christ and the impurity of homosexuality. The two are completely and categorically incompatible with each other and will not co-exist. As the scripture tells us in Mark 3: 24–25 “If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand,” and in Matthew 6:24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.” To go on identifying with your sin is to deny the historical Christian doctrine of progressive sanctification. It says that this is part of who I am, and that God does not need to sanctify it out of me.

Secondly, by identifying with sin and with Christ we are not being faithful to the command in Romans 6:11, “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” By identifying with homosexual desires, or as they say “being gay”, you are not considering yourself dead to that sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Rather, you are considering your sin still alive and yourself alive to God in Christ at the same time. Roman’s 6 shows the contradiction here very clearly, being alive to God in Christ Jesus is contingent on the preceding death to sin, and the future consideration of death to sin. Again, the two cannot and will not co-exist. (also ref. Eph. 4:22)

Thirdly, this type of title shows the pure bias towards what the world calls good. For example, we would not practice including our sin in and identity title with any other sins. We would not say that for someone who is oriented towards racist desires, but repenting of those desires, it was permissible to call himself a “racist Christian”. We would not tell someone with the orientation towards stealing, but repenting of this desire, that it was permissible to call himself a “thieving Christian”. This logic goes on and on, we would never accept the titles gossiping Christian, abusive Christian, or murderous Christian. Or more related sexual examples, we would not accept the title “adulterous Christian”, “sexually pedophilic attracted Christian”, or “sexually animal attracted Christian”. The openness and/or willingness to accept the identity “gay Christian” is because the world has told us it is good to do this. The hypocrisy on this is glaring and obvious. The culture should not be teaching us what is and is not right as they were not called to make disciples of the Church, we were called to make disciples out of them.

Fourthly, using this type of language is completely out of step with historic Christian practice. Throughout church history, Christians have not identified with their sin but rather with the work of Christ and his teachings. This is why throughout history we have used titles like saved Christian, born-again Christian, bible-believing Christian, repentant Christian, evangelical Christian, protestant Christian, etc. The Church has used these titles for good reason, and that is to make much of God even in the way that we refer to ourselves.

Lust

Preston and Side B like to make a distinction on the issue of lust. They would argue that there are some homosexual desires, such as, what they call “same-sex attraction” and “same-sex orientation,” that are not sinful unless they reach the point of lust. They would say that homosexual lust is sinful, and they define lust along the lines of an unrestrained desire towards a sinful sexual act. Furthermore, they then conclude that a desire towards such things is not sinful if it is “restrained”. Their distinction is between lust and desire, and they would argue that lust is always sinful, but same-sex attraction can be morally neutral. Now, orthodoxy would agree that an unrestrained desire towards a sinful sexual act is sinful lust, and that there are some desires in a person that are morally neutral. However, orthodoxy would go on to affirm that homosexual desires are not one of these morally neutral desires. The scripture will show us that their belief on this is again a Side B half-truth that omits an essential element in defining lust and sinful desire in a biblically faithful way.

In Luke 22:15 we see this verse: “And he said unto them, with desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.” In this verse, we are presented with Jesus’ “desire” to eat with his disciples. Now, we would not say that this desire Jesus had, whether it was restrained or unrestrained, was sinful, because what he was desiring was a good thing. He desired communion with his disciples and friends, and we affirm that is a good desire. The note we need to make here is that the word in Greek in this verse for “desire” is epithymia which is defined as “desire, craving, longing, desire for what is forbidden, lust”. We would say that Jesus desired, craved, or longed to eat with his disciples, but we would not say that he lusted to eat with his disciples, nor would we say that he desired something that was forbidden. We would say that he simply desired to eat with the ones he loved. What we learn from this verse is that the word epithymia in Greek needs to be interpreted based on the context of each individual verse that it appears in. Furthermore, this Greek word can be used to mean desire, desire for what is forbidden, or both. In fact, when the word is used elsewhere in scripture to refer to something desired that is forbidden, it is most commonly translated as lust or concupiscence. We could easily point to these verses to show a difference between desire and lust. However, there are other occurrences of the Greek word epithymia that need to be factored into our understanding.

If we look at Colossians 3:5 we read “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.” The Greek word in this verse for “desire” is again epithymia, and the Greek word preceding it for “evil” is kakos which is defined as “of a bad nature; not such as it ought to be; of a mode of thinking, feeling, acting; base, wrong, wicked; troublesome, injurious, pernicious, destructive, baneful.” Unlike the usage of epithymia in Luke 22:15 here in Colossians 3:5 we see its usage in a context in which the object of the desire is for something evil and forbidden. This study of the Greek word epithymia, which can be translated as desire, lust, concupiscence, etc., shows us that when we build our theology of what is and is not a sinful desire and lust, it is not only unrestrained desire that can be considered lust but also any desire for what is evil or forbidden by God. This is the error that Preston and Side B make when they build their theology of lust and sinful desires. They try to sell the idea that lust is only an unrestrained desire, and they fail to acknowledge the evil and forbidden nature of the homosexuality being desired. We thus don’t only determine when lust has taken place by the intensity of desire but also by the object of the desire. A small desire for something forbidden by God’s law or God’s design would thus still be lustful, simply because something forbidden is the object of the desire.

The Gospel and Sin

The argument is beginning to be made in the church that where we stand on homosexuality, both on its desire and practice, is not a “gospel issue,” and thus not worth dividing over. This I think is a terminal error to the church’s faithful Gospel witness. Let us not forget that the fundamental need we have for the Gospel is because of sin. The doctrine of sin is vital to the gospel. It is a gospel issue. We have to agree on what is and is not sin, because if we don’t then we do not agree on what Christ died for.

We do not need to be, nor should we be afraid to call sin, sin, because we know the Gospel is true. If sin is the disease, we have the cure in the gospel message. Rather than compromising on the scripture’s teaching and our historical understanding of the disease, we should instead just administer the cure. Preach the gospel. What do we say to the person who has homosexual desires? The same thing we say to all sinners everywhere, repent and believe the Gospel. Jesus’ sacrifice covered this sin just as much as any other sin, and we can partake in that atonement if we repent and believe. It is true to say that a hesitation to condemn sin is a hesitation to believe Jesus already dealt with it on the cross.

Final Thoughts

I love the church, I love the people of God, and I love pastors. Furthermore, I love people caught in the sin of homosexuality and I believe strongly that we need to reach these people and love these people. That said, I do not believe that it is loving to these people to platform in our church’s teaching that is unfaithful to scripture and makes excuses for sin. To love these people would be to enter into their lives with grace and mercy, and to speak the truth to them in love. Ultimately, they do not need us to excuse their sin, they need Jesus to pardon their sin. This pardoning has taken place, and it would be unloving for us to give them a message of the gospel that does not call them to repentance. We will be wise to remember that Jesus did not just preach believe, he preached repent and believe. We should follow His example.

I once told a former pastor of mine that the Church at large is prime for another 95 thesis moment. My pastor asked me in response what I thought a 95 thesis moment would look like today, and I told him I wasn’t sure yet. I now think this is that moment. We are being called now to speak the truth to a world that desperately needs it, but first, we have to recommit ourselves to this truth. I am asking for reformation in our church’s. I am asking that we would be a Church that talks the way the Bible talks, not the way Preston and the world talk. I am asking that we would be a Church that is not afraid to call sin, sin, because we have met Jesus and we know the Gospel is true. Brothers, I am calling on you to stand for what is right, and true before God and not before the world.

Kevin Pense is a layman in the pew that fears the Lord, loves the Word and has grown dissatisfied with the current state of evangelicalism in America.

The Battle for Control of the Evangelical Dictionary

By Kevin Pense
https://americanreformer.org/
July 22, 2024

Let’s not make any mistake, as many have pointed out before me, the agenda of the LGBTQ community and its advocates has become the reigning idol of our day. For the church to take on this topic is a noble pursuit, and I appreciate pastors and elders having the courage to address what has become controversial in our world. That said, it has become clear that many evangelical churches and ministries have begun to entertain the teachings of Preston Sprinkle. I respectfully request that evangelicals reconsider their entertainment of this man’s teachings. As I will try my hardest to show, I believe Preston Sprinkle has some very bad and dangerous teachings on homosexuality, that I believe should disqualify him and his resources from ever being used by any faithful Christian church or ministry.

[Dr. Preston Sprinkle is a biblical scholar, speaker, podcaster, a New York Times bestselling author, and is the co-founder and president of The Center for Faith, Sexuality & Gender.]