There are many tough questions regarding the issue of homosexuality and the Christian church.  Since I began a discussion of this topic on February 2, 2023, I am sure I have touched on many of those questions.  While working on this project, I have consulted three authors expressing three different views with one author affirming homosexual participation in the church, one author not affirming homosexual participation in the church and Preston Sprinkle.*   Sprinkle seeks to find middle ground on this issue.  As he concludes his book [and I conclude my study of these three authors], he has a chapter that I have commented on: the controversial idea “Does God Make People Gay?” [see posts on November 20 and December 30].   Now let’s try to tackle the chapter entitled “Gay and Christian: Can Someone Be Both?” 

Let’s be honest.  Many non-affirming Christians may have heard that some gay people claim Christianity as their faith.  That is a problem for them: if a person is gay, they just can’t be Christian.  Let’s be brutally honest.  They think they are sinners and are not “qualified.”  Affirming Christians don’t have a problem with gay people claiming they have faith in God; they have an accepting attitude.  Gay people can be Christian.  The fact that they look at the world a different way is not a problem because God values diversity and there are all sorts of identities that are good , reflecting God’s colorful image. 

Sprinkle looks at this from many different angles, but overall, I like his emphasis on labels.  We live in a world where people are increasingly irresponsible in their use of words.  Sprinkle says “When we use language, we need to consider not just what we mean by our words, but how those words will be understood in the ears of others….we need to be sensitive to our audience when we use certain terms—especially terms that mean different things to different people” [142-43].   Today, too many people in our social media world don’t have Sprinkle’s attitude.

I began this blog post with the term homosexual.  I switched to the word “gay” because Sprinkle’s chapter is entitled “Gay and Christian.”  Since I began this study on February 2, 2023, I have been very concerned that I would use improper language to refer to same-sex attracted people.  I felt I should be concerned.  I don’t want to offend.

I am a “straight” man.  That means I am attracted to the opposite sex.  Being heterosexual does not mean that I am only attracted to my wife, but being married means that I don’t want to have sex with lots of women.  I am in love with her and (should only) sexually desire my wife.   It is the way I look at the world.  My wife is also heterosexual and we have had many discussions since I began writing on this topic.  She views this topic from a female heterosexual point of view. 

Of course this is not how same-sex, gay, homosexual people see the world.  First of all, I have learned that many heterosexual non-affirming Christians focus on the homosexual sex act in condemning gay people, but same-sex orientation is not just about sex. Peter Gomes [the affirming author I used for this study] admitted publicly that he was gay but he also stated that he was celibate.  Judgmental, heterosexual Christians often think that a same-sex orientation means that  kind of person spends a lot of time actively desiring and having homosexual sex.  “Being gay doesn’t mean you walk around wanting to have lots of gay sex any more than being straight means you walk around wanting to have lots of straight sex” [Sprinkle, 146].  Are these judgmental, heterosexual Christians too focused on the gay sex act?  Sprinkle cites a lesbian friend who says “I just long for intimacy, a desire for nearness, for partnership, for close friendship, rich conversation and an overall appreciation for beauty.  Over the course of 10,080 minutes that go by in a given week, very few of those minutes (if any at all) are likely comprised of sexual thoughts about othr women” [Julie Rogers, cited in Sprinkle 147].

What happens to many Christians who consider a same-sex individual?  Instead of getting to know people as people, they “stuff you in a box and strap it with a label” and if that label is gay they are very quick to say your behavior is sinful.

There is a part of me that understands the inability to relate to a person who is attracted to their own sex, but there is also a part of me who is offended by Christians who are quick to label homosexuals as sinners.  Those same people may use their money in a greedy way, never helping those with great needs, only focusing on hoarding more funds.  They may go on Facebook and use horrible language to hurt others who don’t measure up to their “high” standards.  Maybe they cheat on their taxes or look at pornography even though they are married.  Too often Christians love to single out certain sins that are just not acceptable and they ignore others they deem acceptable.  This type of behavior is akin to the behavior that the Pharisees exhibited in Jesus’ day.  We all know how Jesus felt about them.

I find it interesting that Sprinkle castigates these people, yet he does not totally accept all gay Christians.  Of course he can accept gay people who are attracted to their own sex but they have not acted on their desires.  He also struggles with gay people who honestly love God: “gay Christians…experience a stronger realization that one’s primary familial identity is in the church and not in one’s nuclear family.”  Their orientation is very much akin to mine as I put my God Father above my earthly father and my brothers and sisters in Christ are my church family.   Jesus states “Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”  Sprinkle says gay Christians that he has met really understand this.  Sprinkle refuses to condemn this kind of person.

Remember, Sprinkle seeks middle ground and in a world that likes to see the world as black and white.   Many think there is not such place as “the middle ground”.  As I began this post, I stated that some think if you are gay you can’t be a Christian.  If you are a heterosexual you can be.  Sprinkle likes to suspend judgement and get to know people before he labels them.  Then as a pastor he tries to decide if a person’s sin is “morally culpable.”   He states “a morally culpable sin is a concrete act of disobedience that people need to repent from” [144].  He is not quick to say same-sex orientation is a morally culpable sin.  If same sex lust is acted on, that is different from other same-sex orientations.  He uses himself as an example.  “Whether I am sleeping or awake, studying or at the beach, I never cease to be heterosexual.  I am attracted to females; that is my orientation.  That doesn’t mean I am slobbering around 24/7 wanting to ‘have sex’ [my words] with every female I see.  That would be lust, not attraction” 145.  In his study of this issue, it is the actions that are morally culpable and some actions are more acceptable and some actions are less acceptable.  This is not a black or white position on this issue. 

Sprinkle feels that passages in Scripture [eg. Romans 1] condemn specific sins but Paul doesn’t label a person as “sinner” and insist they be thrown out of the church.  He comments on 1 Corinthians 5 when the church at Corinth did not act on a sin that should have been addressed [an incestuous affair between a son and his stepmother].  The people involved did not repent and the church did not take action.  Paul writes “Expel the wicked person from among you” [1 Cor. 5: 12].

Does this same command apply to gay people in the church?  Some Christians say yes while others say no.  I can imagine a non-affirming Christian reading this post and citing Matthew 5: 37:  “Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ Anything more comes from the evil one.”  I wonder if it is that simple.  Sprinkle closes his chapter nine with these words: it is “unloving…to cherry-pick verses from the Bible that feel right to us and ignore the rest that don’t feel loving to us….If we are the ultimate judges of what is right and wrong and if we think we have a better, more updated understanding of what love is, then we are doing nothing more than replicating the sin of Eden and becoming our own moral authority—determining what is right and wrong” [Sprinkle 155].

To those who would be quick to condemn gay Christians and insist they be prohibited from worship let us turn once again to 1 Cor. 5: 2 and see that Paul says “The perpetually unrepentant greedy, revilers, drunks and sexually immoral who claim to be a Jesus-follower,” let us not turn a blind eye to their sin: “put [them] out of your fellowship.”

Maybe we need to be consistent and not single out certain sins.  Maybe the world is not as black and white as we think

 *People To Be Loved: Why Homosexuality is not Just an Issue