People to Be Loved: Why Homosexuality Is Not Just an Issue

by Preston M. Sprinkle

Love without fine print.

False

Jesus desires obedience, but to get that obedience he fronts love.

Uh, you said no fine print

If you are a nonaffirming Christian—who believes that practicing gay and lesbian people are living in sin and that homosexual relations are among the most sinful things a person could engage in—then, if you truly desire to follow Jesus, you should have more LGBT friends and not less. You should be frequenting the gay district in town, inviting gays and lesbians over to your house, and asking to stay with gay and lesbian friends in their houses. If Jesus could dine with a person like Zacchaeus, then certainly you could bring yourself to enter into a humanity-affirming relationship with gay and lesbian people. A relationship without footnotes. A loving friendship that doesn’t begin with “where you stand” on the issue of homosexuality, since Jesus didn’t take this approach. Take a stand—yes. But take a stand on love. That radical, countercultural grace that drew sinners and tax collectors to Jesus. Jesus actually did talk about that.

I know this is in a personal, informal portion of the chapter, but this is not a responsible charge. This essentially says, "if you believe the scriptural witness (which should be the majority of christias who belong to true churches) then you need to go to the mission field that i care deeply about.

seriously doubt that the tax collectors and sinners who were “drawing near to Jesus” (Luke 15:1) walked away wanting to kill themselves.

Oh yeah? What makes you so sure?

who didn’t commit suicide,

Not balanced

The fact is, most LGBT people I know didn’t leave the church because their behavior wasn’t affirmed—“I want to sleep with people of the same sex, and if you don’t affirm this I’m gone.” It was because their humanity wasn’t affirmed.

I'm sorry, but this is again trusting the unrepentant rather than the redeemed. For many the denial of a legitimate expression of sinful desire is tantamount to the rejection of the one with the errant desire.

Loving people in spite of their behavior doesn’t mean affirming their behavior.

Duh, but many believe there is a necessary link and will not acknowledge love without affirmation.

Homosexuality is too important of a topic—because people are too important—to form a view prematurely.

I still think these would be disturbing terms if made about pedophiles or practitioners of bestiality

When asked what you think, at least be honest and say, “I’m not too sure, since I don’t want to take the time to understand what the New Testament actually means.” For those of us who do care, we need to understand

Pure rhetoric

The NASB goes on to translate arsenokoites as “homosexuals,” which is a terrible translation. Today, many people are considered “homosexual” (that is, gay) regardless of whether they are having sex with other men.

This is an unfair judgement of the translation. It is also assuming some unproven things about the validity of attraction.

None of them are arsenokoites.

This should indict the culture and its false categories rather than the NASB translation of the word.

It’s not as if the Pharisees asked about Joey and Frank’s forthcoming wedding and Jesus responds by saying, “God designed marriage to be between a man and a woman.”

While a true statement, this is a dishonest presentation of this truth. God's design is clearly taught, not vaguely. This type of reasoning would not be respected for "relationships" people want with animals or objects.

While I think that the excessive-lust interpretation reads too much into the passage, the strength of this view should prevent Christians from simply quoting Romans 1 and thinking that this solves the debate.

Uhh, this sounds like a stretch to me. Even from your own analysis, this is a weak argument. Since when would I hesitate to offer a strong argument because someone else has a weak counter?

unhealthy power differences that are deemed immoral by all Christians today.

If this is our standard, why let the passages on marriage speak at all today? One could merely assert that the majority of heterosexual relationships were the same way, so the passages don't address our enlightened era.

unchristian, and a poor use of our God-given intellect. They are not funny and they are not intelligent. Please stop using this stupid argument.

I agree with his application for the formulation, but the underlying argument is not different from Paul's or Christ's .

non-Christian LGBT people.

Totally agree

Jesus didn’t open up a relationship by giving his stance on a person’s sin.

This is another canard

To consider your own sins as not as bad as those of LGBT people is to join hands with Pharisees whom Jesus condemned to hell.

This is true. Anyoe who does not know his own need should not be preoccupied with other people's .

How about . . . boys.” Why would any junior high kid choose that? Most schools are not very sympathetic to boys who like boys or girls who like girls. Even if it is cool to be viewed as gay in some schools, one’s sexual impulses will eventually trump coolness and reveal that they really are straight.

This is no longer current. Plenty of cases have been presented where socialization has resulted in changes to attraction and long lasting perversion of desire.

Same-sex behavior, unlike same-sex attraction or orientation, is a choice.

I think this needs substantiation

God could hijack a person’s same-sex attraction and bend it to cultivate a better way of seeing and experiencing the world. Yes—God might just be that sovereign.

This ends a litany of reasonable-sounding assertions, but the work here is much less thorough than the first half of the book.

but any true Bible-believing Christian should be impressed with his heart and humility.

No

As I have said before, the debate is not about what the Bible says but what the Bible means.

I stil think this is mere rhetoric

I know some of my nonaffirming Christian brothers and sisters will disagree. But I still think there is room for dialogue and fellowship with those who hold different views on this topic. Maybe I will change my mind on this. But for now, I want to hold to my biblical convictions and not demonize or condemn everyone who disagrees with me about homosexuality.

I find it distasteful that this apparent dichotomy is put up here. This is like saying, "some will disagree with me in my conclusion that we can disagree and remain in fellowship, and maybe they're right, but i don't want to be nasty like them."

It is time for straight Christians to lay aside the culture war and election ballots and become life-giving agents to brothers and sisters who are hungry for love yet often come up short when they search for it in the church.

False dichotomy

Be realistic with your expectations. Some change is possible; very little change is likely, as is no change at all.

This is as unhelpful as claiming the opposite. You don't know this.

To listen is to love, and you can’t deeply love until you listen.

Citation?

However, I believe that a human interpretation, which is performed in community, in dialogue with tradition, and under the guidance of God’s Spirit, can discover and understand absolute truth.

This is helpful and telling

but I don’t see people arguing as passionately for this).

If people were attempting to describe the core of themselves as Menstral Copulators, I think we would have pasionate debates.