(Part 1)
JBTM_13-2_Fall_2016
JBTM_13-2_Fall_2016
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JBTM Book Reviews<br />
190<br />
once in the New Testament in 1 Cor 6:9–11, a glaring factual error, as the same word occurs in<br />
1 Tim 1:10. This mistake is odd, since Sprinkle discusses the use of arsenokoites in 1 Tim 1:10<br />
at length in People to Be Loved (PTBL, 117–18).<br />
While it is true that many of us as Christians have not been as kind or compassionate as<br />
we should to any number of people struggling with sin, if one were to read only Sprinkle’s<br />
description of the modern evangelical church, the impression likely would be that we are<br />
all much closer in attitude to Fred Phelps than Billy Graham. Sprinkle recounts numerous<br />
stories of people who expressed homosexual attraction to their church leaders, only to be<br />
publicly ridiculed and treated in the most ungracious ways imaginable. My concern, however,<br />
is that Sprinkle seems to accept all such stories as accurate. Again, I do not deny that at times<br />
preachers and church leaders can lack the grace needed to address difficult issues. But Sprinkle<br />
seems to overlook the human tendency to recount stories of confrontation in such a way as to<br />
paint our opponents in the most dark and grim manner possible, while presenting ourselves<br />
with fairer shades and in a complementary light. It is entirely possible that in some of the<br />
stories Sprinkle repeats, the church in question responded in a manner precisely consistent<br />
with New Testament church discipline, only to have been misrepresented years later as the<br />
story is retold to an author. What is interesting is that Sprinkle alludes to this possibility and<br />
advises Christian teens that their homosexual friend “could be misrepresenting” how his or<br />
her parents responded to them as a child who has come out (LGW, 104).<br />
Sprinkle’s handling of Ezek 16:49–50 seems to have been influenced by revisionist<br />
interpreters. In this passage, Ezekiel specifically notes that Sodom is unconcerned about<br />
the poor and needy. Many pro-homosexual interpreters have thus claimed that Sodom was<br />
not judged for sexual immorality, but for being unkind to poor people. Sprinkle affirms such<br />
an approach, remarking, “It’s pretty sad when overfed, greedy Christians who perfectly fit<br />
Ezekiel’s description run around hating on gay people” (PTBL, 45). Regrettably, Sprinkle<br />
fails to emphasize the strong sexual language used in the entirety of Ezek 16, as well as the<br />
fact the Hebrew word to’ebah (“abomination”), which occurs in Ezek 16:50, is also used to<br />
describe homosexuality in Lev 18:22 and 20:13. Furthermore, Jude 7 references Sodom’s<br />
sexual immorality. Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed both for sexual immorality and<br />
injustice to the poor.<br />
Pro-homosexual, revisionist interpretations also seem to have influenced Sprinkle’s<br />
understanding of David and Jonathan’s friendship. Sprinkle contends, “David and Jonathan<br />
weren’t gay. But they did experience deep-seated, same-sex affection, and nonsexual intimacy<br />
toward each other. Same-sex oriented Christians experience similar desires to a greater degree”<br />
(PTBL, 147, emphasis added). Sadly, Sprinkle goes even further by claiming that same-sex<br />
attraction “includes a virtuous desire to be intimate—in the David and Jonathan or Jesus<br />
and John sense of the phrase—with people of the same sex” (PTBL, 147, emphasis added).<br />
In reality, there is no hint of same-sex attraction between David and Jonathan or Jesus and<br />
John. Neither relationship is analogous to the type of same-sex attraction Sprinkle describes.