(Part 1)

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