Theology in the Raw - S2: Bonus Episode! Responding to Some Critiques: Preston Sprinkle

Episode Date: February 28, 2024

Welcome to a sneak peek of the Bonus Q&A episode, part of the Theology in the Raw premium subscription.  In this Patreon-only episode, you'll get a sneak peak into my responses to some criticisms I've received over the last few months, such as: why am I having an open and affirming speaker at the Exiles conference? Do I really believe that gay people don't need to repent? Am I a heretic for believing that same-sex attraction itself is not a morally culpable sin? Do the terms gay and trans always have to convey a thick ontological view of human nature? Is it a sin to say "gay Christian?" Do my political views make me an isolationist? Do I "put right and coddle left?" Do I believe that Christians should never be involved with politics? I address these and other questions. Support Theology in the Raw through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theologyintheraw

Hey friends, the Exiles in Babylon conference is right around the corner, April 18th through the 20th in Boise, Idaho. All the information is at theologyintherod.com. If you do want to attend live, and I would highly recommend if you can afford it, if you have the time to come out to Boise, Idaho, attend the conference live. Space is filling up, so you want to register ASAP. We are tackling loads of really important and very controversial topics. We're talking about deconstruction and the gospel. We're going to hear from people who have had a journey of deconstruction, tell us why they did so. We're going to hear from women, talking about women, power, and abuse in the church. We're going to talk about LGBTQ people and the church.

We're talking about different Christian views of politics. That should be loads of fun, if not really intense. And we just added a very important pre-conference symposium on the theology and politics of Israel-Palestine. And we're going to have different viewpoints represented. Various discussions are going to be engaged in with that really important conversation. So come to Boise. You can ask questions. You can engage the speakers, engage other people who are at the conference. It is loads of fun. It really is, I would say, the highlight of my year. So again, April 18th to the 20th at Boise, Idaho. Check out all the information at theologyintheraw.com. Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. This is a special bonus

episode for my Patreon community. Normally, I field a bunch of questions from my patrons, and then I answer them on this bonus episode once a month. And I give the public a sneak preview of those questions, and then I upload the rest of them to the Patreon community. For this bonus episode, I'm going to take some time and respond to some various criticisms that I've received, which I rarely do this, but I think there are some things I just love to clarify and respond to and wrestle with. And so you're going to get a sneak peek into my conversation with myself. Well, my sort of interaction with other things that have been said about me, about my conferences,

about my books, and so on and so forth. And then if you want full access to this episode, you can go to patreon.com forward slash the Algeron, become a member of the Patreon community, which is, it's loads of fun. I love interacting with my Patreon community. So I'm sure we'll have some exciting interactions after they listen to the full episode that you're about to get a sneak peek into. So here are the things we're going to talk about. I want to talk about the idea of me platforming dangerous people at my Exiles conference that I'm hosting. I want to respond to several charges of heresy that have been sent my way. There's a kind of a long list here of charges. One that I don't think gay people need to repent, that I believe, I don't think same-sex attraction is a sin, that I use preferred pronouns, that I affirm a gay identity. There's different ways of framing this, that I embrace what some

people call gay Christianity, or that I use the phrase gay Christian or that trans or gay, that these are separate ontological categories for humans. I also want to respond to my support or involvement with the Revoice Conference. So all these have to do kind of like sexuality and stuff. I also want to respond to some things that have been making their rounds about some of my maybe political viewpoints that are expressed in my fourth book, Exiles. There's some stuff online that I've seen that I would love to respond to. One that often comes up is the accusation that I punch right and coddle left. Really want to respond to that. Or that I advocate for kind of an isolationist political position,

that I don't think Christians should pursue justice in society or that political involvement or that, you know, that I don't think political involvement is necessary to seek the good of the city. You know, what do we do about things like abortion and or, you know, that would typically be like a right wing concern, you know, or what about gun laws? That might be a left wing concern. And then there's other, you know, political issues that some people would say, no, we need to be involved in political systems to address injustices in the world. So that should about cover. I'm sure there's a lot more I can respond to. I'm not going to respond to every single little critique that exists out there. But these

are some that kind of have come up quite frequently. And I think some good faith people have raised some questions and said, hey, what do you think about this? Is this what you believe? How would you respond to this? That's what we're going to do in this bonus episode. So here we go. Okay, so I want to interact with a YouTube clip here. This is from Alyssa Childers and her recent interview on, wait for it, February 11th. So just a couple weeks ago with Rosaria Butterfield. Two names I'm sure are probably familiar to most, if not all of you. And yeah, just to set the context.

So this is, my name comes up in this conversation. And I just want to say up front, I have really enjoyed Rosaria's work over the years. I haven't read her recent stuff. I haven't read a recent book. But the first book that documents her conversion was The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert I thought was absolutely outstanding. I think Rosaria is a testimony of the power of God's grace, his ability to just reach people who you would think would

never be touched by the gospel. And Rosaria has clearly been touched by the gospel. Very, very sharp, very smart. But yeah, you know, there's been several times when she's referred to me or my work as heresy. And so she does so in this clip. So I would love to interact with some of the things she says here. Alyssa, I'm only familiar with Alyssa by name. I know a decent number of people who support this podcast on Patreon also follow her work. I've heard nothing but good things about her work. So I'm coming at this without, you know, much, I've never read anything by Elisa Childers. And I haven't

watched anything. So this is kind of my first exposure. So I've seen clips here and there. But this is really my first kind of exposure to her and her work. Yeah. So and just so you know, you know, as many of you know, I did reach out to Rosaria last fall after she called me a heretic at the Liberty, I think it was Liberty University Chapel. But her husband emailed back and said that him and the elders of the church would not allow her to have a private conversation with me. So I respected that. I also reached out to Alyssa to see if we can have a private conversation. I haven't heard back yet. That was just like a week ago or so at the time of this recording. So hopefully I would love to have a conversation with Alyssa Childers. But

until then, I'm going to interact with their conversation here. So this is at the 12.09 mark of this episode. It's titled Rosaria Butterfield Sounds the Alarm on the Threat of Side B Christianity. So they're kind of jumping in mid-sentence, but it gets quickly to the topic that's relevant for me in particular. Pretty important right now. But this one especially I think is so confusing for many people in the church, especially with Side B Christianity, which we've talked about on the podcast several times. And we're going to be talking about it more with our friend Christopher Yuan. He's going to be coming on to talk about a conference now that's being put on by Preston

Sprinkle and some others where there's openly progressive affirming anti-Christian progressives that are speaking at that event. Yeah, that's awesome that she's having Christopher on to talk about it. I would love to come on and talk about it. It's my conference. So hopefully she'll respond to me and maybe have me on the show to talk about it. Or she's, I'm not, maybe it'd be on her show, but maybe to have a private conversation to clarify that. Yeah, I'm excited to see what Christopher says. Christopher is another guy who I just think has done fantastic work in the area of sexuality and haven't read his recent stuff.

But I don't think he's been to my conference. So that would be – I know he wasn't there physically. Maybe he tuned in virtually for the last conferences or something. Hopefully, he'll be there for this one if he's going to be giving an opinion about the conference itself. So let me clarify. And for those of you who have been to the conference, who, you know, listen to this podcast, I might be preaching to the choir here, but I've seen this critique quite often of the Exiles and Babylon conference. And it comes from both sides. It comes from progressives. It comes from conservatives, where they look at the lineup of speakers and they see

people who might be, in their opinion, too far to the right or too far to the left. In fact, I think it's been every year now that there's sometimes even some speakers that when I release the final lineup of speakers, I get an email. They're like, wait, you're having that person there? I can't share the platform with that person. And it happens every year. Again, it's kind of equally people who might be more left-leaning, people who might be more right-leaning who see speakers that are sharing the stage that are, in their opinion, too far outside of their camp. So Alyssa is referring to that I'm having an open, progressive, affirming speaker at the conference.

The one she's thinking of in particular is Tim Whitaker. Yeah, I'll just name him because that's exactly who she's referring to. Well, I'm 95% sure that's who she's referring to. Tim Whitaker has a Twitter profile called The New Evangelicals. He has a podcast called The New Evangelicals. And let me just set the context. Tim is open and affirming. He calls himself a new evangelical. I would say his viewpoints would be very similar to what most people would refer to as a progressive Christian. Tim is speaking during a session on deconstruction.

And so the way the conference works is that we discuss four to five different topics for like three hours. And I'm a huge fan of if we're going to talk about something, I'm going to hear it from the horse's mouth what it is we're even talking about. So, for instance, we're doing a pre-conference on the theology and politics of Israel-Palestine. Very controversial. Different viewpoints on what's going on in Israel-Palestine. And we're going to represent different viewpoints on what's going on in Israel-Palestine. And we're going to represent different viewpoints. We have two people on one side, two people on the other side, and they're going to talk about their viewpoints, and then they're going to interact with each other so that we can actually hear from people who hear those viewpoints. And we can get it from this proverbial horse's mouth so that we're not going to just sit there and strawman people or strawman another view

or represent somebody else's view. I want to hear it from the viewpoint itself and then put that viewpoint in conversation with maybe somebody else who disagrees with that viewpoint and see how they interact with each other. So this is not, I almost hesitate calling exiles like a conference because most conferences you go, the speakers are people you already agree with. And so you go and listen to a viewpoint that you're already going to agree with. There's, I mean, I won't say nothing wrong. Yeah, there's a place for that. Absolutely. I've been to many conferences like that, and they can be very, very helpful. That's not what Exiles is. Exiles puts various viewpoints in conversation with each other, allows you, the audience,

to interact and listen and ask questions. We spend a lot of time in dialogue between the speakers, and the speakers are going to have differences of opinion. So let me just get to the point here. So we're doing a session on deconstruction, reconstruction, and the gospel. And I want to hear from various people who deconstructed for various reasons. from various people who deconstructed for various reasons. So I'm going to have Abigail Favali, who deconstructed from conservative evangelical Christianity to fourth wave feminism, back to kind of a more of a conservative Catholic point of view. I find that really interesting.

In fact, I know several people who left evangelicalism for the Roman Catholic Church, and I'm curious why. Rather than me say, well, here's why they do it. It's like, you tell me why you left. I want to hear from you why you left. My friend Amin Hudson is solidly evangelical, but he kind of represents a viewpoint of a good number of specifically black evangelical Christians who, um, and you, you know, the, the one who you might know well is, is Lecrae. Um, there's, there's a group of, uh, people who, you know, started to ask hard questions about race and then the majority white dominated evangelical leaders got a little uncomfortable with that. And then they got kind of, um, I don't to say pushed out or critiqued or whatever, but anyway, they got kind of sick of the white-dominated brand of evangelicalism.

So that's a form of deconstruction. And that has to do more with race relations within the evangelical church. So we're going to hear from Amin, who has had that experience. I want to know from him, what is this kind of deconstruction look like? And we're going to hear from Evan Wickham, who is, in a sense, has all the ingredients who should have deconstructed, but didn't. So we're going to hear from somebody who didn't deconstruct. I mean, I didn't deconstruct in the sense of going from like conservative to progressive or leftist faith altogether. And then that's where Tim Whitaker comes in. Tim Whitaker was a very

conservative, kind of right-wing conservative Christian for many, many years. And then he deconstructed largely based on the, around the 2016 election and evangelical support Trump and kind of the right-wing only brand of Christianity. And that just threw him for a loop. Threw him for a loop. It's not the right phrase. Anyway. And so now he embraces, again, what other people might describe. He doesn't use this phrase, but what other people might describe a more progressive version of Christianity. So I want to hear why. I want Tim to explain to us why he deconstructed along those lines and put him in conversation with other people, including myself, who deconstructed for other reasons. I guess it might be helpful to know that like

every other speaker in that session holds to a traditional sexual ethic. Tim is not, I did not have Tim to come speak and promote an affirming or progressive sexual ethic. He can go, if that's part of his story he can bake that in he's gonna be put in conversation with other people who don't agree with that so if if there ever was a if he you know was gonna kind of promote that in a sense not just say here's where i'm at but try to like you know tell everybody that's where you need to be too i mean he's gonna have a lot of people that are gonna push back on that including myself uh in a good spirited dialogue so so So framing it like he's having an

open, affirming, progressive, that just doesn't even make sense of what is going on at exiles. We're also having another session of three Christian views of politics. And so we're going to have a left-leaning, right-leaning, and then kind of an Anabaptist Christian view of politics. By definition, there's going to be different viewpoints. By definition, there's going to be two viewpoints that most people are going to disagree with and for different reasons. We're going to put those in conversation with each other so that you are forced to actually critically think through the various talks, think through their arguments, think through

the pushbacks to those arguments, and learn from what would hopefully be a good faith, curious dialogue among people with different viewpoints. So if that's not your cup of tea, then Exiles is not the conference for you. And I totally get that. It is not everybody's cup of tea. It is not a safe, it's not a safe space, quite honestly. Like intellectually, like you have to come in and evaluate what people are thinking because there's going to be different viewpoints represented so and i think he's of all the 16 speakers or so i'm pretty sure he's the only one that's open and affirming so we're doing a whole session on lgbtq people in the church um but all of the people speaking there are either same-sex

attracted or experienced gender dysphoria and but all of them people speaking there are either same-sex attracted or experience gender dysphoria, but all of them hold to a traditional sexual ethic. So there will be no what people would consider a promotion of a progressive sexual ethic at the conference. Anyway, that's a long clarification there, but let's keep listening to this dialogue here. I'm a little worked up about that one. We're going to be talking about that with Christopher, but you know, of course, side B Christianity being that they would say with their words that they affirm what scripture says about biblical marriage. They would say that homosexual marriage is sinful, but the identity is real and it is actually a core identifying

factor. So they will call themselves things like gay Christian. So for anybody who's unfamiliar with side B, but I think that's where so much of this confusion with lie number one, which is homosexuality is normal, is coming from. And so I'd love for you to talk a little bit about- There's several things there. I want to, I'm going to come back to, I want to, you know, towards the end of this episode, I want to come back to the question, I want to come back to the question, is same-sex attraction itself, not same-sex lust, but same-sex attraction, is same-sex attraction itself a morally culpable sin that individuals need to repent from? I want to wrestle with that, but I want to make space for that toward the end of this episode here. So let's, yeah, we'll just keep going. uh this episode here so let's uh yeah let me yeah we'll just keep going well the first way there are a number of ways that we fall for this idea that homosexuality is normal right there just

for as far as i'm concerned if i the word normal is can be can mean a couple different things normal mean first of all homosexuality is such a broad term are we talking about same-sex attraction less sexual behavior same-sex marriage are, homosexuality is such a broad term. Are we talking about same-sex attraction, less sexual behavior, same-sex marriage? There's such a broad umbrella category. So I would want to personally be a little more specific. Do we think same-sex sexual attraction is normal? Do we think same-sex orientation is normal? Do we think same-sex marriage is normal?

What do you mean by homosexuality? I would want to be more specific. And also, what do you mean by the term normal? homosexuality let's be more i would want to be more specific and also what do you mean by the term normal normal in the sense that um it is a an experience that people might have same-sex attraction or are we saying normal in the sense that it is morally good or morally neutral um i think some people that critique this i think when she says she's critiquing the view that you know homosexuality is normal i think uh it is more along the lines of normal meaning like um good or morally neutral um whereas the word for me the word normal can mean kind of uh various different things but let's

keep going that's the first is in a false anti-biblical anthropology. That's where we look at Genesis 127 and we say, well, okay, everybody's made in the image of God. Great. You know, my sister, Julie must be made in the image of God as a lesbian. No, you know, read it more closely. Her sister, Julie is a lesbian who's made in the image of God. And she's like, no. My best faith reading here, she is not saying that a person who identifies as a lesbian is not therefore made in the image of God because she identifies as a lesbian. Her words could be taken that way, but my best reading here is that's not what she's saying.

I think she's addressing the category of lesbian as a ontological category of humanity. Yeah. But even there, even if a person has, in her opinion, a warped, bad, heretical anthropology, they're still created in the image of God, even if they have a bad anthropology. But again, I don't think she's denying that this person, because she's a lesbian, is not in the image of God. Made in the image of God as a man or as a woman for the purpose of procreation.

So God creates a pattern for a purpose. He's not some kind of mad engineer who builds a bridge and dives into a lake. There's a purpose for it. And so there is no way that you can be made in the image of God as a lesbian. There's no way. Again, I would recommend maybe there's no way you can be made in the image of God as a lesbian. She's not summarizing my views. I don't even need to really say anything.

I can just let it sit. I mean, I would recommend wording that differently so it doesn't sound like it seems to sound that you're saying if you're a lesbian you're not you're not in the image of god like someone sounds almost exactly what she's saying but again she cannot that that would that would be a heretical anthropology right that if somebody says they're a lesbian then they're they're therefore not in the image of god can't be what rosaria means but that's what her words feel like a little bit but let's let's maybe chalk it up to in need of a little bit more, maybe a nuance and precision. Way because, uh, homosexuality is a sin and it comes from the world, the flesh and the devil and image bearing is a grace and it reflects God in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness.

And so the first is this mistake that, that, um, not 100% sure what she's getting at there, but let's, let's keep going. Makes you an image bearer is somehow your deeply held feelings. Oh, I a hundred percent agree with that. What makes you an image bearer is certainly not your deeply held feelings. So I'm a hundred and thousand percent in agreement with Rosaria there. I don't know who she's, hopefully she's not critiquing me. I would never ever say that or never have I ever believed that, but let's keep going. One error that leads into the normalization

of homosexuality. The other is the idea that homosexuality is a fallenness. It's a disorder, a little bit like blindness or deafness, that it's a kind of morally neutral disorder. But there's not- So I want to come back to that. Yeah, I do. That's a really good point she's making.

That is a category that Nate Collins in particular, the founder of revoice in his book all the invisible has argued that same-sex attraction we should view it through the lens of kind of like a disability to where it could be part of one's fallen nature but isn't like a morally culpable sin to repent from so rosario is disagreeing with that which is which is perfectly fine um i think that'd be a really interesting um conversation to have. I think her pushback here is pretty good, pretty thoughtful, I think. Here we go. Something immoral about it ontologically inherently. And what that is a confusion of is what it means to be made, not only in the image of God, but then what it means to have Adam's sin imputed onto us.

So the fall didn't just make the world fallen. It made me corrupt. I mean, I agree with that. That on some level, I mean, if you're a Protestant and if you're even somewhat reformed, everything she's saying is kind of basic theological anthropology that somehow Adam's sin has been imputed to humanity. And there's debates about the means by which it was imputed, what imputed means and so on. But yeah, the Adam's sin, let's just say affected on some level all of humanity. That our sin nature is due to Genesis 3 and Adam's fall.

Yeah, I think, I mean, in and of itself, I agree with that. There's, again, lots of theological nuances we can tease out, but I think so far it's fine. To the point that my corruption isn't just outside, it's inside. And what we call that is sin. And so side B gay Christianity has said, well, no, no, no, no, no. It's not a sin if you didn't choose it. If that's, so it's not a sin if you didn't choose it. I don't know. This is where these broad categories of gay Christianity, side B Christianity, and they all believe this and we don't. I wouldn't say that. I wouldn't

say, I don't identify as part of side B or Christianity or gay Christianity. Those categories, I just don't like other people's categories placed on me. So if somebody else wants to say you're a side B, whatever, I don't care. But I mean, that's not a label I use for myself. But I would never say simply because a desire is unchosen, it's therefore not sinful.

I don't think I've ever said that. And it's not a sin if you're not physically acting on it. I think a desire that's not physically acted on could be a sin, for sure. There are certain things as sinful desires, and they could be desires that are something you didn't choose. That is a category of human sin for sure. But that makes no sense because in order to actually pull that off, you have to throw away the 10th commandment, Exodus 20, 17. I mean, that says, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife. Okay. So now she's defining it covet, covetousness. That is one kind of desire, but to sort of make it immediate one-to-one

correlation between same-sex attraction and covetousness, I think that's a logical and theological leap. You would at least need to prove that, not just assume that same-sex attraction is akin to covetousness. Thou shalt not take thy neighbor's wife. So coveting is about a desire that's not acted upon. Yep. Totally agree with that. And that's called a sin there. And then in Romans 7, you have, I think, some of the more, you know, probably the most majestic words in the Bible,

understanding and dwelling sin, where Paul says, why do I do what I don't want to do? It is not I, it is sin in me. So there Paul is saying, it's sin, it's in me, and I didn't choose it. And the way that Psy B gets around this is they say well in that case in that case um homosexuality same-sex attraction is a temptation it's not a sin and what you need to do is flee temptation and mortify sin but don't help people who quote unquote experience same-sex attraction. Just that language actually is sinful. The language of same-sex attraction is sinful. Yeah. I guess just agree to disagree on that one, but we'll get to that. But, but don't tell people who quote unquote experience same-sex attraction that, that they need to rep, that's going to discourage them.

They need to flee. But if indwelling sin is a sin that's inside you, where do I flee? This starts to get a little bit, yeah, she starts going off on stuff that I didn't find particularly clear or helpful or compelling, but I think it's an important point, like the category of temptation, the same-sex attraction, more in the category of a temptation to sin, but isn't itself yet sin, but could lead to sin? Or is it a part of this, does it reflect the covetousness or the language of Romans 1, where Paul has this indwelling sin, hamartia, inside of him? I think there's some blurring of categories here, but I want to come back. I want to take time and come back to, um, this distinction between, uh, morally culpable desires versus, uh, desires that could be in the category of a temptation, but aren't yet themselves sin and sort of put those in conversation with the

modern category of same-sex attraction. Let's come back to that because there's other things in this video that are more directly related to me. Let's see. I want to jump ahead to the 27, 22 minute mark, 27, 22. Because here, Zaria is going to be interacting with my book. Okay, this is actually 20. The way of saying this is who I am. 2720. Not how I am. But let me, let me read you a paragraph. I'm just going to read you a paragraph

of a book that claims to support biblical marriage. I actually don't like the phrase biblical marriage. I even have a chapter in the book she's citing on the so-called biblical marriage but yeah so the book is does the bible my book does the bible support same-sex marriage 21 conversations from from a historically christian point of view and i just so just so you set the context and she's going to quote from page 43 the entire book is all about um addressing and responding to and refuting arguments that are made to affirm same-sex marriage. Okay. So that's the context of this quote. And as I lay out, I think very clearly in the book that I argue that sex difference is a necessary part of what marriage is, so that

marriage is between a male and female and that all sexual relationships outside of that covenant bond are sin. That's what the whole book is arguing. Okay, so she's going to quote from page 43 here. All right, now I'm a writing teacher, so I have to confess, I have used this paragraph as an example to my students of how not to write a paragraph, but nonetheless, let's just, just amuse me.

Same-sex sexual relationships are always prohibited. Okay, do you and I agree with that? That's the subtitle of this section, by the way. And this section is, I'm giving five reasons why marriage is between a man and a woman and why all sexual relationships outside of that covenant bond are sin. So that's the context of this specific chapter that she's quoting from. Same-sex sexual relationships are mentioned at least five places in scripture. And in each case, they are prohibited.

Okay. Before I tease this out, I want to make two observations. First, each of these five passages is in a context where lots of other sins are listed, sins that are frequently committed by straight people. Okay. Straight people. What's that mean? It means somebody who's attracted to the opposite sex. That's an anthropology statement. I'm not, you know, that's not what Christians would say. All right. But let's keep reading incest, adultery, sex outside of marriage, you name it, greed, envy, murder, deceit, malice, gossip. They're right there in Romans 1. So are arrogance, slander, and being disobedient to your parents.

The point of these passages is not to highlight the sins of gay people, but to underscore the sins of all people. Straight Christians... She skipped a part. Let me read to you the whole paragraph. She skipped kind of a key phrase here. What I actually write in the book, page 43. The point of these passages is not to highlight the sins of gay people, but to underscore the sins of all people so that all people can recognize their need for Jesus. She skipped out that part of the sentence. I don't know why. And then she picks it up with the next sentence where I say straight Christians.

So here she goes. Should never wave these texts around as proof that gay people need to repent. And then the next sentence, which she doesn't read, says, we should humbly look at these texts like mirrors of conviction, not banners of condemnation for others to see. Again, she left out that kind of key sentence. Now, you know what would happen if I just happened to take this author and say, hey, this guy's a heretic. He denies Christians. He denies people the opportunity to repent of

their sin and live in victory. I am genuinely stunned and bewildered that she would get that, that she would interpret me as saying that in a book that is entirely devoted to arguing that marriage is between a man and a woman, all sexual relationships outside that covenant bond are sin that need to be repented from. And that in this narrow context, this is in the chapter two, it's called foundation two, where I lay out my A to Z sort of defense of that viewpoint that all sex outside of male and female marriage are sin. And then the rest of the book is responding to all the counter arguments to that viewpoint. And so this is under the second of my five main arguments for traditional marriage. And she's gathering that I don't think gay people need to repent, full stop. I'm genuinely bewildered that anybody can get that kind of interpretation from my book. So let's keep going.

You might write a blog piece that says, I don't know what's wrong with Rosaria. I say, same sex sexual relationships are mentioned at least five places in scripture. And in each case, they are prohibited. Right. But your clincher sentence allows no hope for anyone to live that out. I don't understand what that even means. Let me talk briefly about, I guess, so Romans 1. If you study Romans, you know that there's this lengthy, beautiful literary pericope from Romans 1.18 to 3.20. People break at a different point. I mean, really all the way to 4.25 in Romans of, there's a kind of capstone piece at 321 to 26.

118 to 32, Paul gives this laundry list of all these sins that the typical Jew would understand are committed by pagan people. So it's like he surveys kind of the pagan world and says, here's all these sins that people are committing. The whole point is that Paul is leveling the playing field. Look at all these people. They're all bad.

But then you can almost hear this like the moral person, maybe the Jewish person saying, yeah, you go get him, Paul. And then Paul turns around in Romans 2.1 and says, you're doing the same thing, you moral person or you Jewish person who you think you have a lot. He spends the entire chapter of Romans 2 attacking somebody who is sort of wagging their finger at all those pagans in Romans 1. Let me repeat that. Part of Paul's beautiful and powerful literary point in Romans 1.18 to 3.26 is in chapter 2, he is pointing his finger to those wagging their morally righteous finger at other people saying, yeah, you go get them, Paul. And Paul turns around and says, you are doing the same thing. And then of course he gets into chapter

three and ends up saying, we've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, which is why we all need Jesus 3, 21 to 26. And then he gets on to, you know, talks about Abraham in chapter four and kind of the promises of Abraham and how that relates to the new covenant and so on. So yes, the point of Romans one is not to simply, you can wag Romans one in the faces of gay people and say, you need to repent while we sit back in our self-righteousness. That would be the perspective of the person Paul addresses in Romans 2. So obviously, well, maybe it's not obvious. Okay. So it's not obvious apparently. So let me, let me at least, let me clarify here. So when I say the point of these passages is not to highlight the sins of gay people, but to underscore the sins of all people so that all people can recognize

their need for Jesus. That is precisely what Paul is doing in 118 to 326. Straight Christians should never weigh these texts around as proof that gay people need to repent. We should rather, we should humbly look at these texts like mirrors of conviction, not banners of combination for others to see. What I mean there is that we shouldn't only say gay people need to repent. We need to say all people need to repent. And since gay people are part of all people, we all need to repent and embrace Jesus. That's what I thought was the clear point that I'm making there. But again, it's the entire argument here, this in this chapter and the book as a whole, I think makes that very clear. Anyway, let's, let's keep going here and see if there's more.

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