Reader's Corner: "Embodied" by Dr. Preston Sprinkle

Single, Gay, Christian by Gregory Coles is a small, easy-to read book that packs a powerful punch. Coles is exceptionally articulate and does an excellent job of communicating his thoughts and feelings.  Coles wrote the book as if he is sharing his ponderings and experiences with you, a trusted friend. As you read, you feel as if you are his confidant, listening and learning as he processes his early experiences with attraction to men, his wrestling with God to make him straight, his examination of the Bible to make sense of his experience, and his choice to sit in the tension of longings that God hasn’t taken away.  I found this book particularly helpful to understanding one man’s experience of gay attractions while still clinging to the love of Jesus. So often, LGBT issues become a conversation to debate, missing the humanity of those about whose lives we deliberate. Greg invites us to zoom in on his experiences and share his tensions—up close and personal.  Reading this book, you can’t help but garner an affection for this young man. He is authentic, deep, caring, delightfully bright, funny, and sincere in his love for Jesus. Greg is honest about where he is still wrestling and doesn’t pretend to have the answers to many pressing questions, even as they overlap with his own experiences.  The title of the book brings forth the debate with which Greg’s name is sometimes associated. Can a follower of Jesus also claim the title “gay”? Aren’t the words “Christian” and “gay” mutually exclusive? Greg explains why he has chosen this adjective to describe himself rather than the commonly used evangelical description “same-sex attracted.” Whether or not you agree with his conclusions, he brings light to the complexity of the issue.  My only hesitation with this book is not what it contains, but what it lacks. There is a deeper layer yet to uncover. Single, Gay, Christian expresses Greg’s wrestling with his gayness mostly in light of the sinful behavior he is called to avoid. He explains that he will never get married because he is not attracted, and likely never will be, to women. I think there is more to it than that–not just for Greg, but for all of us. Following Christ is about more than surrendering our behavior. Additionally, we must examine how we have integrated the world’s system into our assumptions and reasoning. “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). God not only wants to address the potential for sin in our lives, but also bring to light how we each have been influenced by the thought patterns of our culture. Without question, our western culture has increasingly given sexual desires and experiences an exaggerated voice in our identity and decisions. What’s more, we’ve learned to make life decisions about love and marriage largely based on felt attractions. Works like Nancy Pearcy’s Love Thy Body and Carl Trueman’s The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self help us understand why our sexual desires and sense of “sexual” selves have become such central components of our identities. As Trueman writes, “In biblical times or in ancient Greece, sex was regarded as something that human beings did; today it is considered to be something vital to who human beings are.”These western assumptions confuse not only those who experience same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria, but also Christians who no longer feel love or attraction within their marriage.  If our sexual desires are such a determinant, what about the bi-sexual Christian? Or how about the woman who discovers, a decade into her marriage, that she is actually attracted to women? I wonder if much of our wrestling with Scripture is amplified by the assumptions of sexual desire, personal experience, and identity that are rooted in the world’s system of thought, which is passing away (See I John 2:17).  I would love to see Greg wrestle with questions like: To what extent have we bought into the lie that sexual experiences and desires must be part of my identity? Why do the Scriptures fail to identify people by adjectives like “single,” “heterosexual,” or “married” as identity markers?  And is it possible that entering into biblical marriage is more of a call to unique covenant relationships and potentially has little to do with sexual attraction?  From what I’ve already seen in Greg, it wouldn’t surprise me if these themes show up as he continues to mature in ministry and his personal journey.   

Purity culture has been a topic of conversation for several years as Christian women who were teenagers in the 1990’s (at the height of the purity movement) are now in their thirties and forties. Many who grew up in the evangelical purity movement are experiencing pain in singleness and marriage—pain they assumed they would avoid with their purity pledges and commitments to abstinence. In response, several have written blogs and books decrying the harm done by well-meaning pastors, parents, and teachers who urged these teens to “save sex until marriage.”  Rachel Joy Welcher's book, "Talking Back to Purity Culture," is a recent example. Rachel grew up in a loving Christian home and saved sex for marriage. She became disillusioned when her husband left the Christian faith and her marriage five years later. This—along with watching her Christian friends walk through the trials of singleness, sexual assault, and sexual pain in marriage—led her to complete her master’s thesis on the topic of purity culture.  What I Liked I found myself underlining, highlighting, and cheering Rachel on as I read her book. With clarity, she points out ways that the evangelical purity culture has perpetuated victim blaming, a double standard for Christian women and men, unhealthy expectations about sex in marriage, neglect for those who have suffered sexual trauma, and devalued singleness. I whole-heartedly agree with this assessment and have devoted much of the past several years to helping Christians have a more complete biblical framework for sexuality.  As I have said and written many times, every sexual issue is also a spiritual issue. Disillusionment with the Church’s teaching on sex will prompt us to reconsider God’s character and the trustworthiness of Scripture. For this reason, I particularly appreciate that Rachel has “deconstructed” from the simplistic message of the purity narrative, but reconstructed on the bedrock of trusting God and leaning into biblical truth. This is a necessary contrast to others like Linda Kay Klein (Pure), Nadia Bolz-Weber (Shameless), Josh Harris and Glennon Doyle who have examined the harm of the purity message and found resolution by stepping away from foundational Christian beliefs.  Rachel spends more ink dedicated toward diagnosing the problem of past approaches than presenting a practical and biblical way of moving forward. While she offers some suggestions for a healthier biblical ethic, she doesn’t dive into the biblical narrative of sex, exploring God’s heart for the “why” sex matters.  What Concerns Me Rachel wrote this book much like an academic literature review, including scores of quotes from books by Christian authors to prove her point. She praises some (Debra Hirsch, Jackie Hill Perry, Scott Sauls, Daniel Darling) as “getting it right.” Others she criticizes (Rebecca St. James, James Dobson, Josh Harris, John Eldredge, Dannah Gresh, Stephen Arterburn and Shannon Ethridge) as promoting great harm. I personally know several of the authors on both her “good” and  “bad” lists. Many of these are courageous men and women who have worked to honor God with faithfulness to His Word. Indeed the Bible does say much about striving for moral and sexual purity. The primary difference distinguishing these two camps of authors is when their books were written. I have a sneaking suspicion that Rachel’s book—and even my own books—would sound a lot more like the purity culture had we written them thirty years ago. I just finished a complete overhaul of my first book, written in 2000, and cringed at some of the nuance of my understanding of sex and marriage back then.  Our conversation about God and sexuality has evolved as our culture pursues “sex positivity” and as we learn more about the physiology of sex, addiction, gender, and trauma. Much has transpired over the past few decades to prompt Christians to examine the traditions passed down to us by our Church fathers. We can no longer be silent or simply recite verses that condemn sexual immorality. Instead, we must press into the character and Word of God, and be willing to wrestle with questions posed about abuse, sexual shame, hypocrisy, legalism, human depravity, and Christian liberty. God’s Word gives us guidance to grasp in our minds and hearts a deep theology and praxis around all sexual issues. Yet, we seek and wrestle with real-life tension. We approach our Christian history of sex (including the simplicity of purity culture and unloving posture toward LGBT individuals) with repentance, humility, and dependence upon God to equip us through His Spirit and the Body of the church.  My primary concern about "Talking Back to Purity Culture" is the neglect for this nuance and respect for our fellow brothers and sisters who have boldly addressed sexual issues in decades past. I have a deep appreciation for the forerunners of this conversation, even if we now have eyes to see how things should have been communicated differently. It is entirely possible to critically dissect the teaching and traditions of the Church without aiming that criticism directly, and perhaps unfairly, at our sincere brothers and sisters.  The purity message got some things wrong but also has done great good. No Christian author is “all good” nor “all bad” in what they write. In hindsight, we can pick out sentences and phrases that we now see have the potential of misunderstanding and harm. Even so, we can just as readily point to the many who were helped and shielded from the world’s abuse of sex because of the men and women who courageously wrote and taught in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. It humbles me to know that when we pass the baton to the next generation of Christ followers, they will see that Juli Slattery got some things wrong! I pray this in no way detracts from the work God wills to do in me and through me today.  In summary, Rachel’s work in "Talking Back to Purity Culture" is an important “voice” in the chorus of God’s people who strive to understand and articulate His heart for sexual redemption. I would only encourage Rachel to join arms with those around her who have labored to sing the same song, even when they have gotten a little off key. May we pursue not only a complete theology of sex, but do so while honoring one another in the love and grace of Jesus Christ.