Can Theology and Compassion Coexist? A Candid Talk with Dr. Preston Sprinkle

Can Christians hold fast to biblical convictions about marriage and still radically love their LGBTQ+ neighbors? 

In this deeply honest and thought-provoking conversation, Dr. Preston Sprinkle, president of the Center for Faith, Sexuality & Gender, joins Will Wright and Josh Burtram to explore one of the most polarizing conversations in the church today.

Drawing from his books People to Be Loved and Does the Bible Support Same-Sex Marriage?, Dr. Sprinkle unpacks how to hold theological clarity with pastoral compassion—and why kindness isn’t weakness but a biblical command. The discussion ranges from Jonathan Haidt’s moral psychology to the difficulty of having civil discourse in today’s polarized climate, and even touches on the civic versus theological tension around marriage and religious freedom.

If you’ve ever wondered how faith, love, and truth can coexist in modern America, this episode will stretch your mind and soften your heart.

👤 Guest Bio

Dr. Preston Sprinkle is a biblical scholar, New York Times bestselling author, and president of the Center for Faith, Sexuality & Gender. He holds a PhD in New Testament from the University of Aberdeen and has taught at universities in the U.S. and the U.K. A gifted communicator and bridge-builder, Dr. Sprinkle hosts the Theology in the Raw podcast and writes widely about the intersection of Scripture, theology, and culture. His works include Embodied: Transgender Identities, the Church, and What the Bible Has to Say and Does the Bible Support Same-Sex Marriage?, both of which aim to pair truth with grace and theological depth with relational empathy.

Learn more at theologyintheraw.com
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Transcript

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Well, hey there, Faithful Politics listeners and viewers. If you're joining us on YouTube, guys, thanks for coming here for another episode of the Faithful Politics podcast. And of course we want you to be liking subscribing, doing this stuff that hacks the algorithm because people need to hear sane conversation right now. So please make sure you're sharing this. I am of course, your faithful host, Josh Bertram. And I have, as always our political host, Will. Will, it's very good to see you. I know it is, thank you. You're very welcome. And today's guest is Dr. Preston Sprinkle. He is a biblical scholar, New York Times bestselling author and the president of the Center for Faith, Sexuality and Gender. He earned his PhD in New Testament from the University of Aberdeen and has taught at universities in the United States and the UK. holds the, the host rather, the popular theology and the raw podcast and writes widely about the intersection of scripture, theology and contemporary culture. His recent books include, Embodied Transgender Identities, The Church, and What the Bible Has to Say. And does the Bible support same-sex marriage, where he argues for theological clarity with pastoral courage? Preston, thank you so much for being on our program today. I gotta say, we've been looking forward to this for thanks for having me on i'm i'm super honored to be here Well, yeah, well, I guess just to get started, I would love for you to give uh our audience a sense, maybe a little bit more of who you are and why you got into this such a controversial space. And you can even maybe give them a sense of kind of the flack that you've had to take being a bridge builder to the LGBTQ community. um And I would just love to hear that so people, because it's very rare to find someone who's truly loves the Bible, I think, in the way, or at least shares my views, I should say. someone who shares my views of the Bible and yet is a bridge to the LGBTQ community. And I think it's such an inspiration. I'd love to hear kind of your thoughts on Yeah. Wow. Thank you for that. I started uh my ministry slash career as a Bible scholar. Like when I got saved, when I became a Christian at 19, I just wanted to study and teach the Bible. And so went through a bunch of education to uh understand the Bible and then taught in the college for a number of years. And, and I really, absolutely just love the, the academic side. of biblical studies, know, uh writing and reading articles that nobody can understand that nobody's gonna read. Like, I love that. uh But I fell into Yeah, but I you know, before I became a Christian, I didn't, I hated to read I was an athlete. uh I, the only reason why I was able to become a scholar is because I just love to study and I'm curious, but I don't have any natural like scholarly bent, you know, I remember just struggling through my PhD program. um, but I just, I love, love, love to learn and study. And so I put the work into it, I guess. And, um, but I always maintain that kind of just normal person way of talking and writing. And so I, know, as much as I love the academic world, I also get a little annoyed at how it almost seems to go out of its way to be unclear and sound smarter than you really are and come up with new ideas that you know, are more novel than maybe true. so I, over the last, gosh, maybe like 14, 15 years, I really fell into the space of kind of bridging the gap between the academy and the church. And most of my books in that era were, you know, heavily researched, but also just written in what I would hope to be, you know, really down to earth colloquial tone. And so I love to interact with ideas that are disputed in the church that people are wrestling with, that people have strong opinions, but maybe not the study to back those opinions. I've always been passionate about making sure my passion for a certain viewpoint matches the depth of my study. So if I haven't really studied something really thoroughly, then I'm like, here's where I lean, but I could change my mind. I haven't really studied it. um Yeah, so that's brought me into several topics that were of interest to me, where I said, I'm just going to try to see what does the Bible say about this. And if I end up landing on a view that's different than what my Sunday school teacher told me back in third grade, then so be it. know, like I'm going to go with the text leads. And that's led me to conclude certain, I guess that's land, you know, I've landed on some less than popular viewpoints within evangelicalism and other viewpoints that are widely held in evangelicalism. So people kind of don't know what to do with me. They kind of want to put me in a, they want me to check off all the boxes on this side or that side. And I just, I think if you, yeah, I think if you're studying the Bible thoroughly and honestly, you're probably not going to line up on one side of the political aisle or one side of this, you know, theological tradition. So yeah, I fell into the sexuality space really just out of academic interest to understand what does the Bible actually say about. same-sex relationships and marriage. I knew what I was supposed to believe, but I didn't know why I believed that. And so I, you know, went down a long theological journey. And in that journey, I also got to know uh many LGBT people, uh many of whom are dear friends to this day. And I ended up concluding, I do think the Bible says that marriage is between a man and woman. um But man, I think that the church has done a... on the whole a really terrible job about going about that. know, over and over and over I'd meet an LGBTQ person and they said that the most common thing I heard was, I've never met a Christian that was kind to me. Like what? But wait, my Bible says the kindness of God leads to repentance and the church should embody the presence of God on earth. So that's not just, Christians need to be nicer. Like that's a theological problem. So my... yes. over the last 10 plus years has been trying to um teach and maintain and uh advocate for theological truth regarding marriage and sexuality, the way I'm reading scripture and people read it differently and that's okay, but also to embody a really radical welcome and kindness and love towards LGBTQ people within that framework. And some people said, you can't do that, you gotta pick one or the other. And I said, I do think that was kind of Jesus's MO, know, preach the high ethical standard, but radically love people who fell short of that. Like that's kind of the thread woven throughout his ministry. yeah, that's, I spent the last 10 years trying to dismantle that, what I think is a false dichotomy uh placed upon me. So that's a long answer to your short question. No, it's good and... uh I have to say that your book about same-sex marriage is a good one. And as we were sort of like discussing before we started recording, like it's a book that we're actively going through right now, Josh and I and a couple other guys. We're still in chapter one. And even though we started it, I don't know, a couple of months ago, something like that. But what happens is like we go through it and then we just start talking about like things. I think the ministry is taking place there in our conversations. Your book is offering us a guide. uh We're talking about what it means, how do we apply this, so on and so forth. But uh at the beginning of your book, you referenced Jonathan Haidt and his research on motivated reasoning. I will tell you that I had known about Jonathan Haidt's work uh on the edges, but never really dug into it. your inclusion of his work in the beginning of your book really kind of like it rocked me because what I started doing was like I've read The Righteous Mind three times already. uh And then I started reading like, you know, The Calling of the American Mind. And then I read Greg Luglianna's book, Counseling the American Mind. And then I'm reading The Anxious Child, think, or Anxious Mind. anxious generation, yeah, yeah. in other words, like I've become like a Jonathan Haidt fanboy ah because it just makes sense to me. And I think it can explain a lot of what we see in both politics and religion today. um So I'm curious, like, why did you sort of decide to start your book with him? And if you included him later in your book, I apologize. Like I said, we're still on chapter one. Um, that's a great question. I don't know if I've, well, yeah, let me, um, I get, let me say, first of all, uh, the book you guys are reading is kind of a sequel to my first book, people to be loved. Um, people to be loved was kind of my really broad layout of how I'm approaching the topic. So it weaves in a lot more like pastoral concerns, exegetical, my exegetical journey. Um, that came out in 2015 and then I've been speaking a lot of the topic and I get all these pushbacks, right? So the book you guys are reading is kind of like me reflecting back on my interaction with this conversation. Um, and you know, the book is primarily, you haven't gotten there yet, but primarily going to be focused on all of the theological books, pushbacks to the traditional view of marriage. Um, but you know, over the years I've realized that in this conversation and it most divisive conversations, how you go about talking to people on different sides is almost as important as the content in which each person is arguing for. And I read Jonathan Haidt's book, probably The Righteous Mind, I think it came out in 2013, I probably read it maybe 2018, when I was in the middle of like... you know, in different, you know, I'm in different spaces where people have different views on sexuality and I'll be in one space and I'll say, here's what I think the Bible says. And maybe it's like, ah, it makes total sense, blah, blah, blah. And then I'll be in another space and the exact same thing. And they're like, you're a heretic, you know, you're a homophobe or you're a woke or whatever. like, wait, I'm just saying the same thing. These people were, everybody has a brain, they're reasonable. How come my cognitive articulation lands in this space, but not in this space, you know? How come I can say, think we should love LGBT people and care for all people made in God's image. And in one space, people were like, that sounds like Jesus to me. In another space, it's like, no, that's not, you you're sacrificing truth on the altar of love or something. So when I read Hite's book in the midst of like figuring out like, why are people responding so differently? You know, his work was so helpful that not, you know, that elephant rider image of like, 90 % of why people believe what they believe, including me, including you, you know, is not really because we work through our rational reasoning of all the argument. 90 % of why we believe what we believe comes from a gut reaction or intuition, you know, our emotions, our stories, our context, our experiences, and so much that feeds into why people believe what they believe. So all that the same. uh By the book you guys are reading, What Does the Bible Say About Same-Sex Marriage? or does the Bible support same-sex marriage? em It is primarily analyzing the intellectual theological arguments. And I think that's important. And I think we need to do that. But I learned over the years that we can't even do that well unless we first understand how to have a fruitful conversation with people, taking into account all these other things. So that's why I felt... Um, that I cannot write a book just defending traditional marriage until I really talk about what's even lying beneath that, you know, so that would, that was the goal. I, I honestly feel like that first chapter and I've had people say like, was the most important part of the book as a whole. You know, I'm like, I, I, I don't want to discount the rest of it. It took a lot of work, you know, but, I, I, kind of, I don't know. I kind of agree. Like until we can learn how to even have civil conversations, fruitful conversations. then I don't know if it's even worth getting into it, you know? um So yeah, anyway, I'm glad you picked up on that. I'm yeah, excited that you found Height's work so helpful, because I think his work is incredibly helpful. one of the reasons I think it's so... um important and I think especially not just for the study and research that you do, but even just for Josh and myself is like we recognize we operate in a very uncomfortable space for a lot of people because we will have both left and right on our show, believers and non-believers. ah And that's sort of our stick. It's not like we're intentionally trying to be divisive. It's like when we bring on like Kevin Roberts. Yeah, it's like, really want to understand, like, why do you feel so strongly about school choice? Or when we bring on Lucian Grieve, I really want to understand, like, what is the big thing about the Satanic temple? But, you know, like, and we had an episode air recently where we brought in somebody from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary to talk about, like, Christian patriotism and whatnot. Great conversation, very, very cordial, civil. We even found, like, you know, places of agreement. But our audience, I think, had a different reaction. ah One that resulted in death threats. And that's not the normal, but I think it does speak to this tension where it's like, if we can't even have conversations to learn about the way other people think, ah then how do we get through this season that we're in? ah So for me, the work wasn't just like... great that you included it was it was almost essential and I and I agree and feel free to respond to that if you want. that's great. And I, you probably get this critique a lot. I get it all the time. Why are you platforming that person, you know, or this person? And I just, I, and I don't even know what you guys think, but I just refuse to acknowledge that concept or the fear of that concept. It's a very new thing. you know, they're... It's just kind of a derogatory way of saying, why are you talking to somebody you disagree with? I'm like, okay, let's step back and look at our world today. Hyper polarized, hyper siloed. Everybody's rushing to hide out in their echo chambers. And you know, some people even say we're on the brink of like a civil war socially, maybe if not violently, you know, it's like, what do we need right now? More siloed conversations or? or maybe reach across the aisle once in a while and talk to somebody you disagree with, you know, and it's like, well, their ideas are dangerous. They're evil. I'm like, well, if they're that obviously dangerous and evil, then bring them to the light. You know, like if they're so absurd, you know, like, like, I love that you had the high priest of the church of Satan on it. You know, it's like, Christians should be like, These ideas should be so, if you're like, they're so bad, shouldn't platform them. I'm like, well, if they're so clearly bad, then expose them. And people can say, well, obviously this is wrong. Thank you for alerting me to what the person actually says. So yeah, I just refuse to even acknowledge that concern. It's like Charlie Brown's teacher in my ear when people say, you're platforming that, you platform this. But I have found though, think there is a growing silent. Yeah. And I just, yeah, I, I travel the country and talk to actual people, not just bots on social media, like it's like, I think the average person actually appreciates hearing two people. get along, humanize each other, express difference, maintain those differences, but also go about it in a curious, humble way. think most humans appreciate that and know that that is probably, we probably need more of that in the world, it ain't not less. I absolutely agree. And it kind of oh leads to this. It's a tension that I feel, and I would really love your thoughts on this, in the sense of we say we're open to changing our mind. We say we're open, and I have to say that. So I'm going to say something that I've said before probably, but people can take this and they can make it out of context and then... throw it out there and then I'll be the woke whatever. So, all right, go ahead. It's already been done. Thank you. All right. But what I'm saying though is that if I'm gonna be honest, I need to, and intellectually honest especially, have intellectual virtue. I need to say, hey, I am open to something like same-sex marriage being accepted and endorsed biblically. Because if I'm not, if I'm hermetically sealed from ever believing that or even considering it, then how can I, one, expect someone else to do that for me? I think that's one of the things you pointed out in the first part of your book, chapter one. um And then another part of it is how can I expect to persuade, which I want to do, when I'm not willing to even hear what they're saying? And so I have to be open. And yet it's very difficult for me, like trying to imagine myself coming to the place, for instance, where I felt like the Bible was teaching that same sex marriage is a holy union on par with, uh you know, the traditional view of biblical, whatever you want to call it, marriage between a man and a woman. I can't imagine myself getting there. I don't know the argument that's going to take me there. But at the same time, I can't say that that argument doesn't exist or that there isn't reason for me to think about it. um And maybe it doesn't exist, but it's like so often, I guess the tension I'm getting at, because we had Matthew Vines on and he basically made that argument. I think you've been interaction with Matthew Vines and he makes that argument. Hey, this is fully acceptable. I believe in the authority of the Bible. I believe in the air and see of the Bible. And I think we need to, so he was keeping all those things and then bringing this argument. And I wasn't convinced, but I was compelled, if that makes sense. What in your mind, what would count? Like how does something change your mind? Better biblical arguments, data, church tradition, uh pastoral fallout from real people. And maybe obviously it's probably all of those in some way, but I'd love for you to like... How can we be open? My mom used to say, you have an open mind, your brain's so open, your mind's so open, your brain's gonna fall out. So how do we balance that? I hope that that's clear. that's such a, I mean that we could refract that question through many different angles that would probably take us the rest of the time. It's a fantastic question. I, where do I start? I, I strive to be aware of my biases, um the stubborn corners of my belief system. I try to be aware of that. So I want to acknowledge that there's forces at work inside of me that are probably resisting change in my beliefs. And I think if we don't admit that, then I think we're being naive. um And yet I think once you do, if you're honest with yourself, then I think that positions you better to be as fair minded as you can. um For me personally, think, so the question, um what would change my mind on whatever, pick a topic. For me, I think it comes down to temperament. I think it really does depend on the temperament personality of each individual. I'm very self-aware that I'm extremely left brain, like very just, I... You know, that's my pedigree, right? I mean, it's, it's, it's, very, I, I love these intellectual rational arguments. I don't live in a denominational space or a ministry space or a church space. That's kind of controlling me to, you know, for the most part, would say. For the most part, I swim in diverse waters. I'm my own boss. I wouldn't get fired if I held a certain view. Well, I mean, there might be ministries I'm involved in now that have been built on prior uh positions that would be affected. But let me give you an example. So I just finished a book on women in leadership. It comes out in March. And I began the book, I wrote the first chapter. Well, I just, you know, I... And we don't, I just opened up a whole new door to walk through. My point is I began the book totally neutral. And I said, I know people laugh at that. They're all like, well, you have a leanings, you're biased. like, you know what? All I can say is in my heart, I don't have, at the beginning of my study, I don't have any leanings. You can trust me or not, whatever. Maybe I'm being self-deceived. But also objectively. If I land egalitarian or complementarian, I'll still attend the same church. I'll keep all my friends. uh My board is mixed on the topic. uh It's not like I'm teaching at Southern Seminary where you have to be complementarian, otherwise you lose your job, or I'm teaching at Fuller Seminary where you have to be egalitarian or you lose your job. Like nothing in my life is gonna change wherever I land. just, there are some socioeconomic factors, socioeconomic and ecclesial. Hopefully those aren't too big of work. Objective socioeconomic ecclesial factors in my life that none of them are determining where I'm gonna land. Other people aren't in that, most people aren't in that space. If you're pastoring a complimentary church and you're like, I'm gonna study what it says about women leadership, people are gonna be like, okay, so if you don't land complimentary, you're gonna lose your job. Obviously that's an objective factor that's gonna shape your approach. um So all that to say, I have for the most part... gone about my exegetical journeys on these various topics and spaces that for the most part allow me to land on different sides. uh For instance, I studied, I was at a Bible college when I studied what the Bible said about hell and I landed egalitarian, or no, sorry, I landed on the annihilation side, because I think the Bible teaches it clearly. my... colleagues at the school, the president changed the doctoral statement to make room for me. Brilliant. Isn't it? um I, when I studied war, friend violence, I landed pacifist and one of the board members of the Bible college was furious and they actually said, maybe this isn't the place for you to be a board member anymore. Cause we find his view agreeable, uh, not that all of us agree with it, but he made a good biblical case and we want to foster an environment for him to do that. So even in the times when I've landed outside of mainstream evangelical views, I've been in spaces that have allowed for that and all that, sorry, I'm going way too long. um When I approached sexuality and marriage, I truly, as much as I... I'm able to be self-consciously aware. know, I said, I want to go with the text leads and if we got this question wrong, then I'm going to go with the text leads, even if it leads me outside of traditional evangelical beliefs. So, yeah. oh Hmm. I love that. um You know, so for the podcast, uh Josh is the resident theological Bible scholar. uh I am sort of the political uh junkie. So like if you want to know how much Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, spent on an ostrich coat, like I'm your guy. uh because it's fifteen thousand, by the way. So so like uh I say that not only to be funny, but also just to prove that the level of theological depth that I have is nowhere close to any of you two's. So one of the things that Josh and I often discuss off camera, off mic, is why does the Bible have to be so hard? He went to school for it, so did you. uh I've got a degree, but it's not in. Bible studies, it's in Occupational Safety and Health. Anybody wants to know anything about OSHA, I'm your guy. uh But like, you did a whole bunch of research, you wrote a book about same-sex marriage, sort of the biblical views. I would say your lay Christian probably doesn't have the educational pedigree or know-how to do that. So, like, when we hear things like, you know, there is absolute truth or the Bible is true, it does seem like it's... truer to people that do research. uh So I'm curious, like, how does, like, your conclusions, you know, about what you learned about same-sex marriage, like, uh make its way to somebody like me, who naturally just thinks same-sex marriage is fine? Like, I don't necessarily have any sort of biblical grounding on how I feel about it one way or another. I just think, hey, Jesus wants us to treat people like people. And that's one way that our society is determined. people are actualized. So, like, help me make sense, you know, for a non-Bible scholar to really understand, like, what the Bible says without having to do all the academic stuff that you've done. That's a fantastic question. I love that question so much. I get this a lot. Whatever I dig into a passage and I unveil the, the historical background of the Artemis cult and Ephesus. And that's how we understand first Timothy two. And you know, as people were like, I'm just a normal person. Like how am I supposed to understand the Bible then? And I, so I, and I don't, let me just, can I just wrestle out loud with you guys? Cause I don't, I don't know a satisfactory answer to that because on the, in the, on the one hand, And people freak out when I say this, but I'm like, the average person can't understand the Bible without human mediation. You can't. In fact, for 1,500 years, 90 % of people were illiterate, so they couldn't even read the Bible for themselves. They couldn't own a Bible prior to the printing press unless they're really wealthy and had somebody transcribe it and read it to them and stuff. And the Bible is written in ancient languages that aren't around anymore. So we need human mediation to even now read the Bible in our English translation, but that's like you're dependent upon Greek and Hebrew scholars and Aramaic scholars to tell you what these Greek and Hebrew and Aramaic words mean. So sorry to burst your bubble, but like, yeah, you need really smart scholars and scribes to stand between you and this ancient text. But guess what? That's true of any ancient literature, any ancient religious literature. I can't read the Quran. I don't understand Arabic. um There's textual difficulties in the Quran. I got a friend who's a PhD in text criticism in the Quran, and he's like, yeah, you have the same issues with the Quran, you do it the Bible, you different manuscripts. So that's just uh any approach, any modern person trying to access an ancient religious document, we're all up against the same problems. Or if you want to read Plato or Homer, mean, you know. at end of day, the Bible didn't fall out of the heaven. is an ancient document written by ancient people in certain contexts. And we're struggling in a community of people to try to understand what it says. Now that's the bad news. get what I've had news, but that's like the complex news, I guess. But, um World's worst commercial for Christianity. or religion or non-religion I mean Okay, so I mean, does it okay say someone says, okay, and that's why I just came back and embrace religion. Okay, what? Okay, tell me about the other option. Is that any simpler? Do you understand the second law of thermodynamics and evolutionary theory and evolutionary theories and all the things that come with non religion? Like, is anybody gonna be able to just on their own, just understand that you have to read through a wealth of stuff to really get down if you're like, I want to know it for myself. Like we're always dependent upon people who have gone before us and have done to work. And that's just the world we live in. You know, so um let me say this coming back to uh same sex marriage. um It is worth considering that within all of that. And this isn't like a primary argument, it's more like an observation. um Global Christianity, historic global Christianity is insanely diverse in its belief system. I mean, we can't even agree on what books belong in the Bible. There's different understandings of salvation. No one agrees on like End Times, Role of Women and Men. mean, just like Christianity is a religion that probably more than any other religion is just filled with disagreement. One of the few things that global historic Christianity has believed unanimously, as far as we can tell from the literature, is that male-female sex difference is an intrinsic part of what marriage is, relationships like same-sex sexual relationships and others um are not part of God's design for human sexual expression. uh Coptic Christians, Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Christians in Africa, Southeast Asia, I mean, wherever you go, So if you take a wide angled lens, the average person for 2000 years and the scholar has all read these texts the same up until again, with that wide angled lens, you have this kind of kind of blip in modern Western, some parts of modern Western Christianity uh in Europe and North America that says, no, I think these texts have been read wrongly. And even there you have other people within those social contexts that say, we've been reading them correctly. So I don't think the plain meaning, I don't like that word. I'll just use it. I don't love it, but I'll just use it because I'd already said it. I don't think the plain meaning of what marriage is em has been like hidden behind scholarly towers, hidden up in scholarly towers. We're dependent upon the elite scholars to tell us what it means. It's like, no, mean, global Christianity have, you know, from the elite down to the peasant have understood these texts to say the same thing. So, em yeah, that's not OK. end of the story, but it's like, don't, it's really the answer to question. I don't think that this is the basic teaching of marriage and same-sex relationships have been like hidden from the church. and even, sorry, one more thing. uh Even throughout human civilization, there's a book by, a secular book by I think Stephanie Koontz, it's called Marriage, a History or something like that. And um in every human civilization, even ones that embraced same-sex sexual relationships as not immoral, when it came to marriage, they said, well, obviously this is, for a man and a woman or a man and women, you know, but even polygamy is grounded upon sex difference. uh So even in cultures, so this is not just a religious thing, uh just in human civilization, the concept of marriage in particular was always believed to be designed for uh partly, you know, one of the main purposes is to bring children into the world. So it's really in a pill, post, you know, birth control era. the 1960s on where people started to explore other ways of conceiving of marriage, which that doesn't, that's just because they're new and modern and Western doesn't mean they're wrong. I'm just saying it's, for most of human civilization, the Christian view of marriage was largely shared across civilizations. So, Yeah, that makes sense to me, and I agree with that. And I want to push in on a tension that I've been facing, because so on the one hand, in terms of theologically, like I said, like I haven't been convinced by the arguments. And that doesn't mean I can't be convinced or I won't look at them again. I absolutely will. And I want to try. some that are better than others or some there's like, that's a grid argument. I could, I could, yeah. Yeah. I, you know, I, so I'm just gonna, I'm gonna say this and I struggle to say this, but so one of my first interactions, and I'm just gonna keep names out and all that, the first time I ever even understood what homosexuality was, I was very young and essentially I was, didn't know what it was, but I was told that, This is what happens is very descriptive on like, you know, uh same sex sexual acts. And then not descriptive, but like for my little brain, it was descriptive enough. We'll just say that. And then the idea was that they're dangerous. know, men will take boys and do sexual exploits with boys. That's not how it was said, right, to me, but essentially, you know, and I remember being scared for at least a week that I was literally going to be taken. I would be scared every day I go to school. I'm to be taken by a homosexual. Like literally, and thinking back on that, that shaped, and then I'm sure that was reinforced, right? It had been reinforced before without knowing it and reinforced later. And thinking about this, it colors my view of sexuality very deeply. in my view that homosexuality, LGBT, it's dangerous. It's not just different, it's dangerous. Okay. So that was in my mind. And then that then led me to, to this day have this, if you talk about the elephant and the rider, the elephant is always a little scared to enter into the conversation, a little scared to even admit. And so the elephant, when it's like, oh, we're starting to admit that this could be maybe potentially okay, like it's freaking out. And so I want to get to this tension where Theologically, I am very much, think, on the same page with you that, you know, I don't see how you can make the arguments, theologically. I understand how something like, you know, Sodom and Gomorrah could be seen as a, you know, a prohibition against rape and inhospitality within the culture. And those things need to be considered, right? That kind of violence, coercive acts, that's not the same. Gang rape is not the same as a monogamous... a loving relationship between two men or two women. So I just throw it right. I'm not gonna put those two things in the same category. So I can acknowledge some of those differences. You can speak to any of that, right? I'd love for you to. But what I'm kind of wrestling with though, and in the rest of the scriptures though, I just don't see where you can get it. And then you have some authors like, I think it was Luke Timothy Johnson, and then later on, um I'm gonna, the names are slipping, but Hayward or, that's not it, it's, yes, Hayes, yes, yes, exactly. With this kind of idea that, you we got it wrong, and, you know, yeah, the Bible maybe says that, but we need to, there's this like, almost like principle or hermeneutic of expansion that's within the New Testament that we should um acknowledge. And so, but I don't, I'm not convinced by those. But the tension that I'm bringing is here's on the one hand, church theology, and then on the other hand, it's civic, living with other people, right? And so my tension is in a pluralistic society, should I be like, is my expectation that those kinds of relationships should not be allowed? I don't feel that way actually. I have a brother-in-law um who's married to a man and I love him and I David. And I don't, it was very hard for me when that happened. um But that's not their issue, that's my issue. So I'm working through that, right? And, but I care for them and they love my kids and they're, you know what I mean? Like all the things, um why would I hate them? Right? mean, why would I want ill for them? And yet at the same time, there's a sense that I do think that like, why does the government care about our relationships at all, except if they're producing children? And that's kind of like for me, like, why does the government care? Do we really want the government caring about our personal intimate relationships and putting regulation in those? No. The only reason we would care about it is if it produces children and protecting those children. And the majority of people that are gonna have kids are opposite sex couples that have kids, right? That's the majority that will happen, the most people. So all I to say, how can we work through the tension of, and what do you think about that on the pluralistic? Hey, here's our country. Can we really take away this right? Because it's very likely that a burger fell is gonna be challenged. And under this court, I don't see it holding up, to be honest. um But so then it'll go to the states and then what do we, then we have more arguments on that. What do you think about that theology versus civic realities there? Yeah. Well, I would love to hear Will's thoughts too, because he's the expert on the other side there. So I constantly wrestle with the tension and it really has to do more with one's view of, I guess, church and state. And here's the tension I wrestle with. On the one hand, in my political theology, I lean much more anabaptist. Howard Wax Yoder, um strong separation between church and state, almost a pretty negative view of the state. um And so when I think of biblical Christian ethics, my kind of default is to say, this is for the church. We should not impose Christian values on the state. um That's kind of my default. On the other hand, I do believe, you know, God is creator and his um laws are good for creation. know, like we should want all creation to follow its creator. And that's the way creation will flourish. And in the end, it will be that, you um And there are certain, and, and, and, Yeah, I think my tension with like, don't want to impose my Christian values on a secular nation, you know, people that aren't even following Jesus, whatever. Um, on the other hand, I kind of wonder, like, well, we all do that to some extent, right? Like if you want, uh, looser, uh, borders and more immigration and you're a Christian, and you're fighting for those laws and you're opposed to ICE raids and all these things, why do you want those things to be true? Well, ultimately it comes from your, if you're a Christian, your religious values. Like we should treat the immigrant well, we should welcome the stranger, you know? And we should fight for laws that do that. You know, it's like, that's kind of. uh intrinsically or you know it's very similar to the right-wing Christian who wants to enforce anti-abortion laws. Why? Because they believe abortion goes against biblical values. I just I don't I do wonder if there's two face if uh a form of Christian nationalism if I could use that debated term kind of exists on different sides of the political aisle, you know? Well, I hesitate using it because it's just defined so differently and people, whenever I bring it up, like, you need to define it more specifically. So, okay, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's really more of a question. While my default is Christian ethics is for the church, we shouldn't impose that on the secular nation we're living in. uh I do wrestle with, well, is it even possible for Christians to... um advocate for certain laws and against other laws, while is even possible to separate those concerns from our, at the end of the day, Christian values. And is that not a form of trying to impose our values on a secular nation? So I don't know the answer. Will, can you fix us? Is that making sense, that tension? And I really, yeah, I've been wrestling with this for years. It does. I think it's so funny, Josh and I were literally just having this conversation about marriage equality and all those other topics. And my viewpoint is largely predicated on the fact that we in this country have made marriage into more than maybe just how we view it in the Bible. because we've attached all these sort of like benefits, know, tax deductions and all kinds of other stuff. you know, being that I'm a person of color, I'm married to a white woman. My dad was born in 1928 in Oklahoma. And growing up, like I would hear stories about just sort of like the issues he had. And my mom is Vietnamese. So mixed race couple, you know, couldn't have gotten married, you know, before 1970 in this country. for because of laws, you know, and, and, and it's like what, what that does or what that means to me is like, okay, so you get sick, um, or your spouse dies. Like that's basically it. If you're not married, right? Like you lose kind of all those benefits, all those like life insurance, you know, I, I had a, uh, an older kid, um, older kid, he's 11, but when he was nine, he had a series of medical issues. And that required my wife and I to basically just live in the hospital. But if we weren't married, like I couldn't do that, you know, or she couldn't do that or whatever. so it's like if if we as a society are going to fix all these benefits to marriage and then say that a certain group of people in the country can't get married. So the marriage part is almost like benign to the argument. It's like, well, what about all the other benefits that every other American has? You know, so so. So when I think of the theological debate versus the civic debate for same-sex marriage, in my mind, I'm just thinking Jesus would want me to encourage people to have the same benefits that I've got. uh it shouldn't matter whether they're same-sex couples or mixed-race marriages. ah At least that's where I'm coming from. And if there's holes in that argument, I'd love for you to expose them. I don't know. It's a great point. And we do live in a pluralistic society that wants to give equal rights to people with very different religious and ethical views. again, I'm wandering outside of my area of expertise, but I feel like that's always going to be a tension. um Yeah. I wonder if there's certain areas where it does get a little trickier with things like abortion. mean, if some people's world, do you believe you're literally killing an innocent person? Like that should never be legal ever. know, another person says, it's no, it's, it's, you know, a female's right to her own body. She can make the choice. And it's like, those are vastly different worldviews and they are, they are, they are diametrically opposed to each other. So I don't I could see where somebody would fight. If you believe this is murder, you should say it's a bait. Like innocent people should not be murdered. Everybody agrees on that. You shouldn't live here. If you don't agree, you know, we can't just run on shooting homeless people or, know, killing kids because whatever. Um, so I can, I can see where somebody would fight to say, this isn't just my Christian value. This is just a common human good. The debate is, is it murder of course and stuff. often when it comes to debates, especially about abortion or other things, it's like, you know, what's what's sort of the the one question that would better kind of frame the argument and what the abortion debate I've always said, like, if your definition of where life begins is different than mine, we're always going to differ on abortion because there is no singular definition for when life begins. And I and when we we had a we had a one of the country's leading experts on IVF therapy come on. It's right around the time Trump was promising free IVF treatments to everybody. So we brought him on, kind of talk a little bit about what the mechanics of that would look like. And then we asked him, is there any sort of unanimous medical literature that says exactly when life begins? And he's like, no. And I'm like, yeah, I didn't think so. And that's a problem for the abortion debate because... To your point, think that we can all agree killing babies is bad. I think if you ask a left-leaning person, right-leaning person, should we kill this baby? No. But then if you ask, when in this baby's growth did it actually become a quote unquote baby? Then I think you're going to get radically different answers. Right. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. Yeah, one of the things I'll just let me let me speak to that just for a moment. This one thing that I think is interesting about the abortion debate is that it is about life, but I don't think it's really about life. I'll just add some nuance to what you're saying, Will, because I think this is what you're saying, but I'm just being more precise because I don't know, maybe I'm just trying to be a jerk. don't know. Yes, I'm about to mansplain to you. What? But what I'm trying to get at is that it's really about personhood. Because I think everyone says, yeah, life begins at that point. It's a living something, right? If a freaking plant is a life and a bacteria is a life, then certainly this cell that's a human, that's an early human developmentally is a life. I think it's the personhood. At what point does this personhood actually is so clear that rights should be conveyed, i.e. the right to life, um to not be killed. And I think that the precision issue is a big one because, like for instance, even in the marriage thing that I saying, like, I think the issue is that marriage has been redefined. Now, it's been redefined from the core being this reproductive unit, essentially, right, to This is about, marriage is not about the family unit and the, because of this reproductive act that can clear, that will lead on most occasions naturally, on many occasions to, it's the way that we produce life, to another one where that can't be produced unless it's some kind of medical intervention uh by default. And that moves the core of marriage from the needs of children and families to the... uh feelings of adults or preferences of adults. That's kind of where I see the shift has happened in the definition of marriage itself. um And I think that this precision is important. And I love to hear your thoughts on any of this, but my question for you is like thinking about the uh precision issue is what's kind of the best argument you've heard against your case? for same sex marriage and how have you responded to it? Like, I would just love to hear like how you process these arguments and say, huh, that's good, but how do we do it? I would love to kind of hear not only what it is, your method as best as you can articulate that. Again, because I'm really primarily focused on what does the Bible say. And if it says something we don't like or agree with or want to follow, then that's okay. Then maybe it's free to kind of respond to that. So I really am narrowly focused on what does this ancient religious text say about this topic? um I would say there have been different seasons in my journey where different arguments were more compelling um than others. um early on in my journey, the argument that the prohibitions in the Bible, the arguments, the passages that explicitly prohibit same-sex sexual relationships, the argument that those prohibitions were not focused on all kinds of same-sex sexual relationships, but only certain abusive kinds that were very widespread in the ancient world. my primary... area of study in biblical studies is kind of the Jewish and more recently Greco-Roman background of the New Testament. So I very much value the cultural context. And I remember when I first looked into that and looked at the literature, I'm like, gosh, there's something here. Like lot of these same-sex relationships are abusive. yeah, quickly, as I did more research, there's two things that kind of came up. When I looked at the ancient background, I saw, well, they're actually more diverse than some people are making them out to be. You'd had some abusive relationships, had some consensual relationship, you had some with age differences, you know, an older man and a younger boy, but I'm like, well, heterosexual marriages were an older man and a younger girl, teenage, so I mean, I don't think age difference was really the concern there. um And you had some evidence of consensual same-sex relationships, you know. um So that argument was compelling for a little bit, but then when I looked into it further, I didn't find it as compelling as I thought. Honestly, the most important argument for me is not even those prohibition passages. It's what does the Bible say about marriage? Specifically, is sex difference an intrinsic part of what marriage is? To me, that's the fundamental theological question to ask. When the Bible talks about a one-fleshed union, or marriage? Is it to humans that are consenting or is sex difference an intrinsic part of what marriage is? And from various passages and theological arguments, I see it consistently taught in scripture that sex difference is part of what marriage is. um I would say more recently, the most... so James Brownson is a biblical scholar who uh he addressed that argument and it felt compelling at first, but again, once I really slowed down, reread his book, dug into it, looked up sources, I found it less compelling. fact, I even early in my research, I said, if I can't respond to Brownson, then I'm going to be the maybe same thing to marriage is true. So I ended up writing a peer review journal article, thoroughly responded to his articles, showing points of agreement, points of disagreement. More recently, I would say the work of Karen Keene, K-E-E-N, is probably the best, I think, approach to defending same-sex marriage. It's a very cautious argument. It's a very nuanced argument. She looks at um the hermeneutic of Jesus, who affirmed... certain Old Testament laws, certain goods, but made exceptions to those prohibitions. uh Sabbath keeping, other Jewish laws, you know. And so she makes a very nuanced argument that uh perhaps the prohibitions of same-sex relationships, which she says are there, they're prohibited. But for the sake of preserving human life, you your ox falls into a well or whatever on the Sabbath. uh that the hermeneutic Jesus could be uh applied to making exceptions to these laws. I'll let the listener, I'm not gonna give my, if you Googled my name, I actually interacted with Karen on a lengthy blog exchange over her work. So if you Google Preston Sprinkle, Karen Keene, you'll probably get a back and forth and you can see my. very lengthy responses and her very lengthy responses. And I really appreciated Karen's spirit. The things I appreciate about her the most are that she steel mans very well um the traditional view, because she held it for so many years. em And she doesn't use highly charged rhetoric. It's very just like, I felt so honored by the way she was. articulating my viewpoint. She did it very well. And even in her engagement, she was very gracious. She's a scholar. So she enjoyed, think, just the scholarly exercise of interacting, of exchanging ideas. So, uh yeah. Gosh, so I know I could probably talk to you for another hour because like we haven't even gotten to like, I don't know. Let me see. At least 90 % of the questions we sent you ahead of time. But I do want to ask you this, just our last question and more of a hopefully a hopeful one where anybody that spends any time on social media that's doom scrolling what's happening in the country right now is definitely activating that elephant and that rider is telling them everything they're looking at is correct, right? So like what... what practices or what do you recommend, know, believers or non-believers are like, ah do to just, I don't know, just have hope to see the beauty in the world. Because I definitely think it's something that we're desperately missing. And we've gotten into the habit actually on the show kind of somewhat organically to just ask all of our guests, like, what gives you hope? ah One day if we you know ever get popular enough to hire an editor we can have them splice all these things together and it would make it really cool real But it would take too much work, and we're just two guys so what gives a Preston hope well, Jesus gives me hope, of course. em Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I mean, I know it's so cliched, but I just have to say it just to make sure people hear me say that. I would say on a really down-to-earth practical level, when I live my life online, I have less hope. When I hang out with real people face to face, I've got a ton of hope. um don't, I mean, whether it's the algorithms, whether it's the kinds of people that are online all the time, whether it's the polarization that is that the online community fosters, whatever it is, I think it's one of the most, it's probably the only undisputed thing I'll say in this episode is that. the more time you spend online on social media, the more anxious and angry you are. And I think, yeah, I think the system's kind of rigged toward that direction. When I hang out with regular people... They're, it's, it's, it's most of the time, extremely pleasant conversation. I find that'd be very reasonable. Um, whether they voted for Trump or not, you know, like I, I meet some of the most reasonable, I didn't vote for Trump. I'm not a Trumper at all. Um, but I've got friends who did and they sound and look nothing like how the anti-Trump online community makes Trumper's out to be, you know, all these J sixers or racist or Nazis, all, know, I'm like, meet people that like, they're not that at all. You know, like they are the furthest thing from a racist. They, you know, are not all the bad things that people say about Trump and vice versa. Y'all meet Democrats that aren't like, let's kill as many babies as we can and let's break down the walls and flood, you know, the country with undocumented immigrants. I just, most people have a lot, actual people, embodied people face to face in your community. have probably more shared beliefs than disagreeable beliefs. It's just, think those, those, the polarization is so magnified online. So anyway, that's, that's my response. Spend less time online and more time with real people. I love that. I agree 100 % as a I'm just naturally wired to be an introvert. So I don't really like get out very often. But but from the interactions I have had with real humans, like they've all been very pleasant. And I agree that We do agree on a lot more than we give ourselves credit for. I was speaking to somebody at my kid's bus stop. And the person comes to bus stop, they got a MAGA hat on. And we were just talking about, I don't know, some new power plant that's coming in our town. I didn't necessarily mention that I was a Democrat. But he sees my Abigail Spanberger sign in my yard. So mean, I'm sure he's not confused. And we got to talking about politics a little bit. And I just said, yeah, know, like this government shutdown sucks. know, we all, you know, actually probably agree on a lot more. was like, we all think Congress should have term limits. Nobody thinks they should be trading. I was like, and I haven't met a single person that has not one of the esteemed list released. was like, I'll say three things right there. Just off the of my head. and I'm like, and if we can agree on just these three really obscure things, like imagine all the other things we could probably agree on if we started talking to each other. uh Well, thank you so much, Preston, for coming here. How can people follow you, nays, stalk you, look at what you're doing? My podcast, Theology in the Raw, be a go-to. I record two episodes a week. And then the website, theologyraw.com or pressandsprinkle.com. Awesome, that's really cool. And you said you got a book coming out in March? Yeah, it's called from Genesis to Junia. What does the or no, an honest search for what the Bible really says about women in leadership. So yeah, check it out. Yeah. when it comes out, we'll definitely try to get you back on and push some product on our show. And yeah, thanks for everything you do. Yeah, thanks for having me on you guys. And to our audience, hey, thanks again for stopping by to visit us. Make sure you like, subscribe, do all that kind of fun stuff that my kids would appreciate because all the people they follow have like millions of subscribers. Like they don't really watch Mr. Beast anymore. They watch some other, some other character, but yeah, help us out. Help me be a father, a good father, my kids eyes by liking and subscribing to this uh podcast. And as always, make sure you keep your conversations not right or left, but up and we'll see you next time guys. See ya. you can hit us.