Taking sides: A growing divide over the theology of sexual brokenness threatens to tear evangelical institutions apart
“since Butterfield’s address, Cru has updated its training and other materials, removing some content and adding new language. A new tab on its website called ‘Sexuality and Gender’ spells out its position. In some cases, the statements directly conflict with Sprinkle’s position.” - WORLD
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The article is a good analysis. (If you have trouble accessing, try clearing your cookies.)
It looks like I’m with Cru on this one, which is a position that aligns with neither Butterfield/Burk nor Side B/Sprinkle/Revoice. It’s helpful to speak of same sex attraction as arising from our sinful nature/fallenness. It isn’t helpful to conflate temptation and sin as Denny Burk does.
These questions are at the intersection of anthropology and hamartiology. Both views tend to see homosexuality with some kind of inflated specialness.
Every sin is special in some way. That’s why we have different words for them in Scripture. Only murder ends a life. Only pride (in its many flavors) inflates the view of self. Only envy resents the possessions and joys of others. But the Burk/Strachan (and Butterfield? I’m not as familiar with her views) teaching seems say that for all sins other than homosexuality, temptation and sin are distinct. But in the case of homosexuality, if you are “lured and enticed” (to use the language of James 1:14), that’s already “sin,” even though you haven’t made any choices yet.
If this is not what they mean, it’s certainly what they seem to mean.
So, best I can tell, Cru’s current position statements are trying to avoid saying that, while affirming that the desires behind our sins all arise from our sinful nature—homosexual sin included.
So we kind of have ‘opposite views of specialness’ going on. The Side B view seems to want to make same-sex ethics special in a positive way, by giving aspects of it an innocence (even a goodness) that isn’t there. Then the Burk view wants to give same-sex ethics a specialness in a negative way, giving the temptations and “attractions” involved a specialness that isn’t there. (There is some actual specialness, per Romans 1, but too much is extracted tenuously from Romans 1.)
But at the attraction and temptation level, sin is sin. There are no categories in James 1 that identify exceptions to how temptation works, whether it’s greed, slander, and deceit or adultery, fornication, and homosexuality. Taking the position that temptation is just temptation doesn’t “endorse an identity.” In that respect, it argues against both the Burk view and the Revoice view—because both views confuse matters of “identity” with matters of temptation and sin.
Part of the path forward, I think, is teaching that is crystal clear on this point: Christian, your temptations are not your identity.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
Some temptations arise from neutral desires, but some arise from evil desires and passions that Paul says we are to put to death or mortify (Col 3:5). The outward act is certainly a sin but it is not just the outward act that we are told to put to death, it is also the inward and I would say sinful desires and passions that cannot be fulfilled in a righteous way. For a man, sexual desire for a woman is not necessarily wrong, and can be satisfied in a Biblical, God-honoring way; but sexual desire for a man is necessarily wrong and cannot be satisfied in a Biblical, God-honoring.
It strikes me that the distinction for homosexuality ought to be the same as that which Jesus specifies in Matthew 5:28 for heterosexuality; it is not merely attraction to the other person, but the desire to "have" the other person sexually. To draw a picture, that woozy feeling I had when I started noticing girls is not sin. However, mentally undressing them and imagining them in my bed is. Same thing goes for those who get the woozy feeling for the same sex, I guess.
Practically speaking, I have to wonder what the difference is between a person who "has that woozy feeling" and admits it, versus the one who does not. I have to wonder if the guy who admits it has a better chance of not acting on it at all, or possibly at least reducing the degree to which he does.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
To take the position Rosaria Butterfield is taking (here, for instance), you have to see a distinction between internal and external temptation. Then, you have to say that external temptation is the kind of temptation Jesus experienced was external only.
External temptation comes with no internal "hook" - no place in my affections; Internal temptation does have within me a "hook" - a internal desire to actually do the evil act.
So if I'm not supposed to eat anything and you say, "Look, a banana. Go ahead and eat it." That would be an external temptation. But (since I hate bananas) it would not be an internal temptation for me.
Internal temptation is then held to be sinful; external temptation is not. SSA as an internal tempation is called sin. Not acting on it; just having the temptation.
https://www.gracechurch.org/sermons/16473
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I believe this is wrong.
EDIT: but there are a bunch of clarification statements...
To be sure, some of the conflict lies in lack of mutually understood language.
Some temptations arise from neutral desires, but some arise from evil desires and passions that Paul says we are to put to death or mortify (Col 3:5).
I agree with this, but the Burk/Strachan view doesn’t just claim that sinful desires are involved in same sex attraction. They say that SSA is sin. This is what I’m saying is unhelpful—and pretty hard to square with Scripture, to the extent you’re talking about experiences vs. acts.
My view is that there is a set of factors that arise from our sinful nature as humans but are not sins. There are some key factors that arise from our weak and/or physical nature as humans—also not sins. And then there are a couple of especially important forms that sin takes.
Sinful but not sins…
- Our sinful nature from the Fall
- Various specific desires
Sins:
- Disobedient acts of the body
- Disobedient acts of the mind/heart
- Acts of mind/heart and body that facilitate the above
Neither sins nor sinful (see the temptation of Jesus)
- Physical appetites
- Physical limitations (experiential, as in fatigue; passive, as in disease or defect or accidental injury)
From a biblical standpoint, these factors can come together in a lot of different ways. You can sin by acting in a way that facilitates another sin. Either or both of these could be of the mind or of the body or a combination of the two. We can sin by feeding a sinful desire (disobeying the command to “flee” or “endure”).
We can also sin by handling a natural or innocent desire in a disobedient way. (Jesus would have sinned if He had turned the stones into bread, for example. There was no sin in being hungry.)
But to classify a sinful desire as “sin” is a category error. Sin is the fruit of sinfulness and/or weakness. It is never the same thing as sinfulness or weakness.
It might seem like splitting hairs, but I think the times require precision that may not have been necessary in the past.
So, one way temptations could be classified would be this:
- Temptations that appeal to ordinary natural innocent desire
- Temptations that appeal to innocent weakness (disease, damage, etc.)
- Temptations that appeal to sinful qualities or desires of heart/mind.
- Temptations that appeal to mixes of the above.
Where are we making choices in the above? Where we are making choices, we could be sinning. Where we are not making choices, we are not sinning.
The answer to that question also answers “when is ‘repentance’ appropriate?” In a manner of speaking, a person can look at the state he’s in and ‘repent’ of ‘the way I am’ (i.e., my sinfulness). But I think this is kind of confusing to people. Usually, in Scripture, we aren’t directed to repent of the condition we’re in. We’re generally directed to repent of our choices—the sins of heart/mind and body we’ve committed. We confess our condition. We repent of our acts.
Of course, when we respond to the gospel, we’re looking at a lot of acts and what they say about our condition. The two are pretty much one big mess. And we don’t make fine distinctions in a repentant cry of the heart. I’m not advocating that.
I’m saying that when we teach people how to biblically process modern ideas about human nature and human behavior, we need to be more precise. That’s not going to erase the differences in views. What it will do is make clear where the differences truly lie.
Also, I’m not saying everybody has to use the key terms the way I define them. But if we’re going to communicate, we need to define our terms. The clearly biblical part is that what we are independently of our choices is one thing, what we experience passively is another thing, what we choose to do (whether bodily or in heart/mind) is another thing.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
I like your approach Aaron. I think people miss the fact that wrestling with sinful desire is not sin. In fact, we are commanded to wrestle with it. It should be challenging and it should be a fight. Sometimes that fight is momentary and sometimes it is a lifetime. That wrestling and fighting is what builds, refines and strengthens our faith. In fact it is necessary. I feel in many Christian's views that this fighting is an esoteric and touchless idea of resistance. Instead it is dirty, it is back breaking, it can be a constant struggle that in some cases brings us to the depth of despair and peer into the very eyes of death. This wrestling and weariness is never criticized by God. We are to put away sinful desires, yes. But we should not view that "put away" as some form of esoteric will. It is a fight, a daily, hourly, minute by minute fight. And that fight is against the desire and not letting it rule us. But that doesn't mean it is easy and it doesn't mean it is simple. We do not know the depths until we have been in it. I commend those who must fight these battles.
Discussion