Preston Sprinkle's Blog, page 5

I’ve very much enjoyed my ongoing dialogue with pastor Doug Wilson about all things related to guns, violence, damned lies and statistics. I must say, however, that Doug keeps moving the goal posts around the field that I hardly know where to kick any more. Like when I addressed the “good guy with a gun” myth and Doug slides the discussion over to whether I would call the cops during a mass shooting if I had a cell phone. It’s a great question—indeed a sneaky one, and one that pacifists are quite familiar with. But Doug: the “good guy with a gun” myth isn’t talking about whether cops should carry guns, but whether more guns in the hands of the populace leads to less crime. I know hardly any advocates for gun control who want to de-arm the police.

So let me try to boot the ball through the most recent uprights, hoping that Lucy will keep to herself.

Now, I don’t mean to call Doug a liar, and certainly not a damned liar. It was Mark Twain who said, “there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.” Statistics certainly have a place in the discussion, but they must be used with great caution and with studious attention to any other possible statistic that could augment or confront the statistic used to support your view. Trust me, I’ve learned the hard way! (Even as recently as my latest blog, which I still need to edit.) I’m still on a journey trying to figure out when and how to use statistics, and which ones to use and where. I only want to invite Doug on the same journey with me.

For instance, Doug cited all kinds of stats to support his view that, in a nutshell, more guns means less crime. According to Doug, for instance: “When Florida passed their concealed carry laws, their homicide rates went from 36% above the national average to 4% below.” But come on, Doug. As a skilled logician, you know that correlation doesn’t prove causation. Don’t get me wrong. You may be right. But citing the stat doesn’t make you right. You’ve got to somehow prove causation—that the drop in homicide rates where directly caused by people with concealed weapons—and not just assume that correlation will do your dirty laundry for you.

I can turn around and cite a plethora of other statistics that support the view that more guns or less gun control isn’t always good for society. Like:

80% of the guns confiscated in violent, drug-cartel related crimes in Mexico come from the United States.

America owns by far the highest percentage of guns (300 million) per capita than any other nation, and it has the highest number of gun related deaths (30,000 every year).

In Texas, people with a concealed weapons permit were arrested for weapon-related offenses at a rate 81% higher than that of the general population aged 21 years and older.

And down and down we go, spiraling headlong into the rabbit hole of statistics, which are often squeezed to deliver much more juice than they contain. For instance, Doug makes mention of the well-known theory of Gary Kleck and John Lott that brandishing a gun saves millions of lives every year. You don’t need to shoot your gun, you just need to show that you have one.

One of the problems with this “statistic”—a big problem, actually—is that it’s based on self-reporting. Every Joe, Frank, and Billy the Kid, who owns a gun and thinks that his possession of a gun staved off a crime is taken at face value. But 12 million Americans have also reported to have seen a UFO and 1 million say they’ve met a space alien. And maybe they have. Or perhaps Twain was on to something.

And down and down we go.

I actually loved Doug’s theoretical scenario—more on those below—about a criminal scoping out a neighborhood where 100% of the homeowners have guns. It goes like this:

Let’s ask the burglar. Would he rather work a neighborhood where 100% of the homeowners are unarmed, or would he rather work a neighborhood a third of the homeowners have guns, and he doesn’t know which third? This is not a hard question.

Well, if these were the only options, then sure, I guess I’d prefer to ransack a neighborhood where there are no guns. Not only has Doug left God completely out of the picture, working only with strange secular assumptions. But Doug also forgot to ask the kids. What about the kids, Doug! And the women, actually. Because more than 3,200 children are killed every year by a gun. Nearly 1.7 million kids under the age of 18 live in a home where firearms are both loaded and unlocked (which is related to the previous stat). Children in America are 12 times more likely to die from a gunthan the next 25 industrialized nations combined. And women are 5 times more likely to be a victim of domestic homicide when her partner owns a gun; 1/3 of all murders of American women are committed by their intimate partners—partners who are no longer living in that theoretical neighborhood, where no one owns a gun, leaving themselves open to criminals coming in and cleaning house.

Just in the last 2 weeks, a 3-year-old in Georgia, a 3-year-old in Louisiana, a 2-year-old in Missouri and a 2-year-old in Indiana fatally shot themselves. A 4-year-old in Texas shot and wounded a family member. A 16-year-old in California killed a 14-year-old friend in a shooting that officials called accidental. A 15-year-old in Texas accidentally shot and wounded a 16-year-old friend. And a 13-year-old in Indiana accidentally shot and wounded herself. And a 2 year old shot and killed her mom from the backseat of the car, after exploring the loaded gun of her mom's boyfriend who's a security guard. You know, a good guy. (See the recent the NY Times article.)

Stop! If you’re an anti-gun person, please stop. I know it’s tempting, but don’t latch onto these stats and use them to prove your view. Many other questions need to be asked, and my point is not to prove Doug wrong by shooting with the same ammo. Doug could cite another pile of statistics and next thing you know, we’ll be sipping tea at the white rabbit’s table. And this is precisely the problem with statistics (for both sides of the debate, BTW). You can’t keep forming your ethical statue with theoretical clay. You must take into account real life complexities before you construct a zero-sum argument, and a fanciful one at that. (It’d be nice, too, if Jesus’s resurrection and lordship were consulted once in a while when an ethic of guns and violence is brought up, but that’s for another blog.)

I don’t wish to match stat for stat, theoretical situation with theoretical situation. My point is to undercut Doug's entire enterprise of building an ethic with stats and theoretical scenarios in his strange 2 dimensional world.

This is the problem with theoretical arguments, especially when they fall into the hands of a rhetorical wizard like Doug Wilson. They can quickly distract us away from our shared center of gravity—Jesus, whose countercultural and counterintuitive way of dealing with evil still sits on the sidelines ready to kick the ball.

You see, we need to ask not “what is the most effective method,” but “what is the most faithful means of fighting against evil.” Christians are called first to faithfulness, not perceived effectiveness. And it’s here where I remain a bit worried about the thin ice of the theological pond Doug is skating on. This was the original goal I was trying to kick at before the posts were shifted around the field.

I want to bring us back from the theoretical to the theological; from the tangential to the germane. But first, I don’t want to bow out of Doug’s theoretical world too quickly. I want to address the perennial question: what would I do if a guy comes busting down my door, ready to kill and torture and mangle my wife and kids? Next blog, folks. I’ll finally address this in the next post. Until then, here’s some food for thought:

[youtube]https://youtu.be/ySYhGeT7t4A[/youtube]

I want to point out up front that the stuff Doug and I keep discussing—violence in self defense—lives at the fringes of the main topic. It’s common for people to race to the “killer at the door” scenario (and its variations) without stopping to consider the main problem of militarism in the church. My primary point, in my books and blogs and even my Q talk, is not that using violence as a last resort—a lesser of two evils—is the biggest problem in the church. It’s not. My main problem is with the underlying spirit, which believes that power and violence is the way that evil is overcome. A spirit which proclaims:

Of course we should carpet bomb terrorists. Of course we should kill people on death row. Of course we should take out the bad guys with as much force as necessary. Of course Christians can kill other people if it’s in war. (American Christians, that is. Christians in other countries don’t get the same pass.)

It’s not our reluctance to use violence as a lesser of two evils—which acknowledges that it’s still evil. Rather, it’s the eagerness with which we think that violence is the best way to deal with evil, which is exemplified in American Christianity’s fascination with military might. The bigger, the badder, the better. Military historian Andrew Bacevich recently said: “Were it not for the support offered by several tens of millions of evangelicals, militarism in this…country becomes inconceivable.” Some call this a problem. Others call it a virtue. The prophets called it idolatry.

You want to use violence to defend your family in the rare (yet real) case that someone breaks into your home preprogrammed solely to massacre your wife and kids? Fine. Heck, in the heat of the moment, maybe I would too. But this isn’t the main problem. The problem is that our posture toward our enemies and method of dealing with evil looks no different than the world’s. How we think about taking care of the person busting down our front door is only the tip of the iceberg.

In any case, let’s go ahead and dive into the well-known scenario thrown at pacifists to see if its ethic is worth its salt. My friend Nicolas Richard Arndt will stand in for our questioner who wants to show that pacifism doesn’t work in the real world. His name is really long, so we’ll just go with his initials (NRA). And I’ll go ahead and be the pacifist backed into the corner of this theoretical scenario.

I used to just go along with scenario as it’s typically thrown at me: a 2 dimensional world where it’s kill or be killed, Bibles are closed, and God’s nowhere to be found. But this isn’t the real world. I don’t participate in worlds that don’t exist. So here’s how I now respond to the killer at the door scenario.

NRA: Okay, so say a guy with a gun is breaking into your house trying to kill your family. What are you going to do?

Me: I’ll use nonviolence to stop him.

NRA. No, that won’t work.

Me: Why not?

NRA: Because this is the real world.

Me: But nonviolence works all the time in the real world, both on an individual level and on a national level. It’s been well documented.

NRA: Well, whatever. In this situation, it won’t work.

Me: That’s not the real world.

NRA: Okay, just say in this situation it won’t work.

Me: How come I can’t play the game?

NRA: What game?

Me: Playing a role in constructing this scenario? How come you get to make up all the rules and possible options? Why don’t we both put our heads together to figure out a real life scenario with real life options?

NRA: Um…no.

Me: Why not?

NRA: Just cause.

Me: So I can’t pitch in some thoughts about your scenario?

NRA: No.

Me: Well, okay. Go head and construct your real life scenario and I’ll sit back here with my hands neatly folded.

NRA: Okay, so say a guy is breaking into your house with a gun and he’s going to kill your family. Would you shoot him?

Me: I don’t keep a loaded gun in the house.

NRA: Okay, let’s just say you do.

Me: I don’t.

NRA: For this situation, let’s just say you do. For the sake of the argument.

Me: What about my kids? Homes with loaded guns put kids at risk. It’s been well documented. And I love my kids and have a duty to protect them, so keeping a loaded gun puts them at greater risk.

NRA: Ya, but for this scenario, they’re not at risk.

Me: Okay, fine. Loaded gun. No kids at risk. Real life scenario. Go.

NRA: What are you going to do? Kill the killer or let your family get shot?

Me: Am I a good shot?

NRA: Yes.

Me: I’ll shoot the gun out of his hand.

NRA: Well…okay, you’re not that good of a shot.

Me: Then I might miss the killer and blow my kid’s head off.

NRA: Okay, well, let’s just say that you’re not so good of a shot that you could shoot the gun out of his hand, but you are a good enough shot that you won’t miss and shoot your wife.

Crickets: Chirp, chirp. Chirp, chirp.

Me: This is your real life scenario?

NRA: Yes.

Me: Okay. Sort of a good shot but not that good of a shot. Got it. Real life scenario. So, does God exist in your scenario?

NRA: Um…well…yes. God exists.

Me: The God of the Bible?

NRA: Uh…yes, the God of the Bible.

Me: This God of the Bible who exists in your scenario, does he answer prayer?

NRA: Well ya, but not in this scenario.

Me: Not in this scenario?

NRA: Not in this scenario.

Me: Real world?

NRA: Real world.

Me: You’re 100% sure that prayer won’t work in this scenario?

NRA: 100%

Me: Have you read about Hezekiah and Sennacherib?

NRA: Huh?

Me: Never mind. Keep going.

NRA: Okay, so are you going to kill him or let your family get killed?

Me: What if I offer to give him my house, my two cars, and everything I have in savings if he would just leave. You know, lavish my enemy with love and protect my family. Who knows, maybe he’ll become the next Jean Valjean.

NRA: He won’t take it.

Me: He won’t take it? That’s like $300,000 dollars out the door. Who wouldn’t take that?

NRA: Because he wants to kill you and your family.

Me: Really? This is a human being? Like, he’d rather kill me and my family than take $300,000 dollars? I’ve never heard of such a human being. Do they really exist?

NRA: In this scenario, yes. He’s set on killing you.

Me: He’s, like, preprogrammed to kill. 100% dead set on killing with no way to be persuaded otherwise?

NRA: Yes.

Me: But in the real world, human beings are created in God’s image with breakable wills, conflicting desires, and emotions. The pre-programmed robotic human of your scenario doesn’t really exist, does he?

NRA: In this case, he does.

Me: Okay, so let me get this straight. A preprogrammed robotic human is breaking into my home with a gun. Any attempt to stop him without using violence is taken off the table, despite the fact that nonviolent attempts to apprehend bad people with guns does actually work in the real world. And in your “real world” scenario, I have quick access to a loaded gun in the house which happens to be no threat to my four children. I’m a pretty good shot but not that good of a shot. God exists in this scenario, but despite the fact that this God typically answers prayer, for this scenario, the heavenly phone’s off the hook. And this cyborg would rather kill me and my family rather than walk with $300,000. And this is somehow your real world?

NRA: Yes, yes, that’s the scenario. What would you do?

Me: I would pinch myself because I must be in a dream. Your supposed “real life” scenario is not the real world at all. It’s a world where Jesus is still in the tomb, prayer doesn’t work, a deistic god stands off in the distance, and the deception of power has clouded your Christian thinking. But my world, the real world, has a crucified Lamb, an empty tomb, and direct access to the heavenly throne which is more effective than 10 tons of C-4.

I don’t live in a theoretical world; I live in a world turned upside down by a God who justifies the ungodly and calls us to love our enemies.

What would I do if someone tried to harm my family? I’ll disembowel him before I slit his throat with a dull knife. But the question isn’t what would I do, but what should I do. But once we talk about shoulds instead of woulds, we now have to dust off our Bibles and put on our cruciform spectacles to see what saith our sovereign lord. Which is where we’ll go in our next post.

In Doug Wilson’s recent Q talk, he referenced this famed saying, and, no joke, integrated it as part of his defense. “The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” I grew up hearing this phrase and it seemed simple enough for an American boy raised on a healthy dose of spaghetti westerns. Good guy with a gun meets bad guy with a gun. Good guy fires gun. Bad guy drops dead. And good guy twirls his pistol back into his holster and hits the saloon for a shot of whiskey.
Unfortunately, the real world is much more complicated than Hollywood makes it out to be, even though The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly remains one of my top five favorite movies of all time. I’ve got a friend who’s a Navy SEAL sniper, and a darn good one at that. He laughs at the “good guy with gun stops bad guy with gun” myth. As a sniper, he has trained for thousands of hours to be the good guy with a really accurate gun, and even he says that high intensity situations are so incredibly unpredictable. Even with thousands of hours of training, pulling that trigger is one of the most hardest things he’s ever done.

What makes us think that the average Joe with a concealed weapon permit is qualified to make these split second decisions?

Shots are fired. Man with a gun. A bad guy with a gun! Or a good guy reaching for his cell phone? No! A bad guy with a gun. Or maybe another good guy with a gun. Is he shooting? Or laying down his gun? Is that a gun? How do you know? Are those kids behind him? Will you shoot them if you miss the bad guy with a gun? Are you still sure he’s the bad guy? How do you know? Shots are fired. Right behind you. Wheel around and fire back. Another bad guy. Ready to kill. Or is it an undercover cop? Shooting the bad guy. Good guy or bad guy? Two seconds to decide. Where are the kids? Bang! You shoot your gun. Two times. Bang, bang! Adrenaline kicks in. Three more times. Bang, bang, bang. People are dead. Better check to see if they’re bad guys. Where are the kids?

Call me a party pooper, but I don’t trust the average American, revved up on Fox News and a vigilante spirit, to perform well in a high intensity situation that he’s not trained for. As one combat veteran said:

[T]hink about 10 or 15 people, who are weekend shooters with limited tactical training, deciding to shoot it out with a criminal in a crowded office holiday party, a medical clinic or a darkened theater, while people are screaming and running, and no one knows who or how many of the people shooting are the “good guys” and how many of them are the “bad guys.”

In some cases, can a “good guy” with a gun neutralize the threat and help save lives? Absolutely. But it doesn’t happen very often. It is, for the most part, a myth perpetuated by people who’ve never been shot at.

“It is, for the most part, a myth perpetuated by people who’ve never been shot at,” says this trained soldier. And many combat veterans agree. The good guy with a gun mantra is largely a myth.

In fact, the FBI recently released a massive study on the 160 active shooter incidents between 2000 and 2013. Most of these situations ended with the shooter committing suicide. But 26 of 160 were stopped when someone in the crowd stopped the shooter. You might think this is a decent enough percentage to justify the good guy with a gun myth, but according to the study, only 5 were stopped with a guy with a gun while 21 were stopped by unarmed civilians.

Good guys with no guns were four times more successful at stopping bad guys with guns.

Is it possible that a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun? Sure. It’s possible. Is it possible that good guy with a gun freezes and gets himself shot, or shoots an innocent person, or mistakes a good guy with a gun for a bad guy with a gun, or is considered to be a bad guy with a gun when the cops show up and shoot him—yeah, all those things are possible too.

If the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun, then the only guy I want to see packing is Jesus. He’s the only good guy I trust. And he’s packing, alright. But his weapon is a cross not a gun, and he calls his followers to pick up our own.

If you don't believe me, then just ask Jordan Klepper. He makes a much more compelling case than I did (viewer discretion advised).

[youtube]https://youtu.be/MCI4bUk4vuM[/youtube]

Last Friday, pastor Doug Wilson and I gave talks on guns and violence at the Q conference in Denver. Might sound like a real shocker—two white dudes from Idaho talking about God and guns—but despite our cultural context, we arrive at different views about using violence to stop bad people from harming good people. We were both given 9 minutes to present our views, and then we participated in an 18 minute Q & A hosted by Gabe Lyons.

I want to spend a few blogs interacting with Doug’s presentation, since he raised many important points that we didn’t have time to discuss. By the way, I’m well aware that Doug has been accused of saying many controversial things, but my purpose here is only to deal with the stuff we talked about at Q Denver. For this blog, I want to point out why his use of the Bible to support his view on guns is deeply flawed and in need of some serious revision.

Doug argues that gun ownership is a civic virtue, and he grounds this, in part, by citing two passages in the Bible: Exodus 22:2 and Luke 22:36. There’s a chance that Exodus 22 could support his view, though it’s a rather slim chance. As for Luke 22, there’s no chance at all.

Exodus 22:2 reads:

If a thief is found breaking in and is struck so that he dies, there shall be no bloodguilt for the homeowner.

Sounds pretty straightforward, right? Bad guy breaks in. Good guy fires gun. Bad guy drops dead. Good guy is deemed innocent, as he’s paraded off to heroland.

Doug’s appeal to this passage seems legit, except for one thing: He forgot to mention the rest of the passage, which says:

but if the sun has risen on the thief, there shall be bloodguilt for the homeowner. The thief shall surely pay. If he has nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft (Exod 22:3)

In this case, good guy’s gun goes bang. Bad guy drops dead. And good guy is deemed guilty of bloodshed. Why? Because in this scenario, “the sun has risen on the thief.” But what in the world does that mean?

In my own research on this passage, one thing is clear: the meaning of this passage is not clear. The language is terse and the sense of the key phrase “the sun has risen on the thief” is widely disputed. According to one interpretation, the "sun risen upon the thief" means the homeowner can clearly see the thief and has intentionally killed him, and this makes the "good guy" guilty. Intentional killing, yes even of a thief, is a sin. This means that the death of the thief in the previous verse, presumably when the sun has not “risen upon him,” might have been unintentional since he couldn’t clearly see the thief. (For you Hebrew geeks, notice that the verb of v. 22 “is struck” is in the hophal stem, sort of a causative passive, which could highlight the lack of intentionality.)

Now, I wouldn’t take a bullet for this interpretation (see what I did there?). There are other interpretive options, some which may actually support Doug’s view. Some argue, for instance, that in the first scenario, the thief breaks in at night to harm the family, and this is why it’s fine to kill him. But the second scenario is during the day, which means he’s simply trying to take some stuff and therefore doesn’t deserve to be killed on the spot.

While I’ve seen people assume this view, it seems like quite a stretch. If protecting your family is the main point of Exodus 22:2, it seems odd that the idea of “protection” or “family” is absent from the text. The author could have been much clearer if this was the main point he was trying to make.

In any case, there needs to be some responsible exegetical work that goes into Exodus 22:2-3 before we lift the first half of it out of its context and force it to justify killing someone in self defense.

Plus, it’s in Exodus 22, which should raise some hermeneutical questions. The chapter also says that if someone has sex with a virgin then they have to marry her and pay her dad a bride-price (22:16-17). The same chapter says that sorcerers should be killed (22:18), which isn’t that big of a deal, I guess, since the Old Testament allows for all sorts of people to be killed by law including adulterers, disobedient children, and people who break the Sabbath. The previous chapter (Exod 21, for the mathematically challenged) contains many laws about how to manage your slave.

My point is, as you can probably guess: just because something is in the OT law does not mean that it directly carries over into a new covenant ethic. And unless you went to church with a lamb over your shoulder, you believe this too. There is some continuity and some discontinuity between the ethics of the Old and New covenants. The continuity of Exodus 22:2 (and 22:3!) must be argued for, not assumed. If argued for, then I need to know: if I catch a thief, do I still sell him into slavery as Exod 22:3b commands me to?

Doug may have a biblical defense for using a gun to kill someone in self-defense or the defense of his family. I could probably build an argument too if you get a couple beers in me. But using Exodus 22:2 to justify this view appears to be irresponsible exegesis.

The same goes for Luke 22—the whole “go buy a sword” passage, which Doug also used to justify his view. Since I’ve recently blogged about this passage, I won’t repeat my thoughts here. And as I said in our conversation at Q, there’s no credible Lukan scholar who takes Doug’s view that I’m aware of. If Doug could convince academia of his view, he just might be awarded an honorary doctorate, being such an original thesis and all.

Luke 22 is an even more embarrassing proof text for Doug’s view.

Doug, I actually think it would help your case to stop using these texts to support your view. It just smells like you’re reading your opinion back into Scripture and not drawing out what’s actually there.

Next up: the myth of “the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” Yikes! I can’t believe Doug actually said that. Stay tuned.

I've been interacting with Lisa Diamond’s fascinating book Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women's Love and Desire. In my previous post, I summed up Diamond’s conclusions about sexual fluidity and ended with her thoughts about the whole nature vs. nurture debate. In short, not only does Diamond say that the strict biological (nature) explanation is wrong, but that it’s been disproven quite thoroughly by recent scientific studies.

“In textbooks and the popular media alike, sexual orientation…is described as strictly biological, and yet we know that environmental and interpersonal factors interact with biological influences.”

Diamond goes on to refer to the “strictly biological” model as outdated, disproven, and no longer representing the best of recent science.

“My voice is one of many calling for an expanded understanding of same-sex sexuality—and especially female sexuality—that better represents its diversity. For decades scientists have questioned the rigid, categorical models of sexual orientation that continue to dominate both lay and scientific opinion. Yet the old models die hard” (p. 236).

This doesn’t mean that she believes (with some conservative Christians) that same-sex attractions are a choice, or purely caused by environmental situations. Biology does play a role, but only a role. Diamond’s research agrees with a wide range of other scientific studies, which show that biological and environmental factors both play a part:

“[S]exual feelings and behaviors are structured by complex interactions among individual and contextual factors, including genes, hormones, maturational state, personality traits, situational factors, interpersonal influences, and cultural norms” (p. 239).

Or in more layperson’s terms:

“trying to identify the specific percentage of genetic versus environmental determinants of any complex phenomenon—such as same-sex sexuality—is as futile as trying to pull apart a chocolate cake into flour, sugar, eggs, and butter that went into it” (p. 240).

It’s important not to confuse environmental influences with choice. Some people think that if something isn’t purely biological—like brown hair—then it must be a choice. But many things that are fundamental to our humanity that aren’t biological also aren’t a choice.

For instance, my ability to speak English isn’t biological, nor did I choose it. And yet it’s still a fixed trait and I can’t unlearn it. I was simply nurtured in an environment where I sort of absorbed English and I don’t consciously remember learning it.

Another important distinction Diamond makes is between love and desire.

In what I believe was Diamond’s most intriguing chapter (ch. 7 “How Does Fluidity Work”), she points out the difference between romantic love and sexual desire, both of which play an important role in shaping our sexuality.

“Although we might imagine that feelings of love and desire are closely related, they are actually governed by independent brain systems with different functions and neurobiological bases. This has profound implications for sexual orientation and sexual fluidity.”

As stated in my last post, Diamond discovered that sexual fluidity exists within a general orientation. It’s not like one’s orientation flies all over the map: One day I’m straight, the next day I’m gay, and who knows what I’ll be tomorrow morning. Sexual fluidity doesn’t refer to radical transformation of one’s basic orientation.

Understanding the difference between love and desire helps us see how fluidity interacts with orientation. Generally speaking, women poses a more stable sexual desire and yet more fluidity in terms of romantic love. Of course, the two don’t “feel” distinguishable; it all just feels like one thing when you’re falling in love or having sex. But for women, love is less gender specific and doesn’t have to be sexual, and yet can be just as intense, just as overwhelming, just as much an “infatuation” as sexual desire. This is why it’s not uncommon for two straight women to develop such deep connections with other women that it almost feels romantic even though it’s not sexual. (We’ll look at this in the next post.)

In short, love and desire both constitute a woman’s sexuality, but they are not the same. “Thus the correct response,” says Diamond, “to the longstanding question, ‘Is homosexuality genetic or environmental?’ is not ‘yes’ or ‘no’ but rather, ‘Which kind’?” (p. 211).

“Whereas consistent desires to seek out and initiate same-sex activity probably stem, at least in part, from an alteration in the intrinsic gender coding of proceptive desires, same-sex arousability [similar to the “romantic love” above] needs no such programming, and depends instead on environmental and situation factors” (p. 211).

Diamond concludes that though “desire” (more innate) influences love (more environmental), it goes both ways as well. Love—even Platonic love that starts non-sexually—can influence one’s desire and shape same-sex attractions.

Preston M. Sprinkle examines the interpretation of Lev 18:5 (a which if a person does he will live by them) in early Judaism and in Paul. This passage from Leviticus, used in later Old Testament tradition (Ezek 20:11, 13, 21; Neh 9:29), became one of the more important verses from the Hebrew Bible for early Jewish reflection on the notion that obedience to the Mosaic law will lead to eternal life. The apostle Paul cites the passage on two occasions (Gal 3:12; Rom 10:5) and his interpretation of it is highly debated. While scholars often discuss its meaning in Paul, a thorough examination of Lev 18:5 in the Old Testament and early Judaism has been virtually ignored. The author, then, seeks to contribute to our understanding of Paul's view of the law in relation to early Jewish soteriology through the lens of their respective interpretations of Lev 18:5. This is carried out by first examining the passage in its original literary context of Leviticus. Then, an examination is made of its later use in the Hebrew Bible (Ezekiel and Nehemiah) and the Septuagint. Following is a study of every citation of and allusion to Lev 18:5 in Early Judaism (ca. 200 B.C. to AD 100). Finally, the author takes a look at Paul's two citations of the text (Romans and Galatians). He concludes with a comparison between Early Jewish and Pauline interpretations of Lev 18:5.

The Gospel Coalition just published a review of my two books, People to Be Loved and Living in a Gray World. The author of the review was Anne Paulk. As a writer, I enjoy good, constructive criticism of my work, and I’m so thankful to have people in my life who give it to me. Since I’m not Jesus, everything I say contains a mixture of truth and error, and I’m on a mission to weed out the latter.
This is why I rarely respond to critical reviews of my books. It could look rather defensive if you do. Plus, who has the time? It’s tough enough to write a book; to respond to its critics would require that I quit my day-job. But it’s difficult not to respond to Paulk’s review. Again, I’m totally fine if someone represents what I say accurately and then disagrees with what I say—preferably by providing evidence. But misrepresenting someone’s work is never helpful especially when people are reading reviews to get an honest idea about the book’s content.

I knew the review wasn’t going to be very accurate when Paulk began by saying that I live in Spokane, WA. I’ve heard that Spokane is a beautiful this time of year. It has lush forests and breathtaking mountain ranges. But don’t take my word for it. This is all hearsay. I’ve never even visited Spokane. [Update: the reference to Spokane has now been deleted from the review.]

I sort of chuckled at the mistake; it’s just a mistake and I take no offence at it. But this level of misrepresentation is reflected in the rest of Paulk’s review of my book. Here are some brief examples.

I found the review to be terribly unbalanced. The bulk of my book is an in-depth look at what the Bible says about same-sex sexual behavior. I spent thousands of hours researching the Old Testament, Mesopotamian and Egyptian sexuality, same-sex relations in Greco-Roman and Jewish literature, Jesus’s statements on gender, sex, and marriage, and the relevant passages in Paul. All of this work gets a few passing comments in the review, which is misleading for a reader wanting to know what the book is all about. It’s like visiting the Statue of Liberty and spending your time staring at (and critiquing) lady liberty’s shoulder.

Paulk goes on to say that I used Alan Chambers as “one of [my] key sources on change.” While I mentioned Chambers when I talked about Exodus International, my reference to Chambers’ statement on change (that only 99.9% of people didn’t experience total change from gay to straight) was relegated to an endnote at the end of the book. Even in that endnote, I stated some disagreement with how Chambers understands “change.”

What Paulk fails to mention is that the main source I drew upon was not Chambers but the longitudinal study by Drs. Mark Yarhouse and Stanton Jones—the largest scientific study on the success rate of so-called “ex gay” ministries—which I discussed in the actual body of my argument (see p. 160). Paulk’s critique gives the impression that I didn’t do any actual research on “change;” I just sort of relied on Chambers.

I’m totally fine with disagreement, even more so with correction. But this appears to be misrepresentation.

Paulk also critiques my use of the term “gay” as a synonym for “same-sex attraction.” I found her criticisms to be rather bizarre, especially since most gay people I know use the term exactly how I described it in the book. Justin Lee, an affirming gay Christian and leader of the gay Christian network, says “When I use the term gay, all I mean is that I’m attracted to men and not to women.”

Paulk also says that “endorsing” the term “gay” as a “descriptive use for an otherwise faithful Christian…is problematic in light of the biblical exhortation to repent of sin and embrace one’s new identity in Christ.”

This seems odd to me. I stated quite clearly in the book that same-sex attraction is not a morally culpable sin that people should repent from—something Paulk says she agrees with. And since the term “gay” only means “attracted to the same sex,” then how am I neglecting “the biblical exhortation to repent from sin?” Paulk is pumping the term gay full of meaning that I don’t subscribe to, nor do most gay people—affirming and non-affirming—subscribe to. I’m pretty sure that Paulk doesn’t endorse a reader-response theory of interpretation, but this is what she’s doing in this review. She’s determining the meaning of my words, rather than letting me determine the meaning of my words. And I took a good deal of time explaining exactly what I mean by the term “gay.”

Paulk also thinks that my use of the term “gay” “is problematic in light of the biblical exhortation to…embrace one’s new identity in Christ.” I had to sit back and rub my eyes when I read this and wonder, did she read the part where I said that people should not use “the term gay to describe their core identity” since the gospel “shatters and shackles all other identities and submits them to Christ?” Or the part where I celebrated the fact that “We are slaves of King Jesus and find our ultimate identity in his death and resurrection (Eph. 2:4-7; cf. Gal. 3:28)” (p. 141).

Paulk obviously disagrees with how I use the term gay. And this is fine, I guess. But pointing me to the “biblical exhortation to…embrace one’s new identity in Christ,” as if I’m unaware of this, makes me question whether she actually read the entire book.

Paulk also believes that “clearly same-sex attracted is much more helpful to describe a person not wanting to indulge sin.” She may believe this. But “same-sex attraction” isn’t as neutral as she thinks. The phrase is often associated with ex-gay ministries, which encourage the use of the term. I’ve talked to several people who have had a bad experience with such ministries (not all, but many) and the phrase “same-sex attraction” conjures up some very bad memories. I’m not saying the phrase is bad, or that “gay” is better. All I’m saying is that no term/phrase is without its problems.

Paulk assumes that “Our culture equates, and unabashedly promotes, the identity of gay or lesbian as wanting or seeking a romantic or sexual relationship with someone of the same sex.” Describing “our culture” as some monolithic entity, however, is quite bizarre. Do some people use the term “gay” to mean “seeking a romantic or sexual relationships with someone of the same sex.” I guess some do. But I don’t. My Side B gay—boom!—Christian friends don’t. Heck, many of my affirming friends don’t use the term this way. Even Justin Lee, who doesn’t see anything wrong with “seeking a romantic or sexual relationship [marital, of course] with someone of the same sex” doesn’t use the term gay this way. He uses it the way I use it. As a descriptive label for being attracted to the same sex. Nothing more.

I guess what gets me the most is that in my discussion of the term “gay,” I was very careful, trying to see things from both sides of the debate. I was wrestling with the question, “should Christians use the term gay as a descriptive label?" I considered this, I considered that. I looked both ways before crossing the street. And then I looked again, as my mother taught me. I even said that in some contexts, it might be best for Christians not to describe themselves as gay. But Paulk’s review doesn’t convey any of this discussion. She doesn’t reflect on my journey, only disagrees with my destination, and never mentions how I arrived there.

I enjoy reading critical reviews. They help me hone my own thinking and become a better writer. And you can’t talk about homosexuality without expecting some criticism. Such is the nature of the discussion. But sloppy reviews do nothing to help the discussion.

Well, that title’s going to attract a wide range of readers.
I’ll never forget reading Lisa Diamond’s book Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women’s Love and Desireat my kids’ afterschool events and getting some rather strange “ewe, what a creeper” looks from the other moms. (Some looks were of the opposite sort, but that’s for another blog.) But it’s true. I confess. I’m not ashamed. I’m interested in sexual fluidity among women. And in men, for that matter. I’m on a mission to understand human sexuality—it’s kind of an important topic—so I’m eager to get my hands on any and all significant studies in the field.

And this one is truly significant. If you haven’t read Diamond’s book, you need to. It’s amazing. That’s why I’m going to blog about it over the next few posts.

It’s tough to summarize Diamond’s argument in a short, pithy summary. There’s so much here to wrestle with. But just to whet your appetite, Diamond argues that sexual desire among females should not be understood through strict categories of straight, gay, or bisexual, but should be understood along a more fluid spectrum. A heterosexual woman may experience unexpected periodic same-sex desires. A lesbian woman may fall in love with a man, yet still be a lesbian. A bisexual woman might experience ongoing heterosexual desires and fewer and less intense same-sex desires later in life, or vice versa. A straight women may experience ongoing attraction to the same-sex for a period of 10 years and then go back to experiencing exclusive opposite-sex desires for the rest of her life. All of this should not be too surprising once we understand the unique sexual make up among women.

I know, this all sounds very politically or religiously charged. But it’s not. Diamond is not a religious fanatic who’s got some axe to grind, though she recognizes that her scientific research can easily be (and has been) used by people who do have a political or religious agenda. Diamond appears to be an honest psychologist (and a feminist who doesn’t seem to admire conservative religious people) who’s discovered that women’s sexual desires are much more complicated than people often assume.

Diamond’s study was extensive and through. She traced the sexual experiences of 100 women (mostly sexual minorities) over a period of 10 years. As far the sexual minorities, 43% identified as Lesbian, 30% as bisexual, 27% said they didn’t fit any category but were non-heterosexual. She also added 11 heterosexual women to this list (p. 58), in order to see how her findings among non-straight women compared to straight women. The average age at the first interview was 20 years old and they came from a diverse set of backgrounds: white, African American, Latina, and Asian American, though most were white.

At the end of her 10-year study, Diamond found that more than 2/3 of the women she interviewed had changed their sexual identity at least once during those 10 years. These changes went in all directions. Some women who first identified as lesbian ended up identifying as bisexual or unlabeled. Some who identified as bisexual or unlabeled now identified as heterosexual. The “unlabeled” identity became the most popular among women in Diamond’s study, largely because of the unexpected fluidity in attractions they experienced over the 10 year study. Many women said that their ongoing experience with sexual fluidity didn’t fit the rigid categories presented to them: bisexual, heterosexual, or homosexual. They may have experienced seasons where their attractions felt more fixed, but then environmental changes (which often includes new relationships which stirred up unpredictable feelings) caused unexpected attractions to spring up. Some attractions were deeply emotional but not necessarily physical, others were both. Some began as emotional and led to physical, or vice versa.

Along with shifts in their identity, the women also experienced changes in their attractions. Even though 43% of the women identified as lesbian at the beginning of her study (p. 56), only 3% expressed 100% attractions to other women in every interview during the 10 year period (p. 146) and 17 reported 100% same-sex attraction at any point in the 10 year study (p. 106). Also, 60% of those identified as lesbian in the first interview ended up having some sexual contact with men after they identified as lesbian; 40% within the first 2 years of the first interview (p. 109). Of those who continued to identify as lesbian over the entire 10 year period, 50% had some sexual contact with men during the same period (p. 110). Many lesbian women didn’t find this to be inconsistent to their basic same-sex orientation since they felt that “the most important component of their lesbian identity was their emotional connection with women” (p. 113).

Most women Diamond interviewed experienced ongoing and unpredictable fluidity in their sexual attractions that at the end of their 10 years. Most felt that they didn’t fit cleanly into the rigid 3 categories (lesbian, straight, bisexual). Some of these unlabeled women even said that they were basically oriented to one particular gender; functionally, they could easily consider themselves to be lesbian; “But they acknowledged that once in a while they encountered individuals who sparked unexpected desires” (p. 88). Diamond says that “this is perfectly consistent with the notion that women possess generalized orientations in concert with a capacity for fluidity” (p. 88). “Even lesbians who were nearly exclusively attracted to women pursued periodic other-sex sexual contact as the years went by” (p. 89). In fact, Diamond’s study reported that 30% of the women who identified as lesbian at the beginning of her study ended up pursuing full-blown romantic relationship with men (not just a one-off sexual encounter) (p. 113). But this does not mean that they changed their orientation. Diamond writes:

One important conclusion is that though women do, in fact, experience transformations in their sexual feelings, often brought about by specific relationships, these changes do not appear to involve large-scale ‘switches’ in their overall sexual orientation. Rather, their sexual and emotional attractions typically fluctuate only within a general range. This may mean that the overall range of a person’s potential attractions is set by her orientation, but her degree of fluidity determines exactly where she will end up within that range (p. 160-161).

Diamond’s research, of course, raises the question about popular and politically driven assumptions about nature and nurture. Are women born with a fixed sexual orientation (Nature)? Or are all women born straight, but certain environmental situations shape same-sex desires in some of them (Nurture)?

Not only does Diamond say that both views are wrong, she comes down particularly hard on those who think that true lesbians are simply born that way. We’ll see why in the next post.