Jared Moore Reacts To Preston Sprinkle Debate

Side B theology is one of the most pervasive issues facing the church right now, even more so than Critical Race Theory. Side B theology asserts that homosexual identity and attraction are compatible with Christianity. A few weeks ago, Rosaria Butterfield blasted Preston Sprinkle, Revoice, and Cru, during a convocation at Liberty University. The resulting fallout has been catastrophic for Cru. Moreover, it led to Preston Sprinkle challenging Jared Moore to a debate. Jared Moore is the author of The Lust of the Flesh: Thinking Biblically About “Sexual Orientation,” Attraction, and Temptation.

In his “first and last” appearance on Preston Sprinkle’s podcast, Sprinkle accuses Moore of lying by affirmatively citing Rosaria Butterfield’s criticisms. 

What heresies/lies have they spread?
1) “Same-sex attraction is a sinless temptation, and only a sin if you act on it?”

2) “People who experience same-sex attraction are actually gay-Christians called to life-long celibacy?”

3) “People who experience same-sex attraction, rarely, if ever, change, and therefore, should never pursue, heterosexual marriage.”

4) “Sex and gender are different, and God doesn’t care if men live as men or if women live as women, because all you need to do is grow in the fruit of the Spirit, as if the fruit of the Holy Spirit can grow from sin.”

Preston Sprinkle concedes the first criticism fairly represents his position, but he repeatedly dodges any debate on whether SSA is sinful. This would make his teachings heretical, but he’s more interested in the other criticisms he feels are misrepresentations.

Sprinkle asserts that because he has never directly said, “People who experience same-sex attraction are actually gay-Christians called to life-long celibacy,” therefore, his position was misrepresented and Jared Moore is a liar. Yet this is a fairer representation of what Sprinkle and his ministry teach. Yet Preston Sprinkle’s ministry teaches that some homosexuals can pursue what they call a “mixed-orientation marriage” but that this option rarely works. Sprinkle in the debate slips up by using the term while arguing that gays can pursue heterosexual marriage, an argument undermined by his term mixed-orientation marriage which is used a lot in his ministry.

The most frustrating portion of the debate seems to be when Jared Moore explains four times that he believes that sex and gender are synonymous, an argument that Sprinkle does not want to confront and tries to use other people’s understanding of gender as an argument against Jared Moore believing that gender and sex are synonymous. Preston Sprinkle says he would not put pronouns in his own bio but works with people who do, ie Greg Coles. Yet Sprinkle feigns ignorance at the idea that pronouns in bio is a proclamation of a belief in transgenderism.

Overall, Preston Sprinkle is arguing semantics but overtly dodged questions that would have turned a semantic argument into a substantive one. In addition to not wanting to debate same-sex attraction, Sprinkle refused to answer whether he thinks homosexuality can be sanctified. The Side B proponent is a weasel and this discussion showed as much.