If the hosts of the conference wanted to invite speakers who were both affirming and non-affirming, they should have arranged a more balanced lineup, instead of having the majority of the speakers be affirming. For the church to claim that it is not affirming while inviting a majority of affirming speakers to the conference “feels dishonest,” said Sprinkle.
Sprinkle noted numerous times that he did not attend the conference and expressed a reluctance to comment on it too much with his limited information. But he did not buy the argument that the conference was not theological in nature. “Don’t make it sound like it’s theologically neutral,” he said. Stories “are some of the most powerful pieces of theology that exist in this conversation.”
Sprinkle concluded his analysis with an exhortation to church leaders. “If you’re a Christian leader, you’re a pastor…and have publicly criticized Andy Stanley without doing the work of caring for parents with LGBTQ+ kids,” he said, “then I’m just so unimpressed with that.”
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There is a “massive discipleship need in the church,” Sprinkle continued, noting that his inbox is full of messages from people saying they are struggling with issues relating to gender and sexuality but that no one at their church can help.
“We absolutely need to become agents of truth and grace to help…people who are under our leadership to think critically and faithfully and graciously and humbly through questions around sexuality and gender,” Sprinkle said. These questions are some of “the most pressing ethical and pastoral questions facing the church today. Silence is simply not an option. Silence is pastoral irresponsibility.”
