“This includes the squishy portions of Christianity that agree with such a worldly sentiment,” she continued. “We must flee to the Cross and learn to hate our sins without hating ourselves.”
She clarified the difference between “being made in the image of God, and as the image of God.” Because “God is the prototype, and we are the reflection,” she explained, “…we do not make God in our image.”
The gospel offers hope of salvation to anyone “darkened by the stain of LGBTQ+,” added Butterfield. But by using language from a non-biblical worldview, Christians “are making the kind of category mistake that weakens our prayers, discourages our hope, and tacitly condemns our loved ones to slavery to sin.”
“Without intending such harm,” she said, “we replace the power of God’s justifying work in the lives of His people and our participation in God’s sanctifying power with the man-made category of personhood called ‘Sexual Orientation.’ It’s one or the other.”
Butterfield’s comments echo those of Jackie Hill Perry, who herself has struggled with same-sex attraction. Speaking to Preston Sprinkle at the Exiles in Babylon Conference in 2022, Perry talked about people being God’s image-bearers.
The new concept of orientation, which originated in the 1800s, “frames our personhood,” Perry said, “where like you are gay and you are straight instead of you being human with a variety of different ways to feel.”
Because of sin, Perry added, “We need to be born again so that we are empowered to always choose God despite how we feel.”
