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Regarding the 'Spiritual Friendship' Perspective and the Revoice Conference

My previous post addressed the 'Spiritual Friendship' and Revoice Conference (coming shortly in July, 2018).  The conference is being offered to support the recently developed 'Spiritual Friendship' view, which advocates a view of 'gay identity' without engaging in homosexual relations. Dr. Robert Gagnon has also recently addressed this view.

Along with Rev. Dr. Don Fortson, I published a study of primary source literature on the issue of homosexuality in 2016: Unchanging Witness: The Consistent Christian Teaching on Homosexuality in Scripture and Tradition (B&H Academic).  Dr. Robert Gagnon published his excellent, primary source study on homosexuality in 2002: The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics (Abingdon Press).  Both works are available from Christian Book Distributors: https://www.christianbook.com.

In response to the 'Spiritual Friendship' view, I addressed the attempt to separate desire from acts in my post and pointed readers to a number of Biblical texts that identify sinful desire as sinful, not neutral.  In so doing, I also tried to move the conversation more to Biblical interpretation than, e.g., a discussion of later theologians, such as St. Augustine.  For my post, see: 'On the Attempt to Distinguish Desire from Sinful Acts,' online: https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2018/07/on-attempt-to-distinguish-desire-from.html.

The purpose of this post is to draw interested readers to Robert Gagnon's seven concerns with the 'Spiritual Friendship' view.  I offer Gagnon's concerns as an affirmation of my own essay, and I fully concur with his points.  Another blogger, Douglas Wilson, has posted Gagnon's essay, 'Concerns with the upcoming Revoice Conference and Spiritual Friendship Folk,' since his post was deleted by the Facebook police.  See: https://dougwils.com/books-and-culture/s7-engaging-the-culture/the-facebook-penalty-box.html.

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