Rosaria Butterfield is the author of The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert and The Gospel Comes With a House Key. She’s one of the main go-to people for Christian leaders to point to as an example of the power of the gospel on account of being a lesbian Women’s Studies professor who was saved and having her sexuality redeemed. She ultimately married a man, had a family and turned aside from her wayward ways- being a shining success story in an ocean littered with failures.
We’ve scrapped with her over the years primarily because of ancillary perspectives on homosexual habits, including the use of personal pronounces relating to “Christian hospitality” and her occasionally boorish behavior towards our founder. While Butterfield’s LGBTQ theology is not as sub-biblical and theologically schizophrenic as Jackie Hill Perry, Rebecca McLaughlin, or Sam Allberry; three other mainstays in this space, we’re thankful that she has begun to button up some of her more wanton errors that we’ve previously criticized her for.
While Butterfield has, to her detriment, typically refused to “name names” of those causing theological chaos in her space, she has reserved some quiet criticism for Preston Sprinkle and his wretched book “Embodied,” having previously publicly criticized it. Now, she’s getting a bit more vocal, taking more shots at ‘Side B’ Christians and in particular, at the Revoice Conference in a Truth over Tribe guest post.
For some context, the whole notion of ‘Side A’ and ‘Side B’ Christians- ‘Gay Christians’ who embrace their homosexuality vs. ‘Gay Christians’ who believe homosexuality is a sin- was formulated 20 years ago on messages boards by the likes of Justin Lee and then later Matthew Vines as a way to categorize the incongruous and diverse voices on the matter now frequently found on the Spiritual Friendship page; a loose-knit coterie of sexually confused souls that frolic there.
As far as Revoice, well we’ve made out thoughts known here, So who are all the She/Her, They/Them, and He/Hims Speaking at Revoice? and here Revoice Introduces ‘Semi-Celibate Throuple’ to Christendom, and here Revoice Conference is Bringing Back the Roman Catholic Lesbian Who Praised X-Rated Gay BDSM Film.
Butterfield writes in part:
After we are justified by God, we can never return to Adam. What does this mean for someone like me who lived as a lesbian for a decade and believed I was gay? It means that homosexuality is part of my biography, not my nature. My nature is securely chained in Christ (Colossians 3:10-20). What does it mean if a Christian falls back into an old sin pattern? It means that he is acting against his true nature. How do we stop acting against our true nature in Christ when our flesh craves our old sin patterns? By going to war with our sin through the power of Christ’s blood. A genuine Christian will not make peace with sin, for doing so scorns the atoning blood of Christ. Puritan Thomas Watson says, “Christ is never loved till sin be loathed.”
Taking Revoice to task for their merciless tribalism and hopeless, gospel-less ideologies, she concludes:
One dictionary definition of tribalism is “the behavior and attitudes that stem from strong loyalty to one’s own social group.” Tribalism is extra-biblical teaching. Tribalism comes from false ideas entering the church from the world. Tribalism is infectious and poisonous, and it leaves a wake of division in its path. It destroys the peace and purity of the church and produces false professions of faith as well as unstable Christians held captive to destructive sin patterns. Tribalism falsifies the blood of Christ.
Side B Christianity—Revoice—is tribal, not truthful. Instead of offering fundamental liberty in Christ, including redemption and change, Revoice theology denies the power of Christ’s blood to sanctify His people such that they no longer are homosexual. Revoice theology is tribal in its use of Freudian anthropology over biblical personhood, recording homosexuality as a morally neutral sexual orientation. But the Bible records both feelings and practices as sinful acts if directed against God’s commands (Matthew 5:27-28). Revoice theology is political in its embrace of LGBTQ+ language and ideology. Revoice theology believes that homosexual orientation cannot be repented of, thereby withholding the power of repentance and sanctification to transform lives. In contrast, Scripture teaches us to “repent…and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out” (Acts 3:19).
Because I choose Truth over tribe, I reject the false teaching of Revoice/Side B Theology.
We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.
