Preston Sprinkle vs. Richard Hays

How two scholars interpret the Bible differently on same-sex relationships.

As soon as traditionalist scholars received their copies of The Widening of God’s Mercy by Richard Hays and Christopher Hays, the critiques were swift. Father and son, Richard and Christopher (biblical scholars) wrote a book on God’s mercy and the implications for the church’s response to sexual minorities. Namely, it’s time for the church to affirm covenanted same-sex relationships. Significantly, Richard Hays has been cited by traditionalists since the 1990s to bolster their non-affirming view. But now he has changed his mind. One scholar to take issue with Richard’s (and Christopher’s) newfound conclusion is Preston Sprinkle.

The question is: why exactly do Sprinkle and the Hayses disagree? In this post, I compare aspects of their hermeneutical approaches.

How Should Scripture Be Applied to an Ethical Question?

Sprinkle takes a direct subject approach, while the Hayses takes a divine character approach. Should same-sex couples be allowed to marry? Sprinkle centers the subject of marriage to make his case. Thus, he objects that the Hayses do not provide a biblical analysis of marriage, saying, “one of my biggest critiques is that they don’t really apply their argument. The book contains no definition of marriage (the word marriage is hardly ever mentioned).” Sprinkle also objects because the Hayses do not address the six to eight verses that explicitly mention same-sex relations (also direct subject centered).

This raises the question: can we only address an ethical question with a direct subject approach? This method of doing exegesis is common in conservative evangelical circles. From the time, we are young, evangelicals learn to do word or subject studies. If you want to find the answer on any subject, whether Sabbath or prayer, look up every occurrence of the word “Sabbath” or “prayer,” synthesize all those prooftexts, and come up with an answer. So, if we want to know God’s will on marriage, we should look up Scripture passages explicitly on marriage or explicitly on prohibitions against same-sex relations.

There’s nothing wrong with direct subject studies as one way of learning from Scripture. But Jesus complicates that simple approach in his instruction for how to read the Bible. For example, when the religious leaders tell Jesus the disciples are lawbreakers for picking grain on the Sabbath, Jesus defends the disciples’ behavior by pointing to a verse that does not center Sabbath (Mark 2:23-28). Nor does Jesus analyze Scriptures on grain-picking. In other words, his hermeneutic does not follow what we would expect of the typical evangelical subject study. Instead, Jesus points to another situation of legal violation (David and his men ate consecrated bread contrary to law). He uses that example as a lens to reinterpret Sabbath practice.

While the Hayses do not base their argument on circumstantial validity of law-breaking, as Jesus does, the book does describe how even laws within Scripture change.

But more than that, the Hayses take a divine character approach. They argue that the hermeneutical key for correctly interpreting Scripture is awareness of God’s character, especially God’s mercy (e.g. 134). When Sprinkle says the Hayses do not actually apply their own argument, that’s not true. They do apply their argument. The Hayses first make the case that God is merciful, that this mercy is the interpretive key for reading Scripture correctly, and then they apply God’s mercy to the question of same-sex relationships.

For the Hayses, whether or not the church affirms same-sex relationships should be based on the answer to this question: How does a merciful God respond to gay people and their predictament? The Hayses believe God’s mercy responds to the pain of loneliness by affirming covenanted same-sex relationships.

A divine character hermeneutic is not new. It’s evident in Christian tradition, and even Scripture itself. As Augustine said, if an interpretation does not arrive at love of God and neighbor, we need to go back to the text.

Is Trajectory Hermeneutics Legitimate for Discerning Ethics?

Trajectory hermeneutics makes arguments that go beyond Scripture’s explicit statements based on seeds and glimpses within Scripture itself. For example, those who approve women in church leadership point to the existence of women leaders in the Bible. A trajectory hermeneutic is also used to argue against slavery. Trajectory hermeneutics is not accepted by all evangelicals, but it’s definitely affirmed by many. In other words, it’s an interpretive method that evangelical leaders have endorsed (e.g. William Webb).

Even Preston Sprinkle concedes that we see changes within Scripture itself on different matters: “Some laws change, but not all laws change. We can’t just point to some changed laws and assume that others (of our choosing) have changed as well.” Sprinkle objects to the Hayses not because of a trajectory hermeneutic per se, but because he doesn’t think there’s a trajectory in Scripture that would allow same-sex relationships (in the same way as women and slavery).

Sprinkle writes, “There’s simply no evidence of a scriptural trajectory moving away from sex difference in marriage or same-sex sexual relations being accepted by God.” This raises the question of how one goes about looking for and applying trajectories. In the case of women’s leadership and slavery, Scripture includes both negative and positive statements. Thus, Sprinkle would say a trajectory can only be valid if there are at least some positive or permissible mentions of a particular practice.

But it needs to be pointed out that the Hayses’ argument doesn’t rest on a trajectory hermeneutic; it’s grounded in a divine character hermeneutic, as described above. The book also gives Scriptural examples of changes in accepted practices apart from any trajectory. Things can change because God can and does show mercy in any variety of situations whether or not there is precedence for that particular circumstance. The precedence is that God shows mercy over and over.

The Widening of God’s Mercy demonstrates God’s prerogative to show mercy at will. The book also highlights how God’s people came to increasingly understand God and therefore how God responds. The changes in laws and practices within Scripture itself are a reflection of how people realized over time just who God is, including how incredible is God’s mercy and love. In fact, it’s so far beyond our grasping, that Paul prays that we would have supernatural ability to perceive it (Eph 3:17-19). If our human imagination can fathom showing mercy to LGBTQ people by allowing them to participate in life-long covenant, how much more so is God’s unfathomable mercy?

Are the Hayses Making a “Gentile Inclusion” Argument?

Sprinkle writes, “The book rehearses an old argument and doesn’t address how that argument has been refuted. Essentially, the argument runs like this: Since God changed his mind about foreigners and eunuchs, therefore… sex difference is no longer part of what marriage is” (italics in original). 

First, the Hayses never comment on sex difference. In fact, that is one of the objections that Sprinkle has to the book. Yet, here Sprinkle claims the Hayses are saying sex difference is not part of the meaning of marriage. Again, that’s not an argument in the book. Nor are the Hayses merely making a standard Gentile Inclusion argument. They certainly think we should consider affirming and including those previously deemed rejects because there’s precedence for accepting rejects. But it’s more than that.

As I mentioned in my Baptist News Global review of The Widening of God’s Mercy, the Hayses are asking us to consider what kind of God welcomes rejects like foreigners and eunuchs? In other words, by observing how God has acted, we gain greater appreciation for how this kind of God might act in other situations. How might this kind of God act toward another group of rejects who are suffering—namely, sexual minorities.

What about Sin?

Sprinkle writes, “While I appreciate Richard’s description of Jesus hanging out with tax collectors, prostitutes, and sinners, he doesn’t always make a clear distinction between sinners and sin.” Sprinkle would surely agree that God is merciful toward sinners and does not count our sins against us. But he’s getting at the question of holiness. Mercy is not simply a license to sin. Yet Richard Hays is not making a case for licentiousness or a lukewarm faith. The Hayses argue that covenanted same-sex relationships can be a “means of grace” (216).

They do not view same-sex relationships in the same way as tax collecting. The comparison is not that both are sinful practices, but rather God is a friend of rejects (whether sinners or not – e.g. eunuchs). By no means do the Hayses see economic exploitation as a means of grace. But they do see covenanted same-sex relationships as a potential vehicle for holiness. Roman tax collecting sunk people into poverty, leading to harm. In contrast, covenanted same-sex relationships provide a way to steward one’s sexual desires, leading to flourishing. And not just stewardship of passions, but also the well-being that stems from rootedness in a familial unit.

While the Hayses do not explicitly discuss marriage, they imply that marriage is to be defined by the way it sanctifies us. Like heterosexuals, gay people benefit from the way covenant works on our selfish proclivities to conform us to Christ. In other words, to prevent gay people from life-long union is to withhold a means of grace. The implication of such withholding is that traditionalists are actually creating a stumbling block to holiness.

Conclusion

Sprinkle and the Hayses approach biblical interpretation from distinct angles. Sprinkle takes a direct subject approach, looking for verses that explicitly name marriage or same-sex relations. He then applies these verses in a prescriptive way to gay people today. The Hayses take a divine character approach, looking across the biblical canon for what we can learn about what God is like. Then they apply God’s character to gay people’s needs today.

Sprinkle believes same-sex relationships are wrong primarily because they do not reflect sex difference. The Hayses believe same-sex relationships are acceptable because life-long covenant is a means of grace that can help gay people in the same way as heterosexual people.

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Addendum

I want to add an additional thought about Sprinkle’s review that I found quite disturbing. Sprinkle gaslights gay people’s suffering by suggesting that affirming covenantal same-sex relationships, as the Hayses do, is merely a white supremacist American viewpoint that disregards the non-affirming views prevalent in other parts of the world. But that’s like saying giving women equal rights is ethnocentric because non-Western churches may still subjugate women. It also ignores how white supremacy, through colonialism, has fueled anti-LGBTQ sentiment in other countries. For example, white American conservative evangelicals have traveled to places like Uganda and held seminars to coach African churches to oppose LGBTQ people.

One beautiful aspect of Hayses’ book is the strong subtext against Christian nationalism. It clearly shows how Scripture rejects the superiority of one nation over another. Despite the sins of Egypt and Assyria, the Hebrew prophets and Christian apostles proclaimed God’s forgiveness and welcome to the eschatological feast where every tribe and nation has a seat at the table. To claim Hayses’ argument is ethnocentric is as absurd as it is offensive.