Yes, this is an unusual “think piece,” in part because it is best to consider it an online debate between two major voices shaping debates in contemporary evangelicalism.

One one side is the Rev. Denny Burk, a biblical studies professor at Boyce College, which is linked to the giant Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville.

On the other side is historian and gender-studies specialist Kristin Kobes Du Mez of Calvin University, who is best known as the author of the much-discussed book “Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation.”

Let’s start with a short comment from Burk, who posted:

… I had an important exchange with Kristin Kobes Du Mez on social media. I won’t rehash the entire back and forth here. Some of it is linked below for your reference if you are interested in following the threads. If you boil it all down, she asked me a question, and I asked her one. She asked me whether I thought her book Jesus and John Wayne contains false teaching (to which I answered “yes”), and I asked her if she believes that homosexuality is sinful (to which she answered that she doesn’t know yet).

Hers is my question: What does it mean to state that “homosexuality is sinful”? Is this a discussion of homosexual orientation or of sexual behavior?

In other settings, people have been arguing about whether it is sinful, or perhaps simply spiritually dangerous, for celibate LGBTQ Christians to publicly and enthusiastically proclaim a gay identity. Thus, their sexual behavior does not violate centuries of Christian doctrine.

There are important lines between each of these stances and, frankly, other variations on these themes.