Hey y'all, welcome back to the Don't Mom Alone podcast. I'm your host, Heather McFadden,

and this is the place where I get to walk alongside you and connect you with people and

resources so you know that you don't mom alone. And today, episode 370, I am welcoming

to the show Preston Sprinkle. Christians is through the 80s, the AIDS epidemic where we are

celebrating God's punishment, judgment towards gay people, and we were voting for people that

were not helping gay people and so you have a lot like I have friends who grew up in that

era and they sat there holding their best friend while he died in the hospital of AIDS

while Christians were ranting and raiding and that's part of a narrative that has really

angered a lot of LGBT people. I really want to go out on my way to say that's not me. I

would not be celebrating the death of your friend.

Given the statistics of how many Gen Z teens young adults are identifying as LGBTQ and

the number of DMs and questions I've received on this topic, I knew that I needed to do an

episode on gender and sexuality but I've been waiting for the right guess someone who would

not shame my listeners, parents who are one of those one and four families who are walking

through this or not even their own children, perhaps a sibling they have a parent, a close

friend who identifies as LGBTQ. How do we navigate grace and truth when it comes to issues

of gender and sexuality in our culture? Dr. Preston Sprinkle is the co-founder and president

of the Center for Gender, Faith and Sexuality and I felt like given his books on the topics

that he would be a great guest. He also has a podcast called Theology and the Raw. He

tackles cultural issues. He has done the work to continue to lean in and listen with curiosity

and compassion and so he is going to be our guide today. I also noticed that his center

has released a course for those parenting LGBTQ kids and we have that link in the show notes

...