Greg Johnson and His Surprising Book

A few years ago, Rev. Greg Johnson wrote a book, the same Greg Johnson who is a pastor of a Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) congregation. This is the same man, but the teaching then and now is not. His book is easy to read, absorbing, and articulate; it shows skills he still displays. A couple of high profile PCA men endorsed it, and it is easy to see why – the title: The World According to God, A Biblical View Of Culture, Work, Science, Sex, And Everything Else  (2002, InterVarsity Press).

Rev. Johnson has seized center stage in the current debate over homosexuality in the PCA. He claims to be opposed to homosexual behavior, and insists on celibacy for himself and all who would be part of the church. But he has written of a new order of human beings – in his words “homosexual Christians.”  This category has an orientation that remains so persistently we must recognize Christians with it as a distinct class. Such persons with this sinfulness may remain without healing until the coming of the Lord. Meanwhile, we may expect to have gay ministers and elders. In his old book of seventeen years ago, Pastor Johnson spoke of “healing from sexual sin.” Now he promotes that we must acknowledge among us unhealed Christians. The PCA is in for a rough ride.

Johnson’s word on sexual healing is spelled out in his book, and what he urged back then is orthodox counsel. His recent views diverge from his book as we shall see. Of special interest in this article is his big turnaround on what Matthew 19 means. We shall begin in his book with chapter 8, “A Most Spiritual Topic, Sex & Sexuality According to God.” I have found very much of his book a delight to read.

His Accurate Appraisal of Sexual Sin

Rev. Johnson avows that Adam’s human isolation was resolved by the creation of woman. Here is heterosexuality at the outset of human life. In Johnson’s terms, lifelong heterosexual marriage is authentic sexuality. Any deviation from this pattern established by God at the beginning is condemned, because homosexuality breaks the divine design. The danger “the Bible dwells on is lust … [and] the Holy Spirit aims at our hearts as well as our bodies” (pp. 135-138). Johnson did not suggest in 2002 that Scripture recognizes sexual minorities as a distinct group. His advocacy of a quite different form of human existence appears later than his book. Johnson’s theology has evolved. In 2002 it was orthodox – for a while.

 

The Great Reversal Concerning Matthew 19

A. Before his great reversal, in his 2002 book he said:

In describing God’s calling to either “singleness or the blessings of marriage” (p. 146), Johnson adopts what is the age long understanding of all Christendom. In his book he sees two gifts, two options: marriage or singleness. However, what was wrong to assume back in 2002 has since become right!

Now he says the eunuchs in the text are not straight; they are a sexual minority. He is suggesting that the eunuchs of Matthew 19 are homosexual. Therefore, Jesus legitimizes a homosexual class, a different kind of humans. He has moved from authentic sexuality to a deviation from God’s original pattern, and he suggests that this deviation is prompted by what the Lord Jesus said in Matthew 19. Unbelievable! In July 2018 his great exegetical U-turn became public. At the Revoice Conference in a PCA church in St. Louis, Johnson said:

Turning over more stones searching for sexual minorities in the Bible, Johnson holds up the Ethiopian eunuch and presents him as an example of one in a sexual minority. That eunuch is the first Gentile convert, appearing in Acts 8 prior to the conversion of Cornelius in Acts 10. The eunuch was not only a Gentile but an African, who, Johnson thinks, would not be welcomed by Jews in the court of the Gentiles. The biblical topic of singleness or marriage has been hijacked, so that it is speaking of sexual minorities. The point being made so eagerly is that this eunuch, part of a sexual minority, was baptized and accepted into the church! Johnson stresses that the Lord Jesus set up this most unusual situation in which Philip was specially sent to see this man, and then afterwards was transported away supernaturally.

Had it been otherwise, Pastor Johnson surmises, the church might have rejected that non-straight brother, but the Lord was making certain that he, of a sexual minority mind you, was brought into the church. And that is the big lesson for what we must do today, namely make the church a haven for those who distinguish themselves as homosexual Christians – as long as they are celibate (this always seems to be added). To males and females Johnson adds three kinds of eunuchs. Three kinds is not what the Lord said. There are three ways that people may become eunuchs. But Greg has a keen desire to come up with other forms of existence “different from everybody else.”

It is emphatically so that any person, with same-sex attraction or none, is welcome to come to Christ and thus his church, provided that person does not clutch his former sin so tightly that he labels himself by it. Instead, Christians forsake sin and its various labels to confess Christ. The gospel includes such cleansing for God’s people that such a label should be a falsehood inherently.
Pastor Johnson continues in this vein when he moves to eunuchs galore by telling us that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego (Daniel 1, 3) were probably eunuchs. If we follow his line of reasoning, they too were probably not straight. With a little interpretative license and some creative effort, Johnson has “discovered” support for a policy we should all adopt. He does this by revising Matthew 19.

 

C. Also in 2018 Rev. Johnson critiqued the RPCES study paper of 1980

Did Jesus really say that some people are neither male nor female? The real paradigm is male or female, and married or not married. Nothing more, nothing else. Here Johnson injects into the Lord’s statements a supposed recognition of another form of human existence. (This is not entirely Johnson’s fault; regrettably, that phrase was in the RPCES study.)

Johnson tells us that these eunuchs within this form of humanity are “non-straight believers.” Nothing in what the Lord said recognizes these or any other eunuchs in the Bible are a new class of sexually different persons who do not fit “that creational paradigm.” The Lord in redemption does not set up different paradigms. What was wrong to assume a while ago has become right. In 2002 deviation from God’s paradigm was condemned (p. 137); now it is condoned.

Teaching Elder Johnson said in his book, “Whatever the reason, it’s wrong to assume that because God is calling a person to be single that he or she must be either gay or a loser or bitter about it all” (p. 146). That was written before Johnson informed us of his own same-sex attraction. It has lately become right ! to conclude that Jesus was speaking of non-straight believers in Matthew 19. Johnson’s personal admission has evolved into a doctrinal revision. Matthew 19 has been squeezed into the shape of his current teaching. His theology moves around as needed.

Healing a “Sexually Sickened Creation”

If anyone would like to have good, God-honoring guidance for facing severe temptation, Rev. Johnson’s book has it. In a nutshell: we must recognize sin, learn true worship, repent, claim God’s promises, and pursue the means of grace. His counsel (condensed by Linden), is spiritual and pastoral (pp. 140-146).

Does this sexual healing work? Johnson had “seen women struggling against lesbian temptations become faithful wives. I’ve known men who used to lust after other men, who do so no longer. I’ve known others who still struggle without giving up … The difference has been the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit” (p. 140; emphasis added).

But that was 2002. He pointed then to what he hoped was success – God changing hearts. Since then his point of view has changed in large measure because the men he had in mind when his book was written have all recanted their “orientation change.” Pastor Johnson expresses his great disappointment that “so many of those ex-homosexual leaders [now] have husbands or have renounced the faith.” Orientation change is dead. (On orientation, Rosaria Butterfield’s book Openness Unhindered is most helpful.)

 

The Discussion Derailed – Orientation Change Resets the Issue

Johnson resets the issue. The focus should be on living in holiness, mortifying lust through the Spirit’s work. We should not insist on orientation change (to use their language), but turn our expectation to God’s gracious transformation. (Real eunuchs are better off single.) All we ask is that the law written on our hearts by the Spirit be responded to in repentance, confession, the washing of the Word, and the cleansing of Jesus’ blood – all leading to a renewed mind (Romans 12:2). This must be the loving agenda and purpose of the church, pursued with patience and sincerity. We must not break bruised reeds. We find no demand in Scripture that all persons must have a desire to be united to a partner of the other sex. Homosexual desire is sin, but since heterosexual desire is not commanded, let us not pretend that a change to is the church’s mission, when it is a change from that is needed. The change to is simply enjoyment of the Lord and his ways, which is life itself, and marriage as well if one so chooses.

In his public announcement in his Christianity Today article, Johnson speaks of “the ongoing reality of sexual orientations that in practice seldom change.” He quotes a man in the know who said “that he has yet to identify a single instance in which same-sex orientation attraction disappeared.” All agree that old sins which once plagued us keep knocking on our doors. But to point to no growth in grace over the years is a negative testimony concerning the power of the Holy Spirit. When Rev. Johnson says, “Jesus hasn’t made me straight,” we don’t mind if he is single for all of this life, and has no desire for a woman. Then, “blessings on you, dear brother.”

But we do care if he insists that the reality of clinging lust is so deep it must be recognized as another form of human existence. We are then repulsed to hear that this deviation into unauthentic sexuality was spoken of by the Lord Jesus in rather positive terms in Matthew 19, and therefore it should be acknowledged by the rest of us as well. Same-sex desire, though a persistent temptation, should be a former sin, not a continuing domination (1 Corinthians 6:9-11). At one time in his book, Johnson said, “We can find sexual wholeness in Christ in this age.” It would be wonderful to hear that from him again. Instead, the picture emerging is that on this one, God has his hands tied – a pitiful reduction of God’s salvation.

The growing voice of “gay Christians” implies, whether they admit it or not, that the Holy Spirit (so unlike himself) seems not to challenge or make progress against certain sins. Do not believe them. The Holy Spirit does not dwell in our hearts holding hands with any sin! The doctrine Rev. Johnson confessed as his at his ordination to the ministry teaches that “the regenerate part doth overcome”:

From this doctrine we now see a departure, since homoerotic lust is apparently too strong for the Holy Spirit to handle, and not sufficiently unclean to disturb the holiness of God. The desires of the Spirit are against our flesh. The Lord says, “… Have I no power to deliver?” (Isaiah 50:2). We must return to a robust doctrine of sanctification, a work of God which Pastor Johnson used to believe was effective.

Johnson said much “back in 2002” that is helpful. It is a sorrow for us and the PCA that what he taught before is so much better than what he has said since. He could benefit from the counsel of his own book. In our home we pray daily for his return to the riches of the salvation the Lord produces in us. It would be wonderful to have him back.