I write to you in reference to reports that you are on the cusp of receiving Memorial Presbyterian in St. Louis, Missouri into your fold, along with her leadership, including her senior pastor, Greg Johnson. Before taking such action, I earnestly implore you to ponder the following four points as they reflect upon Dr. Johnson’s fitness for office among you:
[Author’s preface: Much of the material recounted here is sinful and morally-corrosive, and as I do not wish to lead you into sin even in opposing wrong (Lk. 17:1-2), I strongly counsel you to prayerfully consider whether it is advantageous for you to read what follows at all. I emphatically request that women, the young, new believers, and those especially tempted to sexual immorality refrain from reading this; and as for those who do proceed, I urge you, in the spirit of Gal. 6:1, to keep close watch on yourself lest you too be tempted, and to counteract this with a large course of holy exercises, as the reading of scripture, prayer, meditation, and wholesome fellowship.]
Dear Brothers:
I am a member of a congregation in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), and write to you in reference to reports that you are on the cusp of receiving Memorial Presbyterian in St. Louis, Missouri into your fold, along with her leadership, including her senior pastor, Greg Johnson. Before taking such action, I earnestly implore you to ponder the following four points as they reflect upon Dr. Johnson’s fitness for office among you:
- One, in an article published at the website Living Out on August 19th, 2021, Johnson subtitled one of his sections “The human propensity to f*** things up,” and elaborated:
As Francis Spufford writes, it’s ‘the human propensity to f*** things up’ that best points to the fact that Christianity still makes profound emotional sense.
Sanitized cursing is still wrong, not least since a repentant curser such as myself (and practically everyone over the age of childhood) can clearly tell what is meant. What is sinful is the opposite of what is holy, and it is the latter that God requires of all his people, but especially those who would shepherd others. Our Lord said that “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Mt. 12:34), the digital corollary of which is that it is out of the heart that the fingers type.
Actually, writing something is worse, since one can speak from fatigue or momentary emotion, but one who writes what is sinful has the opportunity to ponder whether it is appropriate to publish before doing so—and in this case saw fit to proceed. I would never write such a thing in an email at work, and would fear for my job if I did. And yet it can be used in an article professing to teach Christ’s faith? Such things “ought not to be” (Jas. 3:10).
In fact, there is a further problem with it, for Johnson quotes here what is a formal concept with Spufford, his alternative to the orthodox doctrine of sin. Spufford is an utter heretic whose point in the book quoted is that the faith cannot be known, but still makes “surprising emotional sense.”[1] (See footnote for examples of his heresies.) That is a radically different faith from the historic one taught in Scripture, yet Johnson willfully appealed to Spufford and his teaching, what is no small fault.
- Regrettably, Johnson’s unclean language appears elsewhere. In his 2021 book Still Time to Care, he writes the following, but before recounting it, I reiterate my prefatory warning and strongly counsel any readers who have no immediate role in his acceptance to skip it, for it is sorely filthy and does not tend to one’s edification.
Beginning on page 169 he has a section called “Teenage Greek Boys and the Men They Melted,” in which he ‘contextualizes’ pederasty and says things like “what can a woman do when her husband has skin silkier than hers and can snare more men?” (quoting Ovid). On p. 171 he quotes a homoerotic Greek drinking song and comments “my, how those Greek men melted.” The correspondent who brought this to my attention says that Johnson even makes a hypothetical introduction at one point that runs “Hi I’m Greg, I am a Christian and I want to build my life on receiving as much sex as I can from men, with me in the passive role,” though he neglected to mention where and I have much too high a respect for my soul to go looking for it.
Such statements are disgusting and reprehensible, and they openly violate God’s commands in Ephesians 5:3-4:
Sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving.
Indeed, I’m not sure I should even have published them here; but as you are considering him for office among you, you ought to know the true character of the man, as shown in statements such as this; for “the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil” (Matt. 12:35). Again, he knowingly chose to make such graphic sodomy jokes in the name of arguing for Christian compassion. True compassion never involves such open rebellion against God’s commands, and never clothes itself in filth (1 Cor. 13:6).
- Johnson’s church allowed its property be used for the “Transluminate” festival in 2020, which event was a “celebration of transgender, agender, non-binary, genderqueer, and genderfluid artists” and included a play about “a human [who] wants to transform into another species.” Using God’s property to give material aid to the open celebration of debauchery is as brazen a rebellion against him as when the Israelites worshipped idols in the temple. It is not evangelism, outreach, or any form of Christian ministry, but aiding and abetting those sins to which God gives people over as judgment (Rom. 1:18-32). God says it is an abomination when people adopt the dress of the opposite sex (Deut. 22:5)—shall we deem it less evil when they permanently disfigure themselves in attempting to adopt the physique of the opposite sex? Yet that was what “Transluminate” encouraged, and far from calling its participants to repentance without ensnaring their church in sin, Memorial’s leadership gladly gave their property for Transluminate’s use. People who do such things clearly have no fear of God, else they should tremble lest that wrath which he so often poured upon the Israelites (e.g., Eze. 8-9) should come also upon us.
- Johnson has not hesitated to casually slander those that disagree with him. Consider this tweet:
Laying aside the severe twisting of Gal. 2 to his own purposes in that, accusing people who disapprove one’s actions of being gospel-denying false teachers, and thereby bringing upon them the fierce condemnation of the New Testament (e.g., “for them the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved,” 2 Pet. 2:17) is a grievous slander indeed, worthy rather of Satan, the great accuser of the brethren, than of one claiming to be a grace-bearing emissary of Christ.
Now God says, “Do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses” (1 Tim. 5:19). I have given you four lines of evidence, all public, and most drawn from his own words. I’m not aware that he has repented the statements or deeds mentioned above, but even if he has, they are so numerous and of such a severe nature as to disqualify him from office. I therefore earnestly implore you not to accept this man into office among you, nor to accept that church or its other elders which standfast to him and participate in his sins.
Be wise and learn from our experience in the PCA. This man’s late tenure among us was fraught with strife, and he nearly splintered the denomination. Our Lord says to “beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves” and that we “will recognize them by their fruits” (Matt. 7:15-16). Singlehandedly embroiling the largest non-apostate Presbyterian denomination in the country in years of strife and nearly splitting it is a rotten fruit, wouldn’t you say? Should you then open the gate to the pasture to such a man, and employ him in the government of the sheep and the evaluation of future shepherds? I am hopeful that God’s grace will enable you to ponder this matter aright, but if you will not listen to my warning here but instead stiffen your necks, imagining that any of the transgressions I have mentioned above is excusable or, worse still, mistaking it for Christian ministry, then I fear for you, that this word draws nigh against you: “it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God” (1 Pet. 4:17).
Tom Hervey is a member of Woodruff Road Presbyterian Church, Five Forks/Simpsonville (Greenville Co.), SC. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not of necessity reflect those of his church or its leadership or other members. He welcomes comments at the email address provided with his name. He is also author of Reflections on the Word: Essays in Protestant Scriptural Contemplation.
[1] He says at one point that “it is a mistake to suppose that it is assent to the propositions [i.e. “of the Creed”] that makes you a believer. It is the feelings that are primary. I assent to the ideas because I have the feelings; I don’t have the feelings because I have assented to the ideas.” He subsequently says “my belief is made of, built up from, sustained by emotions like that. That’s what makes it real.” He also quotes the Quran approvingly and espouses a sort of agnosticism, saying “I don’t know that any of it is true. (And neither do you, and neither does Professor Dawkins, and neither does anybody. It isn’t the kind of thing you can know. It isn’t a knowable item.)” He disparages the intellect in favor of the emotions, saying “emotions are also our indispensable tool for navigating, for feeling our way through, the much larger domain of stuff that isn’t checkable against the physical universe.” These and further errors (inc. blasphemy and what appears to be pantheism and denials of God’s sovereignty, providence, and miracles) occur in a three page section (pp.19-21) in which he recounts feeling good listening to Mozart in a cafe after he had been up all night arguing with his wife because he committed adultery—hardly the right circumstances under which to formulate theological doctrine. (To say the very least . . .) But Johnson did not hesitate to quote him without qualification.