My own journey with those who call themselves “gay” is unique. It began in 1992 with a woman I had met in college through a vibrant campus ministry. We got to know each other and later married while she was studying social work at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS). Four months into the marriage, she filed for divorce to pursue a lesbian relationship.
After she left the marriage and moved in with the woman, SBTS graduated her with honors. This all happened when actual “progressives” controlled the school and its culture, before Al Mohler assumed leadership at SBTS.
Following all this, I called Wallace Anderson, then the admissions director at Covenant Seminary, where I had enrolled for the following fall. The plan was to inform Wallace that I would no longer be attending Covenant, because surely no seminary or future church would want a divorced man with a story like mine.
Wallace did not agree. Instead, he urged me to come to Covenant one semester early, not only to study but also to heal and rediscover my calling to ministry. With $800 to my name and a bruised heart, I took his advice. In retrospect, I’m very glad I did.
For the next four years, several men took interest in me. Bryan Chapell, who became the seminary’s president during my time there, invited me into the life of his family. Bryan, Kathy, Colin, Jordan, Corinne, and Kaitlin even treated me to dinner at Fuddruckers a time or two. Even with his busy schedule, Bryan never turned down my many requests to meet. His help along the healing path was meaningful.
Dan Doriani also invited me into the life of his family and onto the tennis court, where we would become doubles partners and even win a city championship. Between matches, he, Debbie, Abigail, Sarah, and Beth welcomed me like family. Dan also helped me understand that from a biblical and theological perspective, future marriage and ministry were still good options. A year before my graduation, Dan would officiate my wedding to Patti, my wife and ministry partner of 27 years now and the mother of our two adult daughters. The Lord has been kind to us.
As Bryan and Dan gave me the gifts of time and family, Jerram Barrs gave me the gift of perspective about how God’s grace works in human relationships. Jerram’s empathetic care, combined with his marvelous courses on apologetics, evangelism, pastoral ministry, and the life of Francis Schaeffer, helped me understand what it meant to forgive as God in Christ has forgiven me. Jerram taught me that everyone, including the woman who had hurt me, is fighting a hard, hidden battle that impacts their life choices. Forgiving her was only the first step for a Christian man in my shoes.
When I graduated from Covenant, the guest speaker was Albert Mohler. In a few short years, Mohler had transformed SBTS; the seminary now affirmed biblical marriage and sexuality. It also equipped theologians, missionaries, and pastors from a more Reformed, orthodox perspective. This full circle moment, in which he urged my classmates and me to “preach the Word, in season and out of season,” felt like a kiss from God.I do not share these parts of my story to draw attention to myself, but only to give context for why I and others desire that the PCA be a biblically orthodox, loneliness-defeating haven of support and care, especially for those who bear the burden of living alone. This includes same-sex attracted men, women, and ministers who need support, just like someone recovering from alcoholism, gossip, racism, smugness, or greed does, in their endeavor to trust and obey Christ.
PCA at a Crossroads of Opportunity
The PCA is at a crossroads. On one side of our denomination there are folks who, zealous for applied grace, emphasize patience, empathy, and supportive community for our same-sex attracted brothers and sisters.
On the other side are folks who, zealous for applied truth, emphasize moral vigilance and clear boundaries to ensure that the PCA doesn’t fall off a slippery slope into liberalism, or what some have called “gay Christianity.”
To be clear, the men, women, and ministers we are talking about here are Christians who (1) experience unwanted same-sex attraction, (2) have not had those desires removed completely, (3) have shown with their lives that their desire to obey God exceeds their same sex desire, and (4) in the spirit of “confessing sins, one to another, that [they] may be healed,” long to speak openly about their struggle, be welcomed by our churches, and become less vulnerable through welcoming, charitable, nonjudgmental, supportive, accountable Christian community.
The AIC Report was intended to encourage and advance a spirit of truth and grace, law and love, conviction and compassion, repentance, and kindness amongst us all.
The purpose of this essay is to register my strong opinion that the Report of the Ad-Interim Committee on Human Sexuality (AIC Report) has paved the way for those on the “left” and “right” edges of our denomination, plus all others in between, to pursue a kind of unity and peace that we have struggled to achieve thus far.
According to its contributors, the AIC Report was intended to encourage and advance a spirit of truth and grace, law and love, conviction and compassion, repentance, and kindness amongst us all. The Report preferred the Calvinistic over the Catholic view of same-sex (and all other sinful) desires and attractions, declaring that they are sinful even if not acted upon. The Report advised pastorally against calling oneself a “gay Christian” and added that if a Christian was abiding by the biblical sex ethic, we should not police their terminology or seek to exclude them (Statements 9 and 10).
Remarkably, the 2021 General Assembly affirmed the AIC Report (including Statements 9 and 10) overwhelmingly, with near unanimity. Likewise, the Standing Judicial Commission voted overwhelmingly not to sustain charges against Greg Johnson, who, as a PCA minister in good standing who struggles with same-sex attraction, has been a focal point of this conversation.
These decisions notwithstanding, the unrest and division in the PCA has not ceased but has instead reached a fever pitch. This is especially true on social media and in the blogosphere (I appreciate the irony that this very essay is a blog post that will be shared on social media). It is also true in our churches and presbyteries, who have collectively prepared, on either side of the conversation, fresh overtures to be considered at the June 2022 General Assembly.
Anticipating the Assembly, I want to urge my brothers, my fathers, and especially myself to consider how overwhelmingly unanimous the last Assembly was in affirming the AIC Report, including Statements 9 and 10 as stated above. With this, I want to also urge restraint when any of us is tempted to exaggerate the presumed errors and threat of “the other side.”
For National Partnership (NP) Sympathizers
For those who (1) feel most at home with the National Partnership, (2) appreciate how the AIC cautions against policing gay terminology for our faithfully chaste, same-sex attracted brothers and sisters, (3) are compelled by Paul’s contextualizing practices as seen in Acts 17:16-34, and (4) intend to “welcome sinners and eat with them,” even if it puts them at risk of being misunderstood and maligned as Christ was for doing the same (Luke 15:1-2), I respectfully encourage the following:
- Don’t dismiss those who caution about slipping into moral compromise. All of us are capable of doing so. We need only to remember that one West Coast, former PCA church is now fully and proudly “affirming” of behaviors and doctrines condemned by Scripture. Those who urge caution should be received as a helpful smelling salt to our fellowship, not as an irritant.“Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed, lest he fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12).
- Resist the urge to negatively label or caricature those who see and minister differently than you do. Here and now, begin purging all charged, pejorative words and terminology such as “legalistic” or “moralistic” or “right wing” or “fundamentalist” or “TR” from your vocabulary when speaking of your concerned brothers and sisters.“Love…believes all things” (1 Corinthians 13:7).
- If you feel that you are being unfairly labeled or caricatured, resist every urge to punch back with insults or gossip. Instead, seek private conversation with your critic(s) to pursue mutual understanding. Look carefully for and be humbled by potential hints of truth in their critique. Don’t miss an opportunity to repent if you have sinned, or to refine your approach where moral clarity, understanding, and care may be lacking.
Speaking of, although we don’t fully agree on everything, a few of our brothers in the Gospel Reformation Network (GRN) have helped me achieve better clarity in some of my terminology, lest any lack of clarity cause what I have always believed about sex, singleness, and marriage to be misconstrued. Specifically, they have helped me see the importance de-coupling words like “gay” and “Christian” from one another, especially because of how misleading these words, when paired together, can become. When words like “gay” are coupled with the word “Christian,” it risks branding our faith in a way that potentially sows division, creates confusion, and opens a door for moral compromise. Inasmuch as there is a slope that slips toward strident moralism, there is also, potentially, a slope that slips toward imprudent indulgence.Likewise, as my friend Rosaria Butterfield has helped me consider, even if progressive sanctification happens only at a snail’s pace and over a lifetime, messaging that risks treating “gayness” as an immutable, neutral personality trait versus an indwelling sin to be reckoned with is ill advised, as the AIC Report states.
“Each one of you says, ‘I follow Paul,’ or ‘I follow Apollos,’ or ‘I follow Cephas,’ or ‘I follow Christ.’ Is Christ divided?” (1 Corinthians 1:12-13).
For Gospel Reformation Network (GRN) Sympathizers
For my brothers who (1) feel most at home with the GRN, (2) appreciate how the AIC Report urges mortification of sinful desire and any self-identifying language that couples gay terminology with “Christian,” (3) are serious about Paul’s emphasis on progressive sanctification and “watching our life and doctrine closely,” and (4) want to be known as those who stand firm for God’s truth, even if at times it draws unfair critique about being strident or uncaring, I respectfully encourage the following:
- Consider not only the vocabulary, but especially the conduct of life, that our same-sex attracted brothers and sisters demonstrate. In saying “no” to the flesh and “yes” to chastity and the biblical sex and marriage ethic, in most cases these men and women prove daily that their truest, deepest desire is not to indulge the flesh but to mortify it and obey Christ. Ultimately, faithfulness is revealed not by the absence of sexual temptation, but by the presence of obedient surrender.“Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me” (John 14:21).
- Resist the urge to negatively label or caricature those who see and minister differently than you do. Begin purging all charged, pejorative words and terminology such as “licentious” or “compromised” or “liberal” or “woke” or “progressive” from your vocabulary when speaking of our brothers and sisters who are sympathetic to the same-sex struggle. Remember that there are exactly zero known PCA teaching or ruling elders who deny the biblical sex and marriage ethic. There are also exactly zero known TE’s or RE’s who support the path taken by the former PCA church on the West Coast. There is no such thing as an actual “PCA progressive” if by progressive we mean “biblically unfaithful” or “compromising truth to make deals with the culture.”“Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32).
- Resist every urge to mischaracterize your brothers and sisters to score political points, stir up the base, fuel fear and suspicion, or win votes. False means are never justified in the pursuit of desired ends. To pejoratively label any PCA teaching or ruling elder as “progressive” is misinformed at best and deceptive at worst. Assigning words or beliefs to others that they do not recognize in themselves, or publicizing untrue or misleading representations of them, ought to be denounced and abandoned. Perhaps the best safeguard against this temptation is to ask those we are critiquing if, from their own point of view, we are representing them accurately. In every debate, we must state an opponent’s position in such a way that he or she would affirm, “That’s exactly what I believe. I couldn’t have said it better myself.”“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor” (Exodus 20:16).
I realize, with a degree of trepidation, that this essay will elicit different responses from different folks. Whatever the case, I hope it can in some way help contribute to the heart, tone, and integrity of the upcoming Assembly and beyond.
May the Lord’s kindness be upon us all. And wherever a deeper humility and repentance is called for, may his kindness lead us there. Let it start with me.
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