A Sad Day for the PCA

By Tim LeCroy, November 19, 2022.

It’s a sad day for the PCA today. Memorial Presbyterian Church and her pastor, Dr. Greg Johnson have been bullied out of the denomination. Years of attacks have at last left them to decide that it was better for their mission to leave than to stay. I can hardly blame them.

Memorial and Pastor Johnson tried to get people to listen to explanations of their ministries and their theology. Those explanations satisfied the Standing Judicial Commission of the PCA. The SJC listened carefully and weighed facts and evidence. They listened as he confessed missteps and admitted regret for some actions. Many ears in the PCA, however, were stopped. They wanted Greg Johnson and Memorial out of the denomination. Today, they have their wish.

That is not to say that there weren’t many people of good will with honest concerns and questions. Some of these folks pursued their concerns and questions in the right way: by engaging in honest dialogue, following Presbyterian process, and seeking to understand and believe the best about Johnson and Memorial. Some of these folks were persuaded of the overall orthodoxy of Johnson while holding some valid concerns. Others, while not persuaded, continued to engage in an honest and charitable way. 

But a vast majority of the heat coming at Pastor Johnson and Memorial Presbyterian was not charitable or loving or Presbyterian. It was relentlessly stirred up by those who were communicating an array of false information. I have personally confronted dozens of people online, many of them pastors and elders, who were spreading false information: that Johnson, doesn’t believe homosexual temptation is a sin, that he denies sanctification, that he says that homosexuals can never change, that he calls himself a gay Christian, that he identifies with his sin; that the PCA is ordaining unrepentant homosexuals, that the courts of the PCA have gone liberal and are ineffective to engage in true church discipline, that there are those in the PCA who are advocating for celibate partnerships. None of these are true, but they were repeated over and over. When confronted, many of these ordained men refused to acknowledge their error and continued to repeat the lies. These lies were printed in The Aquila Report, The Gospel Reformation Network, and Reformation 21, and were uttered on Presbycast. When confronted with these falsehoods the editors of these websites and podcasts refused to take them down or retract them. They instead doubled down on the lies and upped their intensity. These lies were repeated at church conferences and from pulpits. They were uttered in speeches before presbyteries and the General Assembly. They were parroted on social media more times than can be counted. They were disseminated on blogs, podcasts, and radio programs. They were argued before the SJC. These lies were spread by massive email marketing campaigns inviting elders to attend a pre-GA conference where they would hear more of the lies. I have confronted all of these people directly. They stopped their ears against any just defense. Many times they refused to even write me back. [1]

I believe there will be a reckoning for all these lies. For those who have won this battle, this is not the way battles should be won in the Church of Jesus Christ.

This is not to say that there weren’t valid concerns and frustrations with Pastor Johnson and Memorial. I have personally been frustrated with decisions they’ve made and particularly the way they carried them out and communicated them. But they know this because I’ve told them directly. They knew that I loved them and that I communicated those things in love. Yet, none of my frustrations or concerns amounted to the level of heretical belief or practice. They were at the level of things that myself and others believed were unwise and unhelpful, but not worthy of censure or excommunication. One of the things I was most frustrated with them about was the way they handled their “The Chapel” arts ministry even after myself and other brothers of good will asked them to consider a different path. But most of my frustrations about the way Pastor Johnson and Memorial communicated things arose from the fact that they had made a decision to focus their ministry on the lost and expected mature believers to read the nuance in the things they said and did. But understanding of nuance is not something one can expect these days. These days nuance is treated as the enemy of the truth.

The fact of the matter is that Memorial Presbyterian Church is a historic congregation that has over a century and a half of continued faithfulness to the gospel of Jesus Christ. They have been faithful to the teachings of the Westminster Standards. I actually learned from Pastor Johnson as I represented Missouri Presbytery to the SJC and defended his views. In that process he taught me a great deal about what Westminster teaches about sin, temptation, repentance, and sanctification. I am more confessional because of him. Their much maligned ministry to same-sex attracted persons was faithful to the scriptures and our Reformed teachings. Were they perfect? No. But they were reaching out in love to the lost and giving them a place to belong. That we found no way to commend this is to our everlasting shame.

Today is a sad day in the PCA because a faithful and historic church has been pushed out. It is a sad day because a faithful minister of the gospel has exited rather than endure the vitriol. It is a sad day because with their departure and the likely passage of overture 15, the PCA is no longer a safe place for same-sex attracted persons to honestly wrestle with their sin and calling to follow Jesus. 

Frankly, it is no longer a place for anyone to safely struggle with sin. In our effort to excise a benign lump we have nuked the entire body, doing grave damage to the hope of grace and the freedom of the gospel.

And beware, PCA, of whom the far right of our denomination will turn toward next. Do you have women reading scripture or praying in church? Watch out! Do you have unordained women serving as deaconesses? Do you practice the church year or engage in other worship practices that do not adhere to a restrictive reading of the Regulative Principle? Does your church have an arts ministry? Do you believe in the existence of systematic racism or the need for social justice work in the church? Do you have any exceptions to the Westminster Standards? Beware! These are things they have signaled that they are coming after next. [2]

Where will it stop? If lies and twisting of our theology can be used to run one faithful church and minister out of the PCA, who's to say it will stop there? Can the monster we’ve unleashed be put back in the cage?

It’s a sad day for the PCA today, on which there ought to be repentance and mourning. Not only for what it means that we are, but for what it means we are becoming.

[1] For more details on these claims, see this previous article: https://pastortimlecroy.com/2021/06/23/misconceptions-about-homosexuality-in-the-pca/
[2] See the following for two examples signaling what’s next: https://gospelreformation.net/grn-fall-gathering/; https://gospelreformation.net/the-courage-to-be-presbyterian/.