{"id":1250,"date":"2019-05-23T15:39:58","date_gmt":"2019-05-23T21:39:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pastormathis.com\/?p=1250"},"modified":"2019-05-23T15:40:00","modified_gmt":"2019-05-23T21:40:00","slug":"understanding-the-heinousness-of-homosexuality-from-the-confession-of-greg-johnson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/2019\/05\/23\/understanding-the-heinousness-of-homosexuality-from-the-confession-of-greg-johnson\/","title":{"rendered":"Understanding the Heinousness of Homosexuality from the Confession of Greg Johnson"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Imagine if you will\nthat your pastor comes to you and says, “I have an attraction to women who\nare not my wife but don’t worry about it brother because I’m seeking to put to\ndeath this desire.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What would you do?\nYou certainly would be shocked. And then you would think furiously about what\nto do: ask him to step down, ask him to get counseling, go to the session,\nsomething. And I doubt many, if any, would smile and do nothing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now imagine if he\nsaid instead, “I have an attraction to animals but don’t worry about it\nbrother because I’m seeking to put to death this desire.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would imagine your\nimmediate, gut response would be revulsion\u2014and rightly so. Then you would seek\nto get him help, one way or another. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now imagine your\npastor comes to you and say, “I have an attraction to men but don’t worry\nabout it brother because I’m seeking to put to death this desire.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What would you do?\nWould your reaction be the same as the first case? Or the second? Or somewhere\nin between? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, something like\nthis has happened in the case of Pastor Greg Johnson of the Presbyterian Church in America<\/a> (PCA). In an article<\/a>\nat Christianity Today, he publicly confessed his private sin of homosexuality.\nAs he described it, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“At age 46 I\u2019m still a virgin fighting a constant battle for sexual holiness. (Goodness knows, for the last 15 years I haven\u2019t been able to trust myself with an unmonitored internet connection.)”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

So how are people responding to this? We already know what many people would do according to social media. They would “celebrate his celibacy.” Or they lauded his “good and godly example.” Others responded with grief and prayer. Still others called him to step down from the ministry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But why these\ndifferent responses to the same sin? Or the different responses to the\ndifferent sins? Are not all sins bad? Are we not all sinners and so should\nrespond to our sins in the same way, with grace and mercy?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The differences\noften arise from our God-given knowledge that some sins are more heinous in the\nsight of God than others. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Westminster Shorter Catechism\nquestion 83<\/a> (a public, theological standard of the PCA) summarizes the\nimportance of distinguishing between degrees of sins, that not all sins are\nequally heinous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q. Are all transgressions of the law equally heinous?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

A. Some sins in themselves, and by reason of several aggravations, are more heinous in the sight of God than others.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Why is this\nsignificant? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because it\nhighlights a question implicitly answered by those promoting Johnson’s public\nconfession: non-practicing homosexuality is not such a heinous sin that it\nshould be kept private. A related assumption is that this sin is not such that\na minister should step down from the ministry after publicly announcing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what if a pastor\nconfessed to struggling with bestiality? Or pedophilia? I’d like to think there\nwould be a public outcry. I’d like to think there would be calls to have him\nstep down as a minister. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But is publicly\nconfessing to intense, internal struggle with homosexuality a heinous sin in\ncomparison to others we accept in the pastorate?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just asking the\nquestion illustrates how far pagan society has seeped into the churches’\ncollective psyche. This issue was not even entertained 50 years ago. For\ncenturies, legally, socially and ecclesiastically, homosexuality, practiced or\nnot, was commonly assumed to be a heinous sin, a sin against nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To the question of\nhow heinous this sin is, the Westminster\nLarger Catechism 151<\/a> sheds some light. Without going into details, three\nkey points demonstrate the seriousness of this sin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First of all, the heinousness of this sin arises “from the circumstances [of the sin]\u2026if in public, or in the presence of others, who are thereby likely to be provoked or defiled.” Public announcements of private sins are\u00a0 commonly avoided for obvious reasons. Imagine if your church treasurer announced that he\u00a0 was “money-attracted and have been my entire life.” Imagine what your church members would think and do in such a case. This problem is further compounded by the fact that Johnson’s public reputation will become less described as a minister of the Gospel (who certainly sins) and more readily known as the-pastor-that-struggles-with-homosexuality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Secondly, the heinousness of this sin arises from the “persons offending\u2026if they be of riper age, greater experience or grace, eminent for profession, gifts, place, office, guides to others, and whose example is likely to be followed by others.” Confessing this private sin (and the sin of addiction to homosexual pornography, as he admitted<\/a> in an interview last year) coupled with his age (46), his greater experience (a pastor of many years), his office (a public minister of the Gospel) and that he is a guide to others by virtue of that office and by virtue of his speaking at the celibate, homosexual Revoice <\/a> conference last year\u2014all contribute to the heinousness of this sin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lastly, the\nheinousness of sodomy arises from “the nature and quality of the\noffense.” Homosexuality is not merely a sexual sin like other sexual sins.\nDesiring the opposite sex is acceptable within marriage. Desiring the same sex\nis never<\/em> acceptable. This sin is more\nheinous than struggling with adultery. It is true that it is a private sin\u2014or\nrather it was a private struggle until he announced it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sexual attraction to\nthose of the same sex is a heinous sin. Unfortunately, this has not been the\nfirst time ministers\nhave confessed such a sin<\/a>. And I fear it will not be the last. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the church is to\nstand against the filthy deluge of the Second\nSexual Revolution<\/a>, she needs to take seriously again the truth of the\ncatechism: “Some sins in themselves, and by reason of several\naggravations, are more heinous in the sight of God than others.”<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"reddit\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Imagine if you will that your pastor comes to you<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1251,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"twitterCardType":"","cardImageID":0,"cardImage":"","cardTitle":"","cardDesc":"","cardImageAlt":"","cardPlayer":"","cardPlayerWidth":0,"cardPlayerHeight":0,"cardPlayerStream":"","cardPlayerCodec":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1250"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1253,"href":"http:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1250\/revisions\/1253"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}