Pastor 1 has rightly been defrocked. Even apart from the relationship, I think it’s hard to square his other behaviors with the requirements for pastors given in Scripture. We need to become far more serious than we have been about corruption, starting with the actual real enforcement of all the Pauline and Petrine demands for pastoral qualification. My point is not to minimize the evils of corruption, then, but rather to note that even if it sometimes seems as if corruption is the norm, there still remain many faithful pastors. 

I’m thinking a lot about three pastors this week.
Pastor 1 is in his early 70s and recently was removed from ministry due to a five-year long relationship with a woman in her 20s that was not sexual in nature, but was still a violation of the pastor’s wedding vows.
Prior to being defrocked he worked for a nonprofit that he ran and that paid him $150,000 annually with an additional $100,000 paid “by the organization or other related organizations,” according to tax filings while claiming he worked for them 40 hours a week. We can’t view his church’s financials, obviously, but one imagines the church paid him a wage and also expected that he worked 40 hours a week there—which raises the question of how a man in his 70s is logging 80 hour weeks.
It would also mean that the man was making, at minimum, $250,000 annually from ministry, if the $100,000 supplemental income on the tax form is from the church. Or it might also mean that he made $250,000 from the non-profit, with the church salary (and book royalties and speaking gigs) layered on top of that.
This, incidentally, is what Carl Trueman had in mind when he coined the term “big eva.” Trueman specifically had in view pastors who become internet brands, become largely divorced from the work of shepherding in local churches, and who become surrogate pastors for Christians who spend too much time online and too little in their local church. (This old piece from the Baylys, by the way, is helpful for learning a bit about how ministry finances often work in the evangelical world.)
Even before the inappropriate relationship was known, this first pastor had a reputation for being a rather expensive and “high-maintenance” speaker with “very, very unusual food requirements,” as one acquaintance of his put it on social media. He reportedly would demand to be taken to stores that sell thousand dollar pens on certain trips, and also had highly specific requirements regarding wardrobe, including what brands of suit he wears and even specific ties he would wear.
You know pastor 1’s name, which is why I’m not bothering to say it here. What’s worse, you probably know a number of other pastors that fit this profile. I certainly do. But if that’s all you know about American church life, you know something true, but you also know too little.
Pastor 2 is in his early to mid 60s. He recently decided to step down from his senior pastor role in a church of 250 after nearly 35 years in the church and around 30 years as the senior pastor, faithfully and quietly shepherding a congregation, preaching the Word, and administering the sacraments. In that time, he’s helped plant two churches and launch an RUF. Now one of the churches he helped plant is planting and there may be a further plant happening in the medium-term future.
During his career he has pastored his congregation through two building fires and a move after the first fire destroyed their building. He has dealt with many complicated shepherding cases in his own congregation and in the presbytery.
He has sent dozens of people to seminary over the years and is known and respected amongst staff at the seminary where he graduated and where he has sent many people as students.
He has also been instrumental in helping the presbytery become a far healthier place. He has sought to create an atmosphere of care and trust amongst the presbytery’s teaching elders and has been remarkably successful in that, insuring that the men called to ministry there all recognize one another as brothers, are all praying for each other, and trust the basic virtue, theological soundness, and good will of their fellow pastors. That sounds like it should be the norm, but in too many places it isn’t.
He has done all of this without any notable scandal in his household and while faithfully caring for his family.
He’s stepping down so that he’s able to care better for his in-laws and mother, all of whom are in their 80s or 90s and in poor health. But he’s still staying active in ministry, just in a less senior role.
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The issue arose because Greg Johnson, the Presbyterian pastor of Memorial Presbyterian in St. Louis who says he is homosexual but celibate, left the Presbyterian Church in America in 2022. Now his church wants to join the EPC. “That has stirred up all kinds of controversy because we’ve got some in the EPC that appear to be very open to bringing him into the EPC, and we’ve got other groups that are absolutely opposed to him coming into the EPC.”

A storm is brewing in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC) and a “meaningful group of churches” are considering other options, according to Pastor Nate Atwood, the pastor of St. Giles Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, N.C.
Atwood has been involved in the EPC since 1988 and held several leadership roles, including serving as moderator of the General Assembly. He says there is a “crisis of confidence in the current stated clerk, moderator, and leadership team” after an overture concerning same-sex-attracted pastors never made it to the floor of the General Assembly this summer.
Now an issue involving a Pittsburgh church—Beverly Heights Presbyterian Church—is raising more questions about whether the denomination is going to follow its original vision. Beverly Heights is trying to leave the EPC following the stated process, but has clashed repeatedly with the Presbytery, culminating in a civil suit.
According to Atwood, the original vision of the EPC when it was founded in 1981 was to be a Biblical, evangelical, constitutional, and Reformed denomination.
Recent events have raised questions about several of those commitments, Atwood explained, including whether denominational leaders will follow processes outlined in the EPC Book of Order.
An overture presented unanimously by the New River Presbytery—composed of 39 churches—proposed an amendment to the denomination’s Book of Government. “Men and women who identify as homosexual, even those who identify as homosexual and claim to practice celibacy in that self-identification, are disqualified from holding office in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church.”
The issue arose because Greg Johnson, the Presbyterian pastor of Memorial Presbyterian in St. Louis who says he is homosexual but celibate, left the Presbyterian Church in America in 2022.
Now his church wants to join the EPC. “That has stirred up all kinds of controversy because we’ve got some in the EPC that appear to be very open to bringing him into the EPC, and we’ve got other groups that are absolutely opposed to him coming into the EPC,” Donald Fortson, professor of church history and pastoral theology emeritus at Reformed Theological Seminary and long-time EPC member, told Christianity Today.
Normally, when an overture is presented, it goes to the permanent judicial commission (PJC) for examination to ensure it is clear and fits with the church’s constitution and its confession (the Westminster Confession of Faith.) If there is an issue with the overture, the PJC explains the issue and goes back to the presenters with a suggested cure, Atwood said.
In this instance, by a vote of 5 to 4, the PJC claimed the overture was not valid and offered no explanation or cure. Atwood called their action “high-handed and imperious” and a “catastrophic failure of their constitutional duties.”
Instead, the New River leaders, realizing their overture would not be allowed on the floor of the General Assembly for discussion and a vote, agreed to a two-year study of the issue.
Meanwhile, attention toward Beverly Heights’ departure crisis is growing. Observers, like Atwood, are wondering if the presbytery leadership will use strong arm tactics or will follow the proper constitutional protections afforded to churches in the EPC.
According to Beverly Heights Pastor Dr. Nate Devlin, the church that has been part of the EPC since 2007 began the separation process from the denomination in October 2023. An open letter explains the church’s view of events since the separation process began.
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