It is my intention to demonstrate with these articles that Johnson’s book muddies the already muddied terminology regarding human sexuality and that he is not alone in using classic Reformed systematic-theological language in a novel manner to support his own conclusions.

Still Time to Care: Selective Quoting?
Greg Johnson’s Still Time to Care has garnered no small amount of attention since its release in early December 2021. Prominent voices in the Reformed and broader evangelical world have hailed it as the seminal text for a new era of ministry to same-sex attracted persons both within and without our churches. Out of the ashes of the ex-gay movement of the last 50 years has arisen, they say, a new (or if you ask Greg Johnson “revitalized”) paradigm of care. For a fuller treatment of the book’s contents I would heartily recommend Dr. Jonathan Master’s review. In fact, the reader may find it helpful to consult his panoramic view of the forest before reading what is my cross-sectioning of several noteworthy trees.
It is my intention to demonstrate with these articles that Johnson’s book muddies the already muddied terminology regarding human sexuality and that he is not alone in using classic Reformed systematic-theological language in a novel manner to support his own conclusions.
Throughout the book, Johnson puts what he calls “heterosexual orientation” and “homosexual orientation” side by side in an attempt to demonstrate how both are fallen, sinful orientations (139).1 Johnson is not shy in expressing his frustration with those who turn a blind eye to their own heterosexual sins and fixate instead upon the homosexual sin of others. To be sure, if a man is addicted to internet pornography, frequenting gentlemen’s clubs, or cheating on his wife, he is no place to identify specks or beams in the eyes of others when he has such a whopping beam in his own. Sexual sin is not the exclusive vice of the same-sex attracted. This is not up for debate, we are all in agreement. Men and women sin when they lust after a member of the opposite sex who is not their spouse.
As true as this is, Dr. Johnson so stresses the sinfulness of heterosexual lust that, at times, he obscures the Reformed distinction between sins that are against nature and sins that are not thereby obscuring the differing degrees of heinousness. 2 In one particular instance Johnson does so by bending the language of others to support his premise that “heterosexuality as experienced on this side of the fall is drenched in sin” (139). In the section titled “The Sinfulness of Heterosexuality This Side of the Fall” Johnson recounts the details of his interview on the CrossPolitic podcast.3
NB: What follows should in no way be construed as a defense of the people or theology represented by the CrossPolitic podcast or as a defense of others in Moscow, Idaho. Far from it. The reader should consider me squarely in the camp of those who are opposed to the pastoral abuses that have been documented and the reader should consider me opposed to the Federal Vision theology. My only intention in recounting this discussion is to demonstrate that Johnson engages in a subtle twisting of words to support his own conclusions and misconstrue the position of his discussion partners. To what end does all of this trend? To the blurring of the distinction between sins that are contrary to nature and sins that are not. In a follow up article, I will demonstrate how Johnson further blurs these lines in choosing to apply the word “disordered” both to heterosexual and homosexual lust, but never the descriptor “unnatural” to homosexual lust.
Johnson says:
I was once on a podcast with some church leaders who seemed to be of the opinion that a gay person who becomes a Christian can choose not to be attracted to member of the same sex anymore. I questioned them about their own sexual attraction to women other than their wives.4 Can you choose to turn that off? They scoffed.
“For one, heterosexual men don’t need to repent of being attracted to another woman,” one panelist said.
Another added, “Because that’s natural.”
A third agreed, “That’s the way God planned it.”
The first one then jumped in again. “What we need to repent of is being lustful” (139).
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Notes
1 My using the terms “homosexuality,” “heterosexuality,” and “orientation,” is not a wholesale endorsement of those terms. I find them problematic at a number of points. The purpose of their usage is to engage as directly as possible with Johnson’s line of argumentation.
2 See WSC Q.82 and WLC Q.151 s.3
3 The full interview can be found here. Please note that this is not an endorsement of the CrossPolitic podcast. For more on this podcast see the resources below, e.g., “The Smear Was Intentional” and “A Smear Memorialized.”
4 Please note that all emphases are my own.

Written by A.W. Workman |
Wednesday, April 24, 2024
Wolves are inevitable as the gospel advances. Jesus had Judas, the believers in Ephesus had their own fierce wolves emerge after Paul was gone (Acts 20:29). Wise believers will seek to prepare for this common danger to the church—and act when the wolves are exposed.

Some of the most painful lessons of ministry are learned when a wolf in sheep’s clothing infiltrates your church. We had a wolf once, a local man I’ll call Ahab*, and it has taken me years to know how to write about it. The things we learned from exposing him, trying to counter him, and then responding to the carnage he caused have been forever branded on my soul. Wolf attacks leave scars, along with tragic losses among the true sheep. Pray that you never have to fight off a wolf in sheep’s clothing, but if you do, may these lessons we learned from dealing with Ahab help you to spot and deal with your own wolves with both wisdom and courage.
Wolves make excellent first impressions.
The first time Ahab and his family visited our new church plant, we were thrilled. Here was a local believing husband and wife who also had believing teenage children – a true rarity in our corner of Central Asia. They were veteran believers, having come to faith nine years previous at a house church I had attended with Adam*, and later were members of another church when they’d lived in a different city. Ahab presented as a humble, happy, and wise middle-aged man from a more traditional background. But the most encouraging thing of all was how well he knew his Bible. To this day I’m not sure I’ve met another local man as well-versed in the scriptures as Ahab is. In spiritual conversation, Ahab demonstrated a deep knowledge of the Word. He had a thoughtful, serious personality, but he was also very fatherly, especially with small children. Our kids adored him with his affectionate greetings and gifts of cookies and pomegranate flowers.
Ahab’s sheep costume was (almost) flawless. Wolves will indeed show up wearing very convincing disguises (Matt 7:15).
Wolves come with mixed reputations.
As soon as another missionary heard that Ahab and his family were attending our group, he warned us about him, telling us that Ahab and his wife had in previous years recanted their faith and returned to Islam, in order to receive financial gain. Apparently, there were pictures of them embracing a Qur’an next a smiling Islamic leader that proved this. This missionary also said that the family’s relationship with the Christians in their previous city had broken down completely and they had deceived and burned lots of people. The problem with this intel was that that generation of local believers was positively shot through with division and broken relationships and we also didn’t trust this missionary’s theological discernment. He had recently written off male-female roles in ministry as something that didn’t really matter, among other theological and ministry positions that felt so, well, “evangellyfish.” And we were newly partnering with another missionary who seemed to have more of a theological spine. He had been recently investing in Ahab’s family – and claiming to see evidence of true repentance and growth.
Our mistake here was assuming that a lack of theological likemindedness meant a lack of character discernment on the part of this other missionary – and that better alignment with our new partner meant he was correctly discerning Ahab’s character. These assumptions were dead wrong.
A wolf’s character cannot be hidden indefinitely. Their predatory heart will periodically emerge in predatory actions (Matt 7:16). This means that, like Ahab, wolves will tend to have a controversial past.
Wolves get deeply involved in the ministry and show great potential.
We confronted Ahab about these claims of past apostasy and you couldn’t ask for a more (seemingly) humble and genuinely repentant response than the one he gave us. He admitted that the apostasy was true, but short-lived, and claimed to have already repented to everyone of this dark season in their life, and that he was willing to do whatever it took to demonstrate that repentance to us. Given our biases about the missionaries involved, we took Ahab at his word and pressed forward, encouraged.
Ahab soon became deeply invested in our house church. His family were the most faithful and some of the most engaged attendees. They introduced Frank and Patty to our group and even led them to faith. We were so encouraged to finally have some local believers who were committed to gathering weekly with the saints. Ahab soon offered his own home for our house church services and we quickly took him up on his offer. Our team leader was on furlough and pushing us to get the church meetings out of our own homes and into locals’ as soon as possible. This was viewed as one key toward reproducibility. So, all parties involved were thrilled when we moved the weekly service into Ahab’s home. It didn’t take long for Ahab to begin helping us with leading the prayer time and for us to invite him to join our weekly sermon-prep study with Harry*, the other local brother showing leadership potential. This was a weekly gathering that served as a place to invest in men who could be future leaders of the church.
Wolves tend to have a solid season of deep investment in the local church. This is how they build trust and gain influence.
Wolves are unpredictably harsh and judgmental.
Every once in a while, Ahab would lash out in harsh and judgmental language when speaking of other local believers, pastors, or missionaries. These statements seemed inconsistent with his measured, wise speech that we typically observed. The tone of these outbursts seemed like it didn’t match the level of the offense nor the grace of the gospel that Ahab professed to be walking in. We took note of this, but viewed it as a discipleship issue that we’d need to help him with over time. In hindsight, it was evidence of secret sin brewing.
Like Judas lashing out at the woman’s gift of pure nard (John 12:5), wolves will sometimes let their true character show via harsh and surprisingly judgmental takes on other believers. This is evidence that there are some very bad things going on in their hearts.
Wolves are followed by lots of smoke, but expertly hide the fire.
Ahab and his family’s mixed reputation seemed to follow them like a cloud of gnats they could never quite get rid of. Regularly, we’d hear serious concerns expressed by other missionaries or local believers that just didn’t seem to match what we were seeing with our own eyes. Ahab was one of our promising leaders in training, and nothing that we had witnessed ourselves gave us any solid evidence for the claims being regularly made by those outside of our church plant. But the claims just kept on coming. Surely, Ahab couldn’t be deceiving us so effectively. It must be the other missionaries and believers from other local groups. After all, they were unclear and squishy when it came to the gospel, true conversion, and healthy church, so they must have been confused about Ahab also.
As the wisdom of our forbears says, where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Wolves can’t hide all the smoke they generate, but for a time they can expertly conceal the fire from those that they are focused on deceiving. Wise gospel laborers will keep an eye on men whose lives generate an unusual amount of proverbial smoke.
Wolves secretly divide the flock and the leadership for personal gain.
“Is Ahab a good man?”
“Yes, he is a faithful member of our church. Why do you ask this?”
“Well, he approached me this week and told me to keep my distance from all you foreigners. He told me not to trust you, but to trust him. Listen, I left Islam to get away from this kind of petty division. If Christianity is no different, then I don’t think I want to be involved with you all.”
This conversation over dinner with a new believer was a turning point for me and my wife. We had been hearing of a lot of smoke, but here at last was something solid, and very concerning. Ahab had allegedly approached a promising new believer in secret and sought to sow division in the church. This new believer didn’t seem to have any advantage in mentioning this to us, but rather to be honestly asking about something that concerned him. Soon other evidence emerged that Ahab was secretly building personal loyalty with other new believers in the church, creating a faction of sorts. He seemed to be doing this by telling the new believers that we foreigners (and me in particular) were receiving fabulous amounts of money for baptisms and that we were withholding funds that were sent for local believers. He was making promises to the other locals that he knew how to get them access to ministry salaries, Christian conferences, and visas to Western countries.
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Society has changed radically, even in the last five years. If Christians do not understand where all this is coming from and have not been taught to assess this movement biblically how will they know what to say? 

Why we need to open our eyes.
The Catholic writer Noelle Mering gives a helpful and succinct definition of ‘Woke’. She writes: ‘The term woke refers to the state of being alert and attuned to layers of oppression in society’. It is about being on the side of those who are or who see themselves as marginalised and discriminated against. Does that ring any bells for us? Surely, it reminds us of Jesus.
But then it gets subverted. While it began specifically and rightly with racism in mind, it has since broadened its scope to take in other areas where there is now commonly considered to be oppression – including questions of gender, transgender and sexual orientation. This becomes not just a mixed bag, but a can of worms for Christians. As just one indicator of how ‘Woke’ has been mis-focused, it is worth noting that although it is meant to be fighting for justice in society, as far as I know, it has little or nothing to say directly about poverty. The kinds of oppression with which it is concerned are quite selective in a 21st century, libertarian kind of way.
Why do pastors need to be teaching God’s people from Scripture on this subject? And why is it a very urgent matter? Let me give you three reasons.
Woke Power
The Woke agenda is now calling the shots in vast areas of our nation’s political, cultural, educational and working life.
That means that many of those in our congregations are having to confront ‘Woke’ issues in their daily working lives. Many Christians are expected, for example, to join in ‘gay pride’ week at the supermarket where they work. Is that okay? The pervasive influence of ‘Woke’ means that many parents are finding their children coming home from school having met up with a biological girl who is presenting as a boy – and vice versa. How is a parent to handle this?
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