Written by Robert A. J. Gagnon |
Monday, April 17, 2023
“Embracing the Journey” has all the earmarks of being a stealth gay/transgender front organization, and an exemplar of deception, doublespeak, and egregious proof-texting. There is a reason why they avoid direct statements about their view that Scripture isn’t addressing committed homosexual relationships and an “authentic” transgender life: They want to attract conservative parents who start with a position akin to that of Jesus and Scripture, and then convince them to abandon the tension of truth-in-love in favor of a distorted view of love.
“Embracing the Journey: A Christian Parents’ Blueprint to Loving Your LGBTQ Child” by Greg and Lynn McDonald
I’m starting to read Embracing the Journey: A Christian Parents’ Blueprint to Loving Your LGBTQ Child* by Greg and Lynn McDonald. As I noted in a prior post, their organization by the same name is putting on a conference at Andy Stanley’s church in September, and has a “chapter” at Saddleback Church (Rick Warren’s old church).
It has all the earmarks of being a stealth gay/transgender front organization, and an exemplar of deception, doublespeak, and egregious proof-texting. There is a reason why they avoid direct statements about their view that Scripture isn’t addressing committed homosexual relationships and an “authentic” transgender life: They want to attract conservative parents who start with a position akin to that of Jesus and Scripture, and then convince them to abandon the tension of truth-in-love in favor of a distorted view of love.
Remember to compare whatever someone claims with respect to treating someone engaged in homosexual activity to how one should respond to someone engaged in adult-committed incest, then polyamory.
The McDonalds say in their book that they don’t “tackle many hot topics” in their book like what the Bible says about homosexual practice (though they have their own opinion), because “thriving isn’t about being right.” “There was a time, not so long ago, when the world seemed black and white to us … ‘right’ or ‘wrong’” (207; RG: like their stance on incest and polyamory?).
They were “released … from the idea that everything is either/or” when a pastor told them that between God’s creation of day and night are “gray periods” of dusk and dawn; between the land and sea God created are the unmentioned “streams, lakes, and rivers” which are not “less biblical than the oceans.” In other words, embrace the shades of gray entailed in “LGBTQ” propaganda. While you are at it, embrace the shades of gray involving idolatry and other forms of sexual immorality.
They do recommend that if the reader wants more “guidance about issues related to the LGBTQ community” they can go to “the resources list on our website,” where incidentally they will find no books that make the biblical case for a male-female requirement for sexual relationships. They will find plenty of “resources” that promote committed homosexual relationships, like books by Justin Lee, Matthew Vines, David Gushee, Kathy Baldock, Debbie Causey, John Pavlovitz, and Andrew Marin. You certainly won’t find any of my work recommended there, or even the diluted work of Preston Sprinkle.
The McDonalds assure their readers: Just “love God, and love another. We leave the rest to the Holy Spirit.” What do you mean? You leave incest, polyamory, and idolatry to the Holy Spirit and don’t concern yourselves with whether these things are right or wrong? Applied to other areas where Scripture is clear (and the scriptural position on a male-female prerequisite for sexual relations is the clearest of all sexual-ethic concerns in the Bible) it would mean abandoning biblical clarity and drifting towards acceptance and promotion.
They address the issue of thriving, where they simply assume without any biblical basis whatsoever that thriving never involves exhorting people to depart from a life of sin, in short, to repent; even though this is a staple of the preaching and teaching of Jesus, Paul, and all NT writers. There is a reason why Mark summarizes Jesus’ entire message as “The Kingdom of God has come near: Repent and believe in the gospel” (1:15). True love always entails a call to repentance, with warnings, when a person holds beliefs or engages in behavior that could lead to their exclusion from God’s kingdom.
Yet for the McDonalds thriving involves “losing a lot of our old ideas about religion,” when you stop feeling a need to talk about someone else’s sin (because that would make you better than someone else, which is wrong), giving up the need to fix others, avoiding those who “will choose judgment” and “reject your efforts to love” (210-12).
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Written by Benjamin T. Inman |
Friday, February 24, 2023
We need the outwards means that Christ actually uses. Where has he put his promises? How does he give us the benefits of redemption? It is appalling to assert that sanctification by faith urgently needs something other than what Christ has appointed. This is about how is it even possible, and how is it actually accomplished– that faith in Christ can deliver us from fruitless lives of being “anything but faithful, self-denying, cross-bearing Christians.”

That was Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday. My special needs daughter’s trainer gave her some red beads in the morning. That was kind of one, and delightful to both. We didn’t discuss penitential practices, or the twisted reliability of the-day-before-lent. Just a day on the calendar. Just shiny beads. Yes, I thanked her.
The next day I drove into town, past the Anglican Church: “Ash Wednesday: Drive-Thru hours 12-1 pm and 4-5 pm, Service at 5:30.” I’m new in this town and haven’t yet met the priest. I have only done some drive-by praying. I have no idea what to make of that sign. Somebody’s circus, somebody’s monkeys. For that clergy in that building, it was most certainly Ash Wednesday. What does it mean for them on Thursday?
Thursday is the day when I think about my two dear Anglican brothers. I think. I do not text the thought, though it would make them laugh. I am not making light of their discipleship. I know they think of me on this day too– fond thoughts edging over towards how immovable I am on this stuff. It’s me; it’s Thursday; it’s not a big deal; it just won’t budge.
But then, I read this from a fellow minister in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). He and I have communicated about my concerns before. He wrote this originally for all and sundry, though now he publishes it again for the members of his new congregation. He explains that ashes for repentance is something people actually did when open fires were ubiquitous to civilization. Perhaps today we would follow their example by licking an electrical outlet. Or we could anoint with embalming fluid. He carefully acknowledges that what we now do at the drive thru only emerged in the 11th century. He then goes on to speak of embodied rituals and their necessity for our sanctification.
He is not fooling around; he knows that it is an old practice, not an ancient practice. Accordingly, his reflection produces a flexible conclusion: this is like something seen in the Bible, and a lot of professing Christians have done it in the past– so, it is okey-dokey but not mandatory for congregations to do it now. Perhaps his session promulgates this ritual for those under their care. Perhaps he performs it in his office as their pastor. Perhaps some of them do not participate. This is an elective practice for Christians. No, not in the Bible, but cherished by some people who have high regard for the Bible. It is more than naming a day, but also less.
What’s The Problem?
Easter. Lent. Fat Tuesday. Ash Wednesday. I even made up my own name for Thursday. This is not about naming days. This is not about despising disciples in earlier centuries from whom we have received the legacy of their tenacity. I am not scandalized or deprived of a gleam of my thankful wonder by thinking that the people who blessed me did some stupid stuff. I am encouraged to think some folks may regard me similarly. I’m not bent out of shape because “that is not a very presbyterian thing to do.” Let all the jerseys be so smeared with mud and blood, that we can’t discriminate with our comments from the sidelines. There are differences and details, but don’t muck around like this:
We live in a culture that is constantly barraging us with rituals. We are moved along like sheep by the media and other forces. We participate in the Super Bowl, an event that is laden with ritual. We do Fourth of July, Presidents’ Day, Memorial Day – and most of these rituals involve opening up the pocket book to buy things. We participate in sporting events of all kinds, which are rituals. We do Valentine’s day, Mother’s Day, and Father’s Day – all rituals. And yet even though our secular culture hits us with rituals all day long, seven days a week, and twice on Sunday, many of us Protestants and Evangelicals are wary of rituals in the church! In light of everything the culture uses to shape and form us, what we need in the church is not less rituals but more! We need rituals to shape and form us to counteract the forces in the culture which are forming us into anything but faithful, self-denying, cross-bearing Christians.
Ritual is a profound and trendy topic. My daughter is a professional philosopher, and she has schooled me a bit. It is of interest to professional philosophers lately. She doesn’t think my views of intinction or the call to worship or Matthew 18 are just persnickety opinions about details and criteria. She and I both are nodding with this impassioned paragraph about those cultural rituals. The real-world power and trajectories are weighty.
Most certainly, believers need something “to counteract the forces in the culture.” Romans 12:1ff and similar texts indicate that just such “greater than” power and influence is necessary in sanctification. The PCA’s view of wholesome religion thrums with the same urgency: “What doth God require of us, that we may escape his wrath and curse, due to us for sin?” (SC 85).
That dire question has a stout and energetic rejoinder. “To escape the wrath and curse of God, due to us for sin, God requireth of us faith in Jesus Christ, repentance unto life, with the diligent use of all the outward means whereby Christ communicateth to us the benefits of redemption.” No, under the pressures of our wicked society, we do not need to multiply liturgical rituals.
We need the outwards means that Christ actually uses. Where has he put his promises? How does he give us the benefits of redemption? It is appalling to assert that sanctification by faith urgently needs something other than what Christ has appointed. This is about how is it even possible, and how is it actually accomplished– that faith in Christ can deliver us from fruitless lives of being “anything but faithful, self-denying, cross-bearing Christians.”
This is not about being unpresbyterian. This is not about naming days.
What’s the Other Problem?
I am heartened about the point of agreement: we want Christians to live worthy of their calling. I am distressed at this out-of-the-ancient-blue prescription. We agree on how high the stakes are, and the necessity of every believer laying his cards on the table. Our Standards exempt no believer. There is no Christian freedom athwart this point: God requires “the diligent use” by everyone. Sanctification is serious business and it must contend with the atmospheric influence of the world, the flesh and the devil– peer pressure, systemic influence and worldly rituals. Given the glory of sanctification in Christ, of course there is urgency.
How then can a faithful pastor present something so powerful as optional? We must counteract the worldly rituals– on that we agree. If more rituals are a necessity for the spiritual good of every sheep, how could a pastor fail to urge participation on each and every one? How could one leave them bereft without more rituals? Isn’t that neglect? I am ashen faced at the thought of telling my bi-polar nephew that his meds are optional.
I am aghast at the illogical tolerance that wafts from mixing this 11th century smoldering into this 21st century muck. “Ash Wednesday and the imposition of ashes is one of those helpful rituals that push against the world, the flesh, and the devil.” Helpful? That’s an anticlimax. One of? Apparently, there are others to add. The imposition of ashes by a minister of the gospel is not for every Christian. Are we at the post-modernism part yet?
Does this mean that– which rituals are indifferent, but we must multiply other rituals? Do we need to make things more fitting for people who are ash intolerant? Is this the church’s task, inventing rituals? Thoughtfully the church describes the dire situation. Winsomely, she exposits the theological provisions. Then she earnestly urges, “Don’t just stand there; do something.” And she comforts: “Don’t worry, we’ll make something up.”
Given that worldly rituals are a malicious influence, surely the Word of God provides all the counterweight needful for life and godliness. According to our Standards, are there rituals with such influence? Are rituals so prescribed in our Standards? How on earth can Christians be shaped more by Christ in heaven (Col 3:1ff) than by the rituals of the society we inhabit?
This is about how Christians are enabled to honor Christ with faith and repentance in the world. This is not about naming days in the calendar. This is about the vitals of religion.
Benjamin T. Inman is a Minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and a member of Eastern Carolina Presbytery.
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Who may (or ought to) read scripture in public worship is severely limited by the words and implications of our standards and even sanctified common sense. And I hope PCA officers will consider that our fathers in the faith may have been right about these things.

The reading of scripture in public worship is an essential, though undervalued, part of worship for confessional presbyterian churches, whose greatest distinctive (aside from their eponymous form of government) is their doctrine of worship. Reading is an element of Reformed worship, meaning it cannot be omitted and must be done properly.1 The Westminster Divines understood this and evidently they believed that the weightiness and importance of public scripture reading meant that not just anyone could do it:
Is the Word of God to be read by all?Although all are not to be permitted to read the word publicly to the congregation, yet all sorts of people are bound to read it apart by themselves, and with their families: to which end, the holy Scriptures are to be translated out of the original into vulgar languages.—Westminster Larger Catechism 156
For 300 or more years after John Knox began reforming the Scottish church, all presbyterians understood that trained, ordained men (or those being trained) ought to read scripture in public worship services. This fact is obvious to any fair-minded student of ecclesial history. There have been no presbyterian Shakers or Quakers…at least not until recently.2 So it must be that either our forbears were wrong or that things have changed.
It’s a rare week when I don’t receive a message from someone in the conservative Presbyterian and Reformed world reporting a practice that the scandalized sender has witnessed in a NAPARC3 church. Often the report is of females reading scripture or leading some other part of worship, such as the call to worship, confessions, “pastoral” prayer, distributing Lord’s Supper elements—pretty much anything except sermon and benediction. Unsurprisingly, these reports usually concern PCA churches—unsurprising, I say, for two reasons. First, the membership of the PCA makes up about two-thirds of the 600,000 members in NAPARC churches, so there are proportionally more PCA churches to, well, do stuff. Second, there is simply more diversity of practice (i.e., doing stuff) in the PCA. This diversity of practice, some will aver, is because of the diverse geographical and cultural contexts that PCA churches and church plants inhabit compared to their stodgier NAPARC cousins. Missional faithfulness, some will say, requires contextualization, and contextualization requires adjustments. But the question may be asked: What is the real (or first) context that ought to govern practice in a presbyterian church?
I would argue that the primary and governing context of a confessional, constitutional presbyterian church is…the confessional, constitutional presbyterian church and her standards. Church websites often extol a congregation’s unique “DNA,” but all presbyterian churches in a given denomination have the same DNA: their biblical (not to say biblicist) confessions and constitutions. Such a presbyterian church ought not be so “outward-facing” (a popular concept) that it turns its back on its confessional-constitutional core. Nor should it be pharisaically legalist…but more about that below.
The Fifth Commandment enjoins us to honor our fathers and mothers, and the Westminster Standards apply the commandment to the honoring of our betters and our elders more generally. As presbyterians who stand on the shoulders of five centuries of churchmen in our tradition, the principles of the Fifth Commandment imply that we should consider what our faithful fathers in the faith found in the scriptures and passed on to us.4
The PCA Historical Center has done helpful work which allows us to trace the mind of the presbyterian churches on the matter of public scripture reading. This is the Historical Center’s data, presented in reverse order (compared to the original article) with bolding added:
The Directory for the Publick Worship of God; agreed upon by the Assembly of Divines at Westminster, 1645, III-1 & 2Reading of the word in the congregation, being part of the publick worship of God, (wherein we acknowledge our dependence upon him, and subjection to him,) and one mean sanctified by him for the edifying of his people, is to be performed by the pastors and teachers.Howbeit, such as intend the ministry, may occasionally both read the word, and exercise their gift in preaching in the congregation, if allowed by the presbytery thereunto.
PCUSA, 1786, DfW, 2d DraftThe reading of the Holy Scriptures in the Congregation, is a part of the public worship of God; and ought to be performed by the Ministers and Teachers.
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