My confidence is not so much that most evangelicals will make the correct choice (though I believe they will), but that they will be fully persuaded over who they believe to be the correct choice. Again, when have we been offered two more polarizing candidates with glaringly antithetical agendas? And why have so little confidence in the ability of the brethren to develop individual and strong convictions by November?

Whether portraying spiritual closeness with Roman Catholic clergymen, or painting a picture of our need for a fresh polemic to refute them(!), Carl Trueman’s brush is often broad and his hues blurred.
Trueman’s latest masterpiece contrasts what he calls “Trumpite ‘evangelicalism’” with “Biden’s brand of ‘devout’ Catholicism.” He asks his readers to consider, “Which is more threatening” to the Christian? Trueman predicts “it will be a truly difficult {question} to answer with any great conviction when entering the voting booth.” I can’t but wonder, with whom does Trueman believe he shares his predictive undecidedness?
Assuming Trump and Biden are still on the ballot in seven months, I find no reason to doubt the voting convictions of my liberal and conservative friends, or that in November Christians will vote one way or another without much hesitation. After all, when have we been offered two more polarizing candidates with glaringly antithetical agendas?
A party whose leader confuses the biblical canon with the writings of Jefferson or a party that is legislating the very abolition of man and gloats about that in its election campaign?Trueman
Let’s run with that. Trueman is outraged by Trump promoting a Bible containing reprints of several of America’s documents, believing that Trump does not distinguish the canon from Thomas Jefferson’s writings. Whereas Biden “spits” on the sacred.
For what do we have? A candidate for the presidency who treats Christians as nothing more than promising marks for his hucksterism and an incumbent who spits on all they hold sacred.Trueman
By Trueman’s calculations, one party’s candidate is a huckster who hides behind a false religiosity, while another overtly desecrates all that Christians hold sacred. In passing we might note that an attack on the sacred is something that can be assessed objectively, whereas one’s private-intention to deceive to the level of huckster* is not so easily discerned.
Since we cannot discern motive, why not make it easier on ourselves and judge what can (and may) be judged? Rather than trying to discern which candidate has the blackest heart, what if we just assume that the light of nature has grown equally dim among the leading two candidates? As a clarifying exercise, let’s assume one candidate overtly seeks to destroy Christian and American values from a purely secular perspective, and the other candidate is toying covertly with Christians to advance his own MAGA agenda. With those sorts of cancelling-out variables off the table, is there anything left to evaluate that might keep us from flipping a coin on November 5?
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I write to you in reference to reports that you are on the cusp of receiving Memorial Presbyterian in St. Louis, Missouri into your fold, along with her leadership, including her senior pastor, Greg Johnson. Before taking such action, I earnestly implore you to ponder the following four points as they reflect upon Dr. Johnson’s fitness for office among you:

[Author’s preface: Much of the material recounted here is sinful and morally-corrosive, and as I do not wish to lead you into sin even in opposing wrong (Lk. 17:1-2), I strongly counsel you to prayerfully consider whether it is advantageous for you to read what follows at all. I emphatically request that women, the young, new believers, and those especially tempted to sexual immorality refrain from reading this; and as for those who do proceed, I urge you, in the spirit of Gal. 6:1, to keep close watch on yourself lest you too be tempted, and to counteract this with a large course of holy exercises, as the reading of scripture, prayer, meditation, and wholesome fellowship.]
Dear Brothers:
I am a member of a congregation in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), and write to you in reference to reports that you are on the cusp of receiving Memorial Presbyterian in St. Louis, Missouri into your fold, along with her leadership, including her senior pastor, Greg Johnson. Before taking such action, I earnestly implore you to ponder the following four points as they reflect upon Dr. Johnson’s fitness for office among you:

One, in an article published at the website Living Out on August 19th, 2021, Johnson subtitled one of his sections “The human propensity to f*** things up,” and elaborated:

As Francis Spufford writes, it’s ‘the human propensity to f*** things up’ that best points to the fact that Christianity still makes profound emotional sense.
Sanitized cursing is still wrong, not least since a repentant curser such as myself (and practically everyone over the age of childhood) can clearly tell what is meant. What is sinful is the opposite of what is holy, and it is the latter that God requires of all his people, but especially those who would shepherd others. Our Lord said that “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Mt. 12:34), the digital corollary of which is that it is out of the heart that the fingers type.
Actually, writing something is worse, since one can speak from fatigue or momentary emotion, but one who writes what is sinful has the opportunity to ponder whether it is appropriate to publish before doing so—and in this case saw fit to proceed. I would never write such a thing in an email at work, and would fear for my job if I did. And yet it can be used in an article professing to teach Christ’s faith? Such things “ought not to be” (Jas. 3:10).
In fact, there is a further problem with it, for Johnson quotes here what is a formal concept with Spufford, his alternative to the orthodox doctrine of sin. Spufford is an utter heretic whose point in the book quoted is that the faith cannot be known, but still makes “surprising emotional sense.”[1] (See footnote for examples of his heresies.) That is a radically different faith from the historic one taught in Scripture, yet Johnson willfully appealed to Spufford and his teaching, what is no small fault.

Regrettably, Johnson’s unclean language appears elsewhere. In his 2021 book Still Time to Care, he writes the following, but before recounting it, I reiterate my prefatory warning and strongly counsel any readers who have no immediate role in his acceptance to skip it, for it is sorely filthy and does not tend to one’s edification.

Beginning on page 169 he has a section called “Teenage Greek Boys and the Men They Melted,” in which he ‘contextualizes’ pederasty and says things like “what can a woman do when her husband has skin silkier than hers and can snare more men?” (quoting Ovid). On p. 171 he quotes a homoerotic Greek drinking song and comments “my, how those Greek men melted.” The correspondent who brought this to my attention says that Johnson even makes a hypothetical introduction at one point that runs “Hi I’m Greg, I am a Christian and I want to build my life on receiving as much sex as I can from men, with me in the passive role,” though he neglected to mention where and I have much too high a respect for my soul to go looking for it.
Such statements are disgusting and reprehensible, and they openly violate God’s commands in Ephesians 5:3-4:
Sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving.
Indeed, I’m not sure I should even have published them here; but as you are considering him for office among you, you ought to know the true character of the man, as shown in statements such as this; for “the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil” (Matt. 12:35). Again, he knowingly chose to make such graphic sodomy jokes in the name of arguing for Christian compassion. True compassion never involves such open rebellion against God’s commands, and never clothes itself in filth (1 Cor. 13:6).

Johnson’s church allowed its property be used for the “Transluminate” festival in 2020, which event was a “celebration of transgender, agender, non-binary, genderqueer, and genderfluid artists” and included a play about “a human [who] wants to transform into another species.” Using God’s property to give material aid to the open celebration of debauchery is as brazen a rebellion against him as when the Israelites worshipped idols in the temple. It is not evangelism, outreach, or any form of Christian ministry, but aiding and abetting those sins to which God gives people over as judgment (Rom. 1:18-32). God says it is an abomination when people adopt the dress of the opposite sex (Deut. 22:5)—shall we deem it less evil when they permanently disfigure themselves in attempting to adopt the physique of the opposite sex? Yet that was what “Transluminate” encouraged, and far from calling its participants to repentance without ensnaring their church in sin, Memorial’s leadership gladly gave their property for Transluminate’s use. People who do such things clearly have no fear of God, else they should tremble lest that wrath which he so often poured upon the Israelites (e.g., Eze. 8-9) should come also upon us.
Johnson has not hesitated to casually slander those that disagree with him. Consider this tweet:

Laying aside the severe twisting of Gal. 2 to his own purposes in that, accusing people who disapprove one’s actions of being gospel-denying false teachers, and thereby bringing upon them the fierce condemnation of the New Testament (e.g., “for them the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved,” 2 Pet. 2:17) is a grievous slander indeed, worthy rather of Satan, the great accuser of the brethren, than of one claiming to be a grace-bearing emissary of Christ.
Now God says, “Do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses” (1 Tim. 5:19). I have given you four lines of evidence, all public, and most drawn from his own words. I’m not aware that he has repented the statements or deeds mentioned above, but even if he has, they are so numerous and of such a severe nature as to disqualify him from office. I therefore earnestly implore you not to accept this man into office among you, nor to accept that church or its other elders which standfast to him and participate in his sins.
Be wise and learn from our experience in the PCA. This man’s late tenure among us was fraught with strife, and he nearly splintered the denomination. Our Lord says to “beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves” and that we “will recognize them by their fruits” (Matt. 7:15-16). Singlehandedly embroiling the largest non-apostate Presbyterian denomination in the country in years of strife and nearly splitting it is a rotten fruit, wouldn’t you say? Should you then open the gate to the pasture to such a man, and employ him in the government of the sheep and the evaluation of future shepherds? I am hopeful that God’s grace will enable you to ponder this matter aright, but if you will not listen to my warning here but instead stiffen your necks, imagining that any of the transgressions I have mentioned above is excusable or, worse still, mistaking it for Christian ministry, then I fear for you, that this word draws nigh against you: “it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God” (1 Pet. 4:17).
Tom Hervey is a member of Woodruff Road Presbyterian Church, Five Forks/Simpsonville (Greenville Co.), SC. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not of necessity reflect those of his church or its leadership or other members. He welcomes comments at the email address provided with his name. He is also author of Reflections on the Word: Essays in Protestant Scriptural Contemplation. 

[1] He says at one point that “it is a mistake to suppose that it is assent to the propositions [i.e. “of the Creed”] that makes you a believer. It is the feelings that are primary. I assent to the ideas because I have the feelings; I don’t have the feelings because I have assented to the ideas.” He subsequently says “my belief is made of, built up from, sustained by emotions like that. That’s what makes it real.” He also quotes the Quran approvingly and espouses a sort of agnosticism, saying “I don’t know that any of it is true. (And neither do you, and neither does Professor Dawkins, and neither does anybody. It isn’t the kind of thing you can know. It isn’t a knowable item.)” He disparages the intellect in favor of the emotions, saying “emotions are also our indispensable tool for navigating, for feeling our way through, the much larger domain of stuff that isn’t checkable against the physical universe.” These and further errors (inc. blasphemy and what appears to be pantheism and denials of God’s sovereignty, providence, and miracles) occur in a three page section (pp.19-21) in which he recounts feeling good listening to Mozart in a cafe after he had been up all night arguing with his wife because he committed adultery—hardly the right circumstances under which to formulate theological doctrine. (To say the very least . . .) But Johnson did not hesitate to quote him without qualification.
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Being ignorant and inexperienced is not the problem. We all start out this way — both as children and as adults beginning new seasons (like getting married, having our first child, or starting a new career). The problem is being unwilling to yield, hard to be entreated, and not open to reason. It’s a stagnating, suicidal state of mind, like a dry garden shielding itself from the rain. None of us is self-sufficient. By God’s design, we need other people’s input in order to grow into wise, fruitful people. 

In his essay “The Trouble with ‘X,’” C.S. Lewis describes that person who makes our lives difficult. Who is it that gives you regular grief? Maybe it’s a spouse or a coworker or a fellow church member. Sometimes a friend, seeing us look “glum,” will probe us until we reluctantly open up.
On such occasions the . . . friend usually says, “But why don’t you tell them? Why don’t you go to [them] . . . and have it all out? People are usually reasonable. All you’ve got to do is to make them see things in the right light. Explain it to them in a reasonable, quiet, friendly way.” And we, whatever we say outwardly, think sadly to ourselves, “He doesn’t know ‘X.’” We do. We know how utterly hopeless it is to make “X” see reason. Either we’ve tried it over and over again — tried it till we are sick of trying it — or else we’ve never tried it because we saw from the beginning how useless it would be. (God in the Dock, 161–62)
But in contrast to those like “X,” whom Jane Austen describes as “beyond the reach of reason” (Pride and Prejudice, 57), God calls us to be “open to reason” (James 3:17). Are you open to reason? As we consider this description, seeking to be transformed into reasonable people ourselves, we can keep from becoming someone else’s “X.”
Heaven-Sent Wisdom
The object described as “open to reason” in James 3:17 is not people, but wisdom. Wisdom is the issue here in the surrounding context (James 3:13–18). And not just any wisdom, but “the wisdom that comes down from above” (vv. 15, 17). In typical James fashion, it’s a wisdom that shows itself by its works, not simply by its claims (v. 13).
Notice how James speaks not of the “brilliance” but of “the meekness of [this] wisdom” (v. 13). This kind of wisdom is moral, not merely intellectual. It’s about how you learn, not simply what you know. It affects how you get along with others, not just what you can teach them. To be without this wisdom is not simply to be ignorant, but to be “earthly, unspiritual, [and] demonic” (v. 15). Its absence (and counterfeit) is marked by “bitter jealousy and selfish ambition” (vv. 14, 16).
If you can spot fool’s wisdom by its rivalry, drama, and disorder, then how do you know when you’re looking at the real thing? In answer, James gives us a sevenfold description of “the wisdom from above” (v. 17):

pure
peaceable
gentle
open to reason
full of mercy and good fruits
impartial
sincere

This is the context for our phrase. Other translations render it “easy to be entreated” (KJV) or “willing to yield” (NKJV). Hopefully a mental picture is beginning to emerge.
Life with Closed Ears
As soon as you begin to grasp what “open to reason” means, you also begin to see why it matters. It matters because the alternative is a kind of closed-minded stubbornness that not only makes us dumber but also destroys our relationships.
The trouble with “X” is that you can’t teach him anything. Like Nabal, “he is such a worthless man that one cannot speak to him” (1 Samuel 25:17). He often has to be bailed out by others around him (like his wife, Abigail), though he often won’t even realize it, and he certainly won’t thank you for it.
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