Critical Theory and The Gospel

Critical Theory and The Gospel

Written by Bradley G. Green |
Monday, September 19, 2022

What critical theory offers is—in its own way—a kind of alternative theology or religious vision of the world. The various themes of critical theory can be seen or understood as themes, convictions, insights, hunches that all in various ways can be related to traditional Christian themes or doctrines. My contention is that when we read the critical theorists we can see in their various convictions and arguments and theories a kind of echo of various Christian themes—even if in critical theory they are often distorted, twisted, and rejected.

Introduction

While Critical Theory as a school or tradition of thought is not new, it has come to some prominence in recent years. While there are numerous persons and writing with varied perspectives within this school or tradition, it is nonetheless possible to summarize the principles and convictions of Critical Theory in a general way.

This article will first summarize the key tenets of Critical Theory through an engagement with some of the seminal thinkers of Critical Theory. These key thinkers explored here are: Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, and Walter Benjamin. These thinkers should provide a representative sample of the writings of Critical Theory.

I argue that if Christians are to respond fully and properly to Critical Theory, such a response must be rooted in a truly Christian biblical-theological framework. Such a Christian response will recognize that Critical Theory is in effect an alternative theology or religion, and that it is helpful to understand Critical Theory as just such an alternative theology or religion.

A truly Christian response to Critical Theory will show that it is not—ironically—critical enough. Christianity truly gets to the heart of the matter and actually is the most truly “critical,” in that the Christian message offers a true understanding of reality and what is wrong with the world, and likewise offers the true solution to the myriad challenges, problems, and sufferings experienced and seen in the world.

Critical Theory: A Brief Survey

It is not easy to briefly summarize critical theory. It is a movement or school of thought with a variety of thinkers and themes. Nonetheless, there are general commitments and positions that we can summarize.

All roads lead back to the Institute for Social Research, founded in 1923 in Frankfurt, Germany. Hence, this Institute, and its fellow-travelers, are often referred to as the “Frankfurt School.” The early Frankfurt School was composed of Max Horkheimer, Theodore Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Leo Lowenthal, and Friedrich Pollock. Other associated persons would be the famous psychoanalyst and social psychologist Erich Fromm, Otto Kirchheimer, Henryk Grossman, as well as Walter Benjamin. Second generation persons who are associated with the Frankfurt School would especially include Jürgen Habermas (born in 1929). The school was unapologetically Marxist, though it also felt free to try and advance, critique, and/or adjust the received Marxism of their day. With the rise of Nazism to increasing power, the Institute for Social Research moved to Geneva in 1934, and to New York City (Columbia University) in 1935.¹ Likewise Critical Theory utilizes many insights from Hegel, and at least some members of this school saw Sigmund Freud’s basic paradigm as essential to its work.

Critical Theory was birthed in the aftermath of World War I. It was hoped—by many persons sympathetic to Marxism—that this crisis would precipitate the revolutionary activity for which many Marxists hoped. But such a revolution did not occur after World War I, and this led to something of a crisis for the Critical Theorists in general. Thus, Critical Theory both accepts much of the general Marxist (and Hegelian) paradigm, but is quite happy to re-work, re-think, adjust, extend, and even reject at points, various aspects of the Marxist paradigm. One of the “last” great thinkers of Critical Theory—Jürgen Habermas—has been more explicit about, at least in some senses, moving past Marx.

There are a number of ways one could try to summarize the key themes of critical theory. The movement was (and is) by no means monolithic, and the debates within the movement are not insignificant. In this article it is suggested that the key themes of critical theory can in general be viewed through the lens of traditional Christian insights and themes. That is, it will be argued that what critical theory offers is—in its own way—a kind of alternative theology or religious vision of the world. The various themes of critical theory can be seen or understood as themes, convictions, insights, hunches that all in various ways can be related to traditional Christian themes or doctrines. My contention is that when we read the critical theorists we can see in their various convictions and arguments and theories a kind of echo of various Christian themes—even if in critical theory they are often distorted, twisted, and rejected. But because critical theorists are nonetheless creatures living in God’s world and on God’s terms, their various themes and arguments can be rightly understood through the prism of key Christian themes and truths—even when the arguments, themes, and convictions of critical theory run radically counter to fundamental Christian truth claims. For organizational purposes I will group the various insights of critical theory into three broad categories:

(1) Creation and Reality

(2) Sin and Salvation

(3) History and Eschatology

The Theology of Critical Theory

Creation and Reality

Let us turn to Herbert Marcuse, particularly his, “From Ontology to Technology: Fundamental Tendencies of Industrial Society.”² Marcuse, in a fascinating way, traces the birth of modern science and its entailments. We will not recount the narrative here, as much of it is fairly non-controversial: the modern world saw a shift from seeing a telos built into the very structures of reality, and as even guiding history, to a situation where there is no telos whatsoever as constitutive of reality; the world comes to be seen in primarily mathematical categories; technology becomes virtually ubiquitous.

Suffice it to say that For Marcuse, the rise of science and its ally technology is then linked to the rise of capitalism. So, we should not be surprised that as Marcuse and other Critical Theorists talk about “liberation” and the like, this entails the “liberation” from Capitalism, and from societies which create and perpetuate Capitalism.

For Marcuse, there are certain key “goods” with which persons ought to be concerned. These true goods, which should be at the heart of things are: “the abolition of anxiety, the pacification of life, and enjoyment.” These are all “essential needs.”³ And at the birth of modern science, there was a recognition of the importance and true goodness of these “goods.” There are also additional realities (whether good or not) which Marcuse considers “intrinsic to the very notion of modern science.” These are “world harmony,” “physical laws,” and even of “the mathematical God,” which/whom Marcuse calls “the highest idea of universal quality throughout all inequality!”⁴ But, according to Marcuse, what has in fact happened? The good things just mentioned, which were goals or even motivating factors for modern science have all been abandoned or marginalized. In short, the goods of “the abolition of anxiety, the pacification of life, and enjoyment” in a way helped birth modern science (and the Enlightenment and modernity and industrial society), but then modern science betrayed and turned on these key “goods.” Marcuse explains: “Industrial society clearly developed a notion of technology which undercuts its inherent character.”⁵ That is: Industrial society or modern science turned on those principles—those goods—which were at the heart of the very project of industrial society or modern science itself. To summarize, Marcuse writes: “pure instrumentality [an aspect of modern science and technology] deprived of its ultimate purpose, has become universal means for domination.”⁶

We begin to get a real glimpse of Marcuse’s ontology or metaphysic, and his anthropology, as we read on. Marcuse proceeds to write that civilization itself is foreign to, and hostile to, the nature of man. And bound up with civilization is work. Marcuse seems to assume that without civilization and work, man could meet his deepest needs and be happy and satisfied. Here we see most likely the Marxist-inspired utopianism, in which in some mysterious way, food will be supplied, shelter will be found, and safety from crime will just somehow be present.

He can write: “Civilization is man’s subjugation to work”—and this is inherently a bad thing.⁷ And Marcuse’s anthropology is explicit in the following: “The primary instincts of man naturally tend to immediate satiation and to rest, to tranquility through this appeasement; they oppose themselves to the necessity of work and labor and to the indispensable conditions of satisfaction in a world ruled by starvation and the insufficiency of goods.”⁸ Indeed, “society” is intrinsically hostile to the good of the individual. As Marcuse writes: “Society therefore must turn the instincts away from their immediate goal and subjugate them to the ‘reality principle,’ [i.e., the necessity of work?] which is the very principle of repression.”⁹

But as Marcuse develops this line of thought—the repressive nature of society itself—things take a dark and odd turn. What happens to people—as they live in society—is that the instincts of persons change, and they in a sense embrace and accept repression. As Marcuse writes: “Their instincts become repressive; they are the biological and mental bases which sustain and perpetuate political and social repression.”¹⁰ That is: persons (in the sense of their instincts) embrace and perpetuate the political and social repression which is a natural corollary of society and work itself. Indeed: “All progress, all growth of productivity, is accompanied by a progressive repression and a productive destruction.”¹¹ As this gets worked out: Society and work—especially in a capitalist mode—is by its very nature—inextricably linked to, and entails: (1) “progressive repression” and (2) “productive destruction.”

We will return to Marcuse below when we reflect more explicitly on the various ways Critical Theory can speak of redemption, deliverance, utopia, and the future—generally in a revolutionary way. But for now, let us turn to how Critical Theory understands the human dilemma, what Christian theology has traditionally spoken of as centered around sin.

Sin and Salvation

If one has read much of 20^th century philosophy, social theory, and social critique, one sees a fairly typical pattern: a hunger and yearning to make sense of the times, and in a sense to ask a basic question: What has gone wrong? How did we get here? Or, what makes the modern world the modern world? While the exponents of critical theory which we are examining are generally Marxist and fellow-travelers of Marxists, one also clearly sees this pattern with the emergence of mid-twentieth century Conservatism. We could get off-script here, but I am thinking of the seminal work of Richard M. Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences. Weaver, writing this book in 1948—three years after World War II—was asking key questions: In the light of two world wars, how did the modern world become what it has become, and is there any way forward out of the myriad political, social, and moral pathologies? In an intriguing way, the exponents of critical theory are posing very similar questions—though differing significantly from the general paradigm offered by someone like Richard Weaver.

Let us turn to an important essay by Theodor W. Adorno, “Society.” We are placing Adorno’s reflections on “society” in this section on “Sin, Atonement, Redemption, Sanctification, and Holiness,” for here we glean insights on how at least Adorno thought of man as a social creature—but man as a social creature is already in a kind of system which is—in Christian theological terms—“sinful,” such that man is in need of liberation. As Adorno works through his understanding of society, it is clear that the chief culprit that plagues society today is “the market system.”¹² He writes: “the abstraction implicit in the market system represents the domination of the general over the particular, of society over its captive membership.”¹³ Likewise: “Behind the reduction of men to agents and bearers of exchange value [i.e., capitalism] lies the domination of men over men.”¹⁴ In short, at least one of man’s fundamental problems, if not the fundamental problems is a societal set of relationships in which something like “the market system” prevails. Something like socialism does not yet—on Adorno’s view—promise to clear the deck of all societal problems, frictions, “oppressions,” etc. But clearly, the societal reality which most concerns Adorno is that society in which “the market system” is generally prevalent. But we learn that Adorno seems to see virtually all societies as plagued by market realities. He can write of “the universal law of the market system.”¹⁵

Society, for Adorno, never—it seems—encourages right thinking, living, or “consciousness.” Rather, “society increasingly controls the very form of consciousness itself.”¹⁶ That is, “society”—and again essentially capitalism is in view here—actually conditions the very way we think of our own societal situation. Thus, one can think that making a middle-class income teaching at the local school, or pastoring a local church, or working in the local factory, etc., is leading a good life. But in reality, one has been conditioned to think in that way. One is actually oppressed and downtrodden—due to having to live out one’s life in a market economy. Thus, the oppressed and downtrodden may live one’s entire life in that situation, and never know it. We will return to this theme in our “Reflections” section.

One of Herbert Marcuse’ key books is his 1955 Eros and Civilization, subtitled, A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud.¹⁷ His thesis in Eros and Civilization is quite clear. Every effort must be made to liberate persons from anything that will inhibit erotic pleasure. Marcuse speaks positively of “Polymorphous sexuality,” and writes: “the new direction of progress would depend completely on the opportunity to activate repressed or arrested organic, biological needs: to make the human body an instrument of pleasure rather than labor.”¹⁸ In short, Marcuse is arguing that the forces and reality of the “market economy” (i.e., capitalism) mitigate against erotic satisfaction. He writes: “the erotic energy of the Life Instincts cannot be freed under the dehumanizing conditions of profitable affluence.”¹⁹

Marcuse takes for granted “Freud’s proposition that civilization is based on the permanent subjugation of the human instincts . . .”²⁰ Indeed: “Free gratification of man’s instinctual needs is incompatible with civilized society: renunciation and delay in satisfaction are the prerequisites of progress.”²¹ And again: “The methodological sacrifice of libido, its rigidly enforced deflection to socially useful activities and expressions, is culture.”²² Hence, culture is the culprit, for culture by its very existence hampers or impedes the “free gratification of man’s instinctual needs.”

Marcuse summarizes Freud. There exists both a “Pleasure Principle” and a “Reality Principle.” The Pleasure Principle is just that—man is driven to various forms of pleasure, including (or especially) sexual pleasure. The Reality Principle is that in any given society there are a number of barriers which keep persons from seeking to fulfill the Pleasure Principle. These two principles are—in fact—in fundamental conflict.²³ Like other Critical Theorists, “society” or “civilization” mitigates against true human freedom. As Marcuse writes: “The replacement of the pleasure principle by the reality principle is the great traumatic event in the development of man . . .”²⁴

In summarizing Freud, Marcuse does not hesitate to speak in architectonic terms of this struggle between the “Pleasure Principle” and the “Reality Principle.” As Marcuse writes: “Freud considers the ‘primordial struggle for existence’ as ‘eternal’ and therefore believes that the pleasure principle and the reality principle are ‘eternally’ antagonistic. In short, we have something like an older metaphysical and moral dualism. We have something like the old Manichean dualism between good and evil, but transposed into different categories: the “eternal” struggle between (1) the provenance of true freedom, which is sexual—the Pleasure Principle, and (2) that which constrains and leads to repression of one’s desire—the Reality Principle.

And the clash between these two principles is—again—spoken of in terms of revolutionary liberation. Psychoanalysis can help recover the deep repression which both the individual has done to himself, and which the larger culture—also shaped by the Reality Principle—has inculcated. But what happens as someone who is seeking psychoanalysis to come to terms with their sadness, or depression, or anxiety, or anger—or whatever it might be—starts to discover these deep repressed desires, desires which flow from the Pleasure Principle? The recovered, repressed desires “must eventually shatter the framework in which they were made and confined” [vis-à-vis the Reality Principle].²⁵ What happens: “The liberation of the past does not end in its reconciliation with the present. Against the self-imposed restraint of the discoverer,²⁶ the orientation on the past tends toward an orientation on the future.”²⁷ Indeed: “The discovery of lost time becomes the vehicle of future liberation.”²⁸

So, Critical Theory offers its own understanding of sin and the human dilemma. It has gnostic and dualistic (even Manichean) overtones, since the problem of man appears to have always been in existence. There is no pre-fall realm from which man has fallen. Further, community or civilization is by its very nature oppressive and mitigates against true freedom. Let us turn to what Critical Theory tends to say about history, the future, and even the nature of eschatology. In this last section we will even get a sense of Critical Theory’s understanding of redemption.

History and Eschatology

There are a number of points where Critical Theory addresses the future, or a future hope, or redemption, or some kind of eschatological goal it is seeking in history. Generally, when it is looking ahead, to that to which it aspires, it speaks in some kind of utopian or even revolutionary terms. Let us return to Herbert Marcuse’s essay, “From Ontology to Technology.”

Marcuse laments that what he calls “the technological project” should have eventually “annulled” itself. As Marcuse writes: “the necessity for domination was supposed to disappear.”²⁹ As a professing Marxist, we are clearly in Marxist territory here with Marcuse. There is need for centralized power—which is centered in and flows from the revolution—to exist. But it will fade away once the revolution has accomplished its goal of destroying the capitalist order, and once the subsequent centralized state has accomplished its goals. We get a sense of the not-so-subtle dystopianism when we read Marcuse’s lament that “the technological project” or “technicity” did not indeed fade away. What should have resulted is as follows: “The triumph over misery and the insufficiency of goods should have made it possible to ‘abolish labor,’ to put productivity to the service of consumption, and to abandon the struggle of existence in order to enjoy existence.”³⁰

But it is worse on Marcuse’s reading. The “domination and destruction” of the technological project continues. Indeed, “domination and destruction themselves become the conditions of progress.”³¹ That is, “domination and destruction” became—as Marcuse saw it—the warp and woof of twentieth-century society, very much a technology-centered and driven and shaped society. Marcuse goes on to write that “individuals perpetuate their own domination.”³² That is, he seems to be saying that 20^th century man perpetuates a system in which man himself is being dominated. Thus, persons perpetuate a technological society in which persons themselves are being dominated.

And here—at the end of this essay—is where Marcuse finally gets to his own solution to this technological dilemma. The answer is revolution. Marcuse writes: “all liberation presupposes a revolution, an upheaval in the order of instincts and needs: a new reality principle.”³³ Marcuse then writes: “This total transvaluation of values would affect the being of nature as well as the being of man.”³⁴ It is not wholly inaccurate to see this “total transvaluation of values” as a kind of rebirth of both man and nature—albeit a rebirth quite different from the rebirth of biblical faith.

We complete this section on history, the future, and the nature of eschatology by looking at a seminal essay by Walter Benjamin, “Theses on the Philosophy of History.”³⁵ This is a provocative essay, essentially twenty separate theses or paragraphs (not un-reminiscent of Blaise Pascal’s Pensées, in the sense of an almost stream-of-consciousness flow of thought). The bogeyman of the essay seems clearly to be historical materialism—the notion that matter is all there is, and the history “marches” (without meaningful human agency?) to its end. We might think we have some true kind of freedom or agency, but really this “historical materialism” wins all the time, something which Benjamin laments.³⁶

For Benjamin the kind of happiness we experience is inextricably bound to our own particular human circumstances and human situatedness. This—in one sense—is almost self-evident, but there is a dark and somewhat depressing way that Benjamin construes our situatedness, as we shall see.

Benjamin provocatively speaks of our happiness as being bound up with redemption. He writes: “our image of happiness is indissolubly bound up with the image of redemption.”³⁷ And: “The past carries with it a temporal index by which it is referred to redemption.”³⁸ He continues, in almost a cryptic way: “There is a secret agreement between past generations and the present one. Our coming was expected on earth. Like every generation that preceded us, we have been endowed with a weak Messianic power, a power to which the past has a claim. That claim cannot be settled cheaply. Historical materialists are aware of this.”³⁹

It is striking how this notion of redemption and Messiah shows up in this essay. Benjamin continues with the same theme: “only a redeemed mankind receives the fullness of its past—which is to say, only for a redeemed mankind has its past become citable in all its moments. Each moment it has lived becomes a citation à l’ordre du jour—and that day is Judgment Day.”⁴⁰

Some histories place the move to New York in 1934.
Herbert Marcuse, “From Ontology to Technology: Fundamental Tendencies of Industrial Society,” in Critical Theory and Society: A Reader, edd. Stephen Eric Bronner and Douglas MacKay Kellner (New York, NY: Routledge, 1989), 119-27.
Marcuse, “From Ontology to Technology,” 124.
Marcuse, “From Ontology to Technology,” 124.
Marcuse, “From Ontology to Technology,” 124.
Marcuse, “From Ontology to Technology,” 124.
Marcuse, “From Ontology to Technology,” 125.
Marcuse, “From Ontology to Technology,” 125.
Marcuse, “From Ontology to Technology,” 125. In this section Marcuse makes explicit his dependence on Sigmund Freud.
Marcuse, “From Ontology to Technology,” 125.
Marcuse, “From Ontology to Technology,” 125.
Theodor W. Adorno, “Society,” in Critical Theory and Society: A Reader, edd. Stephen Eric Bronner and Douglas MacKay Kellner (New York, NY: Routledge, 1989), 271.
Adorno, “Society,” 271.
Adorno, “Society,” 271.
Adorno, “Society,” 271.
Adorno, “Society,” 271.
Herbert Marcuse, Eros and Civilization: A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966, originally published in 1955). I will be working from the 1996 publication in this article.
Marcuse, Eros and Civilization, xv.
Marcuse, Eros and Civilization, xxiii.
Marcuse, Eros and Civilization, 3.
Marcuse, Eros and Civilization, 3.
Marcuse, Eros and Civilization, 3. Marcuse’s emphasis.
Marcuse, Eros and Civilization, 12-15.
Marcuse, Eros and Civilization, 15.
Marcuse, Eros and Civilization, 19.
This restraint is “self-imposed restraint” because persons themselves inevitably embrace the necessity of the Reality Principle.
Marcuse, Eros and Civilization, 19.
Marcuse, Eros and Civilization, 19. Marcuse’s text actually includes some French, which I have rendered into English above. His text reads: “The recherché du temps perdu becomes the vehicle of future liberation.”
Marcuse, “From Ontology to Technology,” 126.
Marcuse, “From Ontology to Technology,” 126.
Marcuse, “From Ontology to Technology,” 126.
Marcuse, “From Ontology to Technology,” 126.
Marcuse, “From Ontology to Technology,” 126.
Marcuse, “From Ontology to Technology,” 126.
This essay was published in 1940, before Benjamin committed suicide later in that same year. The German title is Über den Begriff der Geschichte, and is sometimes translated as “On the Concept of History.”
Walter Benjamin, “Theses on the Philosophy of History,” in Critical Theory and Society: A Reader, ed. Stephen Eric Bronner and Douglas MacKay Kellner (New York, NY: Routledge, 1989), 255.
Walter Benjamin, “Theses on the Philosophy of History,” 255. Emphasis mine.
Walter Benjamin, “Theses on the Philosophy of History,” 255. Emphasis mine.
Walter Benjamin, “Theses on the Philosophy of History,” 255-56.
Walter Benjamin, “Theses on the Philosophy of History,” 256. The French is in italics in Benjamin’s text. Other emphasis mine.

Post Views: 260

Post Views: 363

The Aquila Report

The First Works

By Dean Davis — 2 years ago

Here is good news: The Lord is committed to guarding the rose. He has given us a new heart, a holy heart; and he has told us that he will watch over it with all of his heart. He has sealed it for himself. He has said, “I am a jealous God.” The triune God of the Bible has sworn: Though dark, secret loves beckon and entice my children and my Bride, they will not prevail.

But I have this against you: You have left your first love.So then: Remember the place from which you have fallen,and repent and do the first works.(Revelation 2:3-4)
This word arrived as a gut punch to the Ephesians. It can do the same when we read it today.
Before it hit, the Lord was all commendation, praising these busy Christians for their toil, endurance, and holy intolerance of evil. After it hit, he did the same, lauding them for their hatred of the lawless works of the Nicolaitans. But in between there came a stern and urgent reproof, flashing like dark lightning against a deep blue sky. What can account for it?
When I asked myself this question, a memorable poem by William Blake came to mind:
O Rose, thou are sick.The invisible wormThat flies in the night,In the howling storm,Hath found out thy bedOf crimson joy:And his dark secret loveDoth thy life destroy.
When people looked at the Ephesian rose, all seemed well. These believers were abounding in the work of the Lord. What’s more, to judge from the King’s commendations, they were doing their works in the Spirit and power of the Lord. This should give us pause: Though the Lord may be granting us fruitful labors, it also may be that a dark and dangerous love has begun to creep, worm-like, into our bed of crimson joy: into the life of love that was purchased for the Bride of Christ by his blood.
But what exactly was the nature of that invisible worm? And how was it enticing the Ephesians to leave their first love?
Perhaps we find our answers in a story about Martha and Mary (Luke 10:38ff). The Lord had come to town. Martha invited him into her home for dinner. Her sister Mary sat herself at the Lord’s feet, listening to his words. But Martha was distracted with her many preparations.
What’s more, she was angry. With an unholy boldness that shocks the reader, it is written that she came up to the Son of God himself and said, ““Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone? Tell her to help me!” But the Lord, wise and gentle, answered with firmness: “Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but only one thing is truly necessary. I’m saying this because Mary has chosen the best part, and it will not be taken from her.”
Is this how it was with the Ephesians? Yes, their service was partly in the Spirit; but was it also partly in the flesh? Was it partly motivated by a sincere love for the Lord, but also by some “dark, secret love” that was creeping into the sacred space?
Read More
Related Posts:
Post Views: 1,060

The Aquila Report

What Greg Johnson Won’t Tell You About “Double Repentance”

By M. D. Perkins — 2 years ago

Written by M. D. Perkins |
Wednesday, February 23, 2022
Here we have biblical truth, expounded clearly and succinctly. Christ’s blood does not merely take away the guilt of our sin but also removes the powerful grip it holds on us, enabling us to choose righteousness over wickedness, allowing us to actually put sin to death even at the level of our desires. “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry” (Colossians 3:5). While Revoice proponents are busy delicately nuancing a distinction between homosexual orientation and homosexual behavior, the Lord calls us to put it all to death because it is worldly and wicked.

In his new book Still Time to Care: What We Can Learn from the Church’s Failed Attempt to Cure Homosexuality (Zondervan, 2021), PCA pastor Greg Johnson gives a history of the “ex-gay movement.” He believes it utterly failed and bemoans the fact that many evangelicals today still think homosexuality can be cured. In the conclusion of the book, Johnson gives what he sees as a new path by way of an old path: double repentance.
Quoting from an obscure 1978 book by Richard Lovelace, the idea of “double repentance” is essentially this: homosexuals in the church must repent of homosexual behavior and the rest of the church must repent of homophobia. It is a path that Greg Johnson claims evangelicals were on before their views were hijacked by the false hopes of the “ex-gay movement” and the fear-mongering of the culture war that fought against the normalizing of homosexuality in America. In short, “double repentance” is what the church should be about in the 21st century.
Most people reading Johnson’s book will not have a copy of Richard Lovelace’s Homosexuality and the Church on their bookshelf. It has long been out-of-print and has never been a major work in the discourse about Christians and homosexuality. This makes it a prime candidate for misrepresentation.
The “Double Repentance” Quote
The first time I ever heard of Richard Lovelace’s book Homosexuality and the Church: Crisis, Conflict, Compassion (Fleming H. Revell Company, 1978) was when Greg Johnson was being examined by his PCA presbytery in 2020 for his concerning views on homosexuality. While defending his own status as a gay celibate minister, Johnson decided to defer to Richard Lovelace.
Johnson set up the quote by saying, “Decades ago, before the culture war, before the ex-gay movement, Reformed scholars were writing about homosexuality unencumbered by the fear and combativeness of our era.”[1] Then, after name-dropping several notable endorsements the book received, he quoted from Lovelace’s book:
There is another approach to homosexuality which would be healthier both for the church and for gay believers, and which could be a very significant witness to the world. This approach requires a double repentance, a repentance both for the church and for its gay membership. First, it would require professing Christians who are gay to have the courage both to avow their orientation openly and to obey the Bible’s clear injunction to turn away from the active homosexual life-style… Second, it would require the church to accept, honor, and nurture non-practicing gay believers in its membership, and ordain these to positions of leadership for ministry. The church’s sponsorship of openly avowed but repentant homosexuals in leadership positions would be a profound witness to the world concerning the power of the Gospel to free the church from homophobia and the homosexual from guilt and bondage.[2]
A Notable Ellipsis
The discerning reader may have noticed that between Lovelace’s first point and second point, there is an ellipsis (…). Some form of this ellipsis has been present every time Johnson has publicly referenced Lovelace—in the report from Missouri Presbytery’s examination in 2020, the three times Johnson mentions Lovelace in Still Time to Care[3], and in a promotional video for Still Time to Care that discusses “double repentance.”
This ellipsis was added by Greg Johnson in order to conceal a recurring theme in Lovelace’s Homosexuality and the Church: the need for repentant homosexuals to pursue heterosexual reorientation. Here is the full quotation from Lovelace (p. 125), with emphasis added to the revealed portion:
There is another approach to homosexuality which would be healthier both for the church and for gay believers, and which could be a very significant witness to the world. This approach requires a double repentance, a repentance both for the church and for its gay membership. First, it would require professing Christians who are gay to have the courage both to avow their orientation openly and to obey the Bible’s clear injunction to turn away from the active homosexual life-style, seeking a heterosexual reorientation when this is possible and adopting a celibate life-style when it is not. Second, it would require the church to accept, honor, and nurture non-practicing gay believers in its membership, and ordain these to positions of leadership for ministry. The church’s sponsorship of openly avowed but repentant homosexuals in leadership positions would be a profound witness to the world concerning the power of the Gospel to free the church from homophobia and the homosexual from guilt and bondage.[4]
It should be obvious why the full quote would be embarrassing for Greg Johnson. The major thrust of his message is that homosexuality cannot be cured. If change happens at all, Johnson assures us, it is a miniscule shift and an anomaly at that. But really, reorientation is a false hope perpetuated by homophobic fundamentalists who refuse to listen to gay people. This is the formal position of Side B proponents, also known as the Revoice movement.
Because of his other ideological commitments, Johnson cannot alert us to the fact that his beloved proponent of “double repentance” was also a proponent of heterosexual reorientation.
Lovelace as a Proponent of Reorientation
Richard F. Lovelace was a professor of church history at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and an ordained minister in the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (UPCUSA).[5] He published Homosexuality and the Church in 1978—the same year he finished his work with a denominational task force charged with studying homosexuality and the possibility of gay ordination in the UPCUSA. No doubt Homosexuality and the Church came out of the work he had done on the task force. In fact, the book is dedicated to that group.
Lovelace was one of the few conservative voices on the 19-member task force—and, thereby, in the minority in calling homosexual behavior sinful and voting against the ordination of “avowed and practicing homosexuals.” Interestingly, the minority position ended up being what passed the UPCUSA General Assembly in 1978, which did not allow practicing homosexuals to be ordained but did speak of repentant homosexuals who “redirected” their desires in a heterosexual marriage or adopted a “celibate lifestyle.” Lovelace’s position was nearly identical with the “definitive guidance” of his denomination.
While Lovelace did not seem to see reorientation as possible in every circumstance, he nevertheless was a proponent of it. He speaks favorably about it at multiple points in Homosexuality and the Church and offered thoughts on why some homosexuals failed to find lasting change:
Proponents of the active homosexual life-style within the church often attempt to prove that they cannot change or restrain their orientation by citing the failure of much nonreligious psychotherapy, or by protesting that they have “prayed about it, but nothing changed.” But few have shown any awareness of the full resources of spiritual power for change which the Christian can tap.[6]
Later in the book, Lovelace says:
The testimony of gay Christians who have turned away from living out their orientation or have even seen that orientation reversed indicates that a firsthand conviction that God (and not merely the society) speaks against the gay life, based on Scripture, is essential in gaining traction for change. Once a homosexual is gripped by a deep sense of the reality of the holy God and an awareness that He has set limits to human sexuality which rule out the gay life-style, most of the battle for change has already been won, for the heart is already broken in repentance.[7]
Even more, Lovelace does not speak of homosexual orientation as morally neutral:
The attempt to persuade the conscience that homosexuality is sinful only if it is expressed in outward acts will not pacify the conscience, which grasps instinctively the fact that all inner motives which are not perfectly channeled according to the will of God are sin. The homosexual Christian must therefore learn to relax in the honest admission that his motives are disordered, but he must commit himself to their reordering—or at least restraint—through the power of Christ infused in the process of sanctification. As he exercises the faith to believe that he is accepted [by God because of Christ], he must also face the harder task of believing that he is free not to act out the compulsive drives that still may inhere in a part of his personality. If the twin resources of justification and sanctification through Christ are preached and taught and counseled in our congregations, the barriers to reaching and delivering homosexuals will fall.[8]
“Double Repentance” in Context
There is another piece of missing context in Lovelace’s comment about “double repentance.” This is hinted at by the sentence that opens the entire quote, which says (emphasis added):
It is my hope, however, that we will not be forced to resolve our conflicts by emptying the mainline churches of homosexual believers. There is another approach to homosexuality which would be healthier both for the church and for gay believers… [the rest of the “double repentance” quote].[9]
This is an understandable omission on Johnson’s part because it only makes sense with the context of the prior section in the book. However, this missing context really is the skeleton key to the entirety of Lovelace’s point about “double repentance.”
To summarize from Homosexuality and the Church (pp. 120–123), Lovelace was making the point that there were many gay people already in the mainline church. He didn’t want to conduct trials to expose them but he wanted gay people, of their own volition, to confess their homosexuality if they were going to turn from it or to transfer out to a gay-affirming denomination if they were not. If they were unwilling to repent and unwilling to leave, Lovelace said they should stay silent about their homosexuality for the sake of unity and the consciences of the other believers in the church who were convinced homosexual behavior was sinful. Overall, it is probably the weakest section of the entire Lovelace book—riddled with his own justifications for staying in a spiritually dying denomination.
The reality is that Lovelace knew there were many practicing homosexuals already in the UPCUSA. Some were church members; others were seeking to be ordained. Some may have already been ordained and were wanting to “come out” publicly. Many had spoken directly to the task force over the 15 months that the group met. The task force itself had Nick Glaser on it—an openly gay man who had been denied ordination in his presbytery. Furthermore, during the process of deliberations, a fellow task force member and former General Assembly moderator, Willard Heckel, came out to the group as a homosexual.[10] Lovelace didn’t want to see anyone kicked out of the church but hoped that anyone who embraced homosexuality would have the integrity to repent or leave on their own. Unsurprisingly, this did not happen—even after the conservative position won out at General Assembly in 1978.
When Lovelace presents the idea of “double repentance,” he is speaking of active sodomites who are repenting of their sin and being renewed by the Holy Spirit’s work. He envisions that this work would include some repentant homosexuals eventually being ordained into leadership—but in order for that to happen, any lingering fear of homosexuals would need to be removed. He rightly recognizes homosexual behavior as destructive and ensnaring. Lovelace also sees compulsive homosexual behavior as so deep-rooted and entangling that celibacy will be a marked victory for some.
What Lovelace doesn’t address in Homosexuality and the Church is what few had even considered at that point—the question of the gay identity existing apart from sexual expression. This lack is reflected in most discourse about homosexuality at the time—both secular and Christian. Perhaps it reflected a lack in the culture at large, as public expressions of gay identity were only just beginning to take shape during the 70s and 80s. It was only after homosexuality became more mainstream and overall acceptable that the subtler distinctions within homosexuality—such as the distinction between orientation and sexual behavior—became more discussed. With these distinctions also grew an expanded category of ways to “sin” against homosexuals.
The Ambiguous Charge of Homophobia
The other side of “double repentance” is the question of homophobia. The word gets thrown around a lot these days—especially by non-Christians supporting the LGBTQ+ socio-political cause. But with the ascendency of Side B/Revoice, we now see it used by evangelicals speaking about evangelicals.
In a promotional video for Still Time to Care, Greg Johnson says this of Richard Lovelace:
This is an old school, conservative evangelical in the 1970s who is grieved over the sins of the church against gay people. And he wants the church’s gay membership to be embraced. And uh and the “dual repentance” is people like me, we repent of homosexual practice, and everybody else repents of homophobia. And the evidence of that is non-practicing gay pastors.[11]
What Johnson doesn’t ask is what exactly did Lovelace mean by the term homophobia? One really doesn’t have to go very far to find out, as Lovelace clearly defined it as “irrational fear and hatred of homosexual persons.”[12] He saw this attitude expressed in “the inability of church people to maintain an attitude of compassionate concern for homosexuals while disapproving of the active homosexual life-style.”[13] He didn’t give much detail beyond this, but he was describing an unloving attitude that shows no concern for the soul or state of a particular sinner.
Lovelace highlights the “sin of homophobia” in his book because it was one of the few points of consensus that could be reached between the warring parties within the UPCUSA. The liberals in the UPCUSA rejected the authority of the Bible and believed the sexual teaching of Scripture to be astonishingly unclear. Nevertheless, the liberals had no doubt about homophobia: it was a sin. Meanwhile, there were conservative ministers in the denomination, like Lovelace, who also saw homophobia as an issue that needed to be addressed.
Jerry Kirk—a conservative UPCUSA minister—summarized this position well in his 1978 book, The Homosexual Crisis in the Mainline Church:
The homosexual has sinned. But Christian, your sin of lovelessness may be keeping him from finding hope and Christ. He may not as yet have found a Christian who will love him as he is and guide him to wholeness in Christ.[14]
Similar to Lovelace, Jerry Kirk defined homophobia as “the fear and rejection of homosexuals as people.”[15] Yet, even with the call to be compassionate and loving, Kirk still warned people of the dangers of “the gay movement” in the church and society:
The battle is not just a decision for or against ordination of homosexuals. The battle is against moral laxity within the life of the church (its clergy and laity) and in our nation. The battle is for more stable and wholesome family life. The battle is for deeper spiritual vitality and for congregational renewal. God is calling the church to a new sense of prophetic clarity in private morality and for pastoral compassion in ministry to broken people.[16]
We should also recognize that, in our day, the term homophobia is notoriously ambiguous. It was originally coined by a psychologist in order to describe “the dread of being in close quarters with homosexuals”[17] but was quickly co-opted by activists to describe any form of discrimination or rejection felt by gay people. More often than not, it is a political word utilized to accomplish political goals. Similar to the current charge of racism, homophobia is less a definable action someone does than a certain feeling of being slighted or treated differently as a minority. With that, the charge of it can be levelled against openly hostile acts of aggression and demeaning language or for “microaggressions” and inferences.
Also, similar to the discussion of racism, homophobia can point beyond personal attitudes of rejection to a systemic privileging of heterosexuality over homosexuality. In this way, any belief that sees heterosexuality as normal and good is demonized by mainstream LGBTQ+ as being homophobic—especially orthodox Christianity.
Greg Johnson will not admit it but the Revoice movement has imbibed enough mainstream LGBTQ+ thinking to join them in using the charge of homophobia as a weapon against evangelical churches. It is a bully tactic—easy to say and nearly impossible to disprove. It feels like it fits—even though what actually counts as homophobia remains ill-defined. Is it homophobic for Christian parents to wish that their gay-identified child were heterosexual? Ed Shaw[18], Nate Collins[19], and many other Revoice proponents say “yes.” Is it homophobic for a church not to hire a youth pastor who says he is same-sex attracted? According to Ray Low at the Revoice 18 conference, yes.[20] Is trying to cure homosexuality homophobic? According to Greg Johnson’s book, absolutely.
If everything that falls under this broad definition of homophobia is a sin—which is the implication when anyone says it needs repentance—then the conservative pushback against the LGBTQ+ cultural onslaught is also sinful. That is the charge, a charge implied by the very fact that Johnson cites the “culture war” as part of the problem. Christians should agree that being unkind or hating someone is wrong—but Johnson is trafficking a lot more in that term than Lovelace was.
The Forgotten Threat of Spiritual Warfare
One thing that Richard Lovelace discusses in Homosexuality and the Church that Greg Johnson, Nate Collins, Wesley Hill, Preston Sprinkle, Scott Sauls and any of the other proponents of the Revoice movement are unwilling to discuss is the reality of fierce spiritual warfare that surrounds homosexuality. It is a fundamental component of why so many supposed former homosexuals go back to the lifestyle, why so many gay people twist Scripture to justify their lust, and why the LGBTQ+ agenda seeks to either silence or queer the church. Yet Revoice and Greg Johnson have been utterly silent on this.
In contrast to them, Lovelace says few Christians are prepared for the spiritual battle that wages war for their souls—which is a major reason behind the stunted sanctification of many “gay Christians”:
Most Christians today are unaware of the personal and institutional forces attempting to destroy God’s creation, and few are braced against these in the attitude of resistance commanded in Ephesians 6:10–12, 1 Peter 5:8–9, and James 4:7. Ministers and laypersons alike persist in the rather unreasonable belief, left over from the Age of Reason, that there are no superhuman beings active in God’s creation. But the Scripture speaks plainly, if tersely and without superstition, about angelic beings who are loyal to God and benign, or are fallen and malicious. Paul speaks not only of our encountering structures and systems which are demonic, but of our hand wrestling with personal demonic agents (see Ephesians 6:12). Since the principal aim of fallen angels is the destruction or distortion of God’s creation, it is not surprising that frequently these are involved in the twisting of human sexuality, as in the case of Mary Magdalene (see Luke 8:2). While the indiscriminate use of lengthy procedures of exorcism may not be called for in all cases of persistent sexual bondage, what is certainly appropriate in every case is the admonition of James: “Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7 NAS). Probably few gay Christians who have “prayed about” their condition without success have been spiritually realistic enough to follow this injunction, and therefore it is not surprising that the condition has persisted without healing or control.[21]
For anyone who has worked with or spoken to repentant homosexuals, those who have come to a knowledge of the truth will testify to this reality. Satan loves to keep men and women in bondage to their lusts—and the Revoice movement has found clever ways to help him.
“Double Repentance” versus the “Double Cure”
Greg Johnson has tried to say that the best way forward for the evangelical church is a “double repentance.” As we have seen, he misrepresents Lovelace in order to make his own point. Johnson says there is no cure (apart from final glorification) for dishonorable passions. He also says that this view does nothing to diminish the power of the gospel or the work of the Holy Spirit. Still Time to Care attempts to prove that the expectation of change is completely unfounded—and potentially homophobic. If it is homophobic, then it needs repentance.
Johnson says Christians should move beyond trying to “cure” homosexuality in order to “care” for homosexuals. But what makes these ideas so exclusive? The idea that one of them is impossible.
Any sincere Christian should be asking: what is wrong with thinking that there should be a “cure” for the reigning power of any particular sin—even homosexuality? The Bible certainly gives us cause to think there is a cure:
We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. (Romans 6:5–6)
Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. (Romans 6:12–14)
This is where Revoice proponents like Johnson attempt to put “dishonorable passions” (Romans 1:26) in a different category from “shameless acts” (Romans 1:27), as if the latter needs direct repentance and can be overcome by the power of God but the former will permanently inhere in the life of a believer with little change until we are in the new heavens.
Rather than embracing the vexed concept of “double repentance,” Christians should rally around the much more biblically defined concept of the “double cure”:
Rock of Ages, cleft for meLet me hide myself in thee;Let the water and the blood,From thy riven side which flowed,Be of sin the double cure,Cleanse me from its guilt and pow’r.(from Augustus Toplady’s hymn “Rock of Ages”)
Here we have biblical truth, expounded clearly and succinctly. Christ’s blood does not merely take away the guilt of our sin but also removes the powerful grip it holds on us, enabling us to choose righteousness over wickedness, allowing us to actually put sin to death even at the level of our desires. “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry” (Colossians 3:5).
While Revoice proponents are busy delicately nuancing a distinction between homosexual orientation and homosexual behavior, the Lord calls us to put it all to death because it is worldly and wicked. Certainly, where there is a lack of compassion or outright hostility among Christians in our churches, the Scripture speaks to this as well: “But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth” (Colossians 3:8). In this all Christians have the power to change—having received this double cure by the blood of our Savior. “Cleanse me from its guilt and power.”
M.D. Perkins is research fellow of church and culture for the American Family Association and is a ruling elder at Lawndale Presbyterian Church (PCA). His study into the issues surrounding “gay Christianity” and the Revoice movement are featured in the paper A Little Leaven: Confronting the Ideology of the Revoice Movement (2021) and in his forthcoming book Dangerous Affirmation: The Threat of “Gay Christianity” (2022).

[1] “Missouri Presbytery Ad Hoc Committee to Respond to Memorial Presbyterian Church Report of Its BCO 31-2 Investigation of TE Greg Johnson”, Missouri Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), July 21, 2020, 38. https://1ar.s3.amazonaws.com/2020/08/2020.07.21-MOP-BCO-31-2-investigation-of-TE-Greg-Johnson-CRM.pdf
[2] Ibid., 38.
[3] Greg Johnson has a patchwork version of the Lovelace quote on pages 83, 207, and 244 (in the conclusion of the book) in Still Time to Care.
[4] Richard F. Lovelace, Homosexuality and the Church: Crisis, Conflict, Compassion (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1978), 125.
[5] The UPCUSA was the “northern” Presbyterian church. It would merge with the “southern” Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS) in 1983 to form the Presbyterian Church (USA) denomination we know today as the mainline Presbyterian church.
[6] Ibid., 129–130.
[7] Ibid., 133–134.
[8] Ibid., 135–136.
[9] Ibid., 125.
[10] Chris Glaser, Uncommon Calling: A Gay Christian’s Struggle to Serve the Church (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996 [originally published San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row, 1988]), 169–170.
[11] Greg Johnson (@PcaMemorial). “Our approach to care requires a double repentance: repentance from homosexuals who confess their sin and turn away from any homosexual lifestyle, and repentance from the church for its mistreatment of LGBTQ+ members, and then open acceptance of non-straight believers.” November 2, 2021, 8:37 AM. Tweet. https://twitter.com/PcaMemorial/status/1455529375659593734
[12] Richard F. Lovelace, Homosexuality and the Church: Crisis, Conflict, Compassion (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1978), 147.
[13] Ibid., 66.
[14] Jerry R. Kirk, The Homosexual Crisis in the Mainline Church (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1978), 125.
[15] Ibid., 125.
[16] Ibid., 141.
[17] George Weinberg, Society and the Healthy Homosexual (Garden City, NY: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1972), 4.
[18] Ed Shaw, Same-Sex Attraction and the Church: The Surprising Plausibility of the Celibate Life (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2015), 95.
[19] Nate Collins, All But Invisible: Exploring Identity Questions at the Intersection of Faith, Gender, and Sexuality (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017), 256–257.
[20] M.D. Perkins, A Little Leaven: Confronting the Ideology of the Revoice Movement (Tupelo, MS: American Family Association, 2021), 53. https://afa.net/media/595378/afa_alittleleaven_perkins_2021.pdf
[21] Richard F. Lovelace, Homosexuality and the Church: Crisis, Conflict, Compassion (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1978), 137.
Post Views: 377

The Aquila Report

‘I Was A Mess’: Lesbian Professor Turned Christ-Follower Shares What Changed Her Heart

By Olivia Cavallaro — 2 years ago

“I realized that part of why I didn’t understand how to be a godly woman was because I didn’t understand how to be a woman, which was hilarious because I’m a professor of women’s studies at the time. I was a mess, and I committed my life to Christ because I believed He was true and real and I had no idea what He was going to do with a mess like me.”

A former lesbian feminist sheds light on her journey into Christianity and how it impacted her identity and life to become a true Christ-follower.
Rosaria Butterfield is a former professor of women’s studies at Syracuse University and the author of “The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert: An English Professor’s Journey into Christian Faith.” In a recent appearance in the The Becket Cook Show, Butterfield shared details about her personal journey from being a lesbian feminist to becoming a Christ-follower.
According to the biography on Butterfield’s website, the author and former tenured professor of English and women’s studies converted to Christianity in 1999, in a journey she describes as a “train wreck.” Today, the author is wife to Kent Butterfield, a Reformed Presbyterian pastor in North Carolina, and a homeschool mother. She was raised in a liberal Catholic family and up until her late 20’s, Butterfield was so “allured by feminist philosophy and LGBT advocacy” that she decided to identify as a lesbian.
Butterfield, who has a PhD from Ohio State University, met Ken Smith in 1997 while she was researching the Religious Right. At the time, she was unaware how big of an impact Smith would make on her life.
CBN News reported that Butterfield recounted during her interview with Cook, “I talk about what it was like to meet a pastor, who was my neighbor when I was a lesbian, feminist, activist, professor. I met Ken Smith, the pastor who the Lord used in my conversion. I thought this man is really smart.”
Butterfield added, “[Smith] and his wife Floy welcomed me into their world and they came into my world and they didn’t act as though I was polluting them. Early on in our friendship, Ken said to me ‘there’s a difference between acceptance and approval and if you can live with that difference, I can live with that difference.’”
Butterfield recounted how she began reading the Bible and routinely meeting with Pastor Ken and Floy, which sparked discussions on various issues from a Christian perspective. The former lesbian professor recalled how she met the entire church community and how the pastor’s house “functioned,” allowing her to experience firsthand what a Christian community was like.
Read More

Critical Theory and The Gospel

Related Posts:

You Might also like

The First Works

What Greg Johnson Won’t Tell You About “Double Repentance”

‘I Was A Mess’: Lesbian Professor Turned Christ-Follower Shares What Changed Her Heart