How A Gay St. Louis Pastor Triggered A War Within the Presbyterian Church In America
But since Johnson went public with his orientation in Christianity Today, pastors in his denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America, have tried to banish clergy who identify as gay, even if they commit to celibacy. Johnson has fought that. He says orientation is largely fixed — but believes there is still a place for people like him in conservative churches.
Greg Johnson describes himself as a “gay atheist teenager” who fell for Jesus — and found himself at the center of evangelical Christianity’s internal battles over sexuality.
For nearly 20 years, Johnson has pastored Memorial Presbyterian Church in St. Louis, right across from Forest Park. He says he’s been gay and celibate the entire time. When he came out to his church, he said he received a standing ovation and shouts of “We love you, Greg” from congregants.
But since Johnson went public with his orientation in Christianity Today, pastors in his denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America, have tried to banish clergy who identify as gay, even if they commit to celibacy.
Johnson has fought that. He says orientation is largely fixed — but believes there is still a place for people like him in conservative churches.
“I spent a lot of years convincing myself that I was a straight man with a disease called homosexuality that could be cured,” Johnson said on Wednesday’s St. Louis on the Air. “And, perhaps up to a million of us did that.”
The million Johnson is referring to are people who participated in the so-called “ex-gay movement,” which centered on the theory that one can change sexual orientation. The organization leading the charge, Exodus International, shuttered in 2013 after decades of fruitless attempts. Johnson said those efforts did more harm than good.
“I really believe that Jesus loves gay people, and I want evangelical churches to learn to say that and believe that,” he said.
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God’s Sovereign Purposes
We will bow because of His greatness but also kneel because of His goodness. We will be stunned by how He has used His power perfectly for the good of all. We will worship His mercy, grace, and kindness and be forever captured by the absolute perfection of His love. We will see and rejoice in His glorious sovereignty.
The word “sovereign” means “one supreme in power; ultimate authority.” When we say that God is sovereign, we are stating the truth that no one is above Him and that He rules over everything. But there is something vital we must understand about God’s sovereignty.
God is God and does what He pleases, but God is good and always does what is right.
To misunderstand either side of this equation is harmful. If you do not believe He is God, you will treat Him lightly and not honor, serve, and properly fear Him. You will not acknowledge His lordship nor bend to His rule.
But if you do not believe He is perfect in goodness, you will think ill of Him and not love and respect Him. Every step of His sovereignty is driven by His goodness. God knows what He is about and is always righteous and good.
The Little Sovereign Faces the Sovereign God
Pharoah, in Moses’ day, was the ruler of the known world. He sat on his throne, thinking there was no one greater. He had the most prominent kingdom and the greatest army on the face of the earth.
All the Pharaohs in succession believed they were gods. Four thousand years later, there are still physical reminders of their dynasty. But a shepherd, directed by the Ultimate Sovereign, came out of the desert to humble him and accomplish Divine purposes. God spoke to Moses with this prophecy.
“But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart that I may multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt. When Pharaoh does not listen to you, then I will lay My hand on Egypt and bring out My hosts, My people the sons of Israel, from the land of Egypt by great judgments. The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord when I stretch out My hand on Egypt and bring out the sons of Israel from their midst.” (Exodus 7:3-5)
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Happy New Year!
At an opportune moment on the final day of the retreat, Christopher was now ready. He kept telling me, “Well, I need to learn more and grow into this.” Finally, I said, “No, it’s time right now to ask Christ to come in and take control. Are you ready right now to do that?” “Yes,” he said humbly. I called his brother over, and the three of us prayed as Christopher applied the blood of Christ to the doorpost of his life. He was born again.
Where has your life been and where is it now? God is the God of new beginnings. Regardless of where your life has been, if you come to Him in faith, He can make all things new.
A National Delivered
Moses and his kinsmen (several million Israelites) had been in cruel bondage in Egypt for 430 years. There was nothing they could do: no way out and no human means of deliverance.
God knew what He was about for His people to whom He had pledged the Promised Land. On a perfect day, He instructed the people to take an unblemished lamb (a picture of Christ, the Lamb of God who was to come) and place the blood of that Lamb on their doorposts. It would protect them from the judgment coming across the land of Egypt.
All of this was God’s means of deliverance but also a foreshadowing of the future, as everything is. The Messiah (the Lamb of God) was coming. He would become a man and live a sinless life and then die a sacrificial death. His death in our place would be the means of our deliverance from sin, death, and hell.
But …
Something had to happen. The people must believe in God as their only Deliverer, partake of an unblemished lamb, and the blood of that lamb had to be APPLIED to their doorposts.
Moreover, they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. (Exodus 12:7)
The whole nation of Israel—every household—believed and trusted in the blood of the Lamb to save them. The blood was applied to their doorposts and the Death Angel passed over their lives.
A New Year
God now gave a significant command to Moses and the people.
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Lived to Be Forgotten: Dixon E. Hoste, Missionary to China
One of the most important and striking characteristics of Hoste was his prayer life—and related to that, his true humility before God and in his ministry. Hoste never sought fame or power. Instead, he was determined that his name and reputation would be subsumed under the desire to see Jesus get all the honor for everything. Hoste “lived to be forgotten” because he chose to be “hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3).
Dixon Edward Hoste (1861–1946) was a British missionary who served in China for over 40 years. Although he succeeded James Hudson Taylor as the general director of the China Inland Mission (CIM), much less has been written and recorded of his life and ministry than of Taylor’s.
This is not, however, because Hoste lacked achievements and contributions to the mission in China. He was instrumental to CIM’s development not only in terms of organization and mission mobilization but also in the indigenous principles that encouraged Chinese churches to self-grow and rely less on Western missionaries, as well as in dealing with the difficult Boxer Rebellion aftermath with grace and “the power of gentleness,” as former CT editor in chief David Neff put it.
One of the most important and striking characteristics of Hoste was his prayer life—and related to that, his true humility before God and in his ministry. Hoste never sought fame or power. Instead, he was determined that his name and reputation would be subsumed under the desire to see Jesus get all the honor for everything. Hoste “lived to be forgotten” because he chose to be “hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3).
Talking to God
Dixon E. Hoste was born on July 23, 1861, four years before CIM’s founding. Both his father and his grandfather were military men. When Dixon was 17, he entered the Royal Military Academy. At 18, he received his commission as a lieutenant to serve in the Royal Artillery.
Three years later, in 1882, Dixon’s elder brother, William, invited him to attend a special meeting in Brighton where the speaker was the American evangelist D. L. Moody. Phyllis Thompson, author of D. E. Hoste: A Prince with God (the primary biographical source in this article), described the scene. When Moody prayed, Thompson wrote, Dixon felt that he “talked as though God was there, as though he knew him, as a man talks to a friend. He talked as though God could be depended upon to do his work in men’s hearts, right then and there.” Hoste was converted at the meeting. Moody’s prayer left a deep impression on him that shaped his own prayer life over the next 40 years.
It did not take long before Hoste came across Hudson Taylor’s little bookChina: Its Spiritual Need and Claims. Hoste was captured by Taylor’s call for missionaries to serve “four hundred millions of souls, ‘having no hope, and without God’” in China. Hoste wrote to the London office of the CIM in 1883 and offered himself to be a candidate.However, the reference letter from the vicar of Sandown, Isle of Wight, W. T. Storrs, was not totally encouraging. On Hoste’s application form (in the OMF International archive) Storrs praised Hoste’s Christian character, calling him “a straightforward fellow, with much love and faith.” But he also characterized Hoste as naturally shy, a little impulsive, not able to teach well, not very enterprising, and not “naturally fitted” for missionary work—with a disclaimer of “but I may be mistaken.”
Though the clergyman’s assessment wasn’t very hopeful, Thompson writes, members of the London Council took note of the spiritual stature of this quiet young man. He was clearly humble and sincere and even in his youth demonstrated balanced judgment and foresight.
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