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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The first section of the Report does a wonderful job of upholding our understanding of what is required in the Moral Law, both in what is forbidden by the Ten Commandments and in what is positively required of them. Westminster Larger Catechism questions 129-151 provide the framework for this section.  It would be difficult to come away from Section 1 without agreement that not only is abuse a grave sin, but that it is our duty as Churches, Church officers, and a denomination to proactively create a safe environment for those in our care and to love and protect victims well when abuse comes to light.

The church should be a sanctuary for victims, a training ground to prevent assault, and a facilitator of emotional, spiritual, and physical healing. (PCA AIC DASA Report, p. 2402)
The Presbyterian Church in America’s (PCA) Ad Interim Committee (AIC) on Domestic Abuse and Sexual Abuse (DASA) recently released its Report to be presented at the 49th General Assembly later this month.  Given everything that has gone on in the news and online with other denominations releasing reports of abuse in their ranks, there has been much confusion over this PCA document; what it is, what it is not, and what place it has within our polity.
First, What the Report Is NOT:

It is not an analysis or investigation of allegations of abuse in the PCA.
It is not binding on PCA Churches in any way.
It is not going to be either “approved” or “adopted” by the PCA.

Second, What the Report Is:
In 2019 the 47th General Assembly of the PCA adopted an overture to form an Ad Interim Committee[1] to study the topic of Abuse, which the Report defines as “persistent maltreatment that causes lasting damage”(p. 2306). Additionally, it states “for the purposes of this report, all forms of physical and nonphysical (emotional, psychological, spiritual) abuse will be considered equally sinful” (p. 2307).[2] The Assembly directed the Committee to fulfill a number of tasks, chief among them being that:
The Committee shall report regarding best practices and guidelines that could be helpful for elders, Sessions, Presbyteries, and agencies for protecting against these sins and for responding to them. However, no practice, policy, or guideline will be proposed for adoption or approval. It is simply information, which shall not be binding or obligatory in any sense. (p. 2301)
The result is a 220-page technical yet pastoral document that has two main parts:

Biblical and theological foundations of understanding abuse (Section 1)
Practical pastoral aspects of abuse in the church (Sections 2 – 6)[3]

What the Report Does Well

It is both Biblical & Confessional

The first section of the Report does a wonderful job of upholding our understanding of what is required in the Moral Law, both in what is forbidden by the Ten Commandments and in what is positively required of them. Westminster Larger Catechism questions 129-151 provide the framework for this section.  It would be difficult to come away from Section 1 without agreement that not only is abuse a grave sin, but that it is our duty as Churches, Church officers, and a denomination to proactively create a safe environment for those in our care and to love and protect victims well when abuse comes to light.

Body & Soul

The Report convincingly makes the case that abuse is not just physical, affecting the body, but that it affects the very soul and being of a person (p. 2311).[4] This is meant to show how emotional, psychological, and spiritual abuse truly are abuse.

Matthew 18 vs. Romans 13

Churches need to understand that there are times when a faithful application of Romans 13 takes precedence over a well-intentioned but mistaken approach to Matthew 18 (pp. 2332, 2399).  Many cases have been botched, pain increased, and future abuse facilitated because the heart of Church leadership was to confront the accused (Matthew 18) rather than report the alleged crime to the governing authorities who are ordained by God for such a task (Romans 13).  Additionally, in the United States of America, there are unique legal reporting requirements that pastors and ministry leaders must obey in each State or civil jurisdiction.

Case-by-Case & Step-by-Step Guidance

While pastors and ministry leaders should read the entire first section of the AIC Report in order to understand the basis for the subsequent sections, it is very helpful to be able to turn right to sections 2-6 for guidance related to specific types of abuse, how to care for the victims, and how to proceed with investigations procedurally in line with BCO 31-2 (p. 2338). The Attachments aid with this. Attachment 6: Comprehensive Child Protection Policy is particularly helpful.

Gospel Hope

While the Report is sobering, it is full of gospel hope.  There are multiple sections on shepherding, for both the victim and the abuser. There are sections on the subjects of forgiveness and repentance.
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[1] BCO, Rules of Assembly Operations, Article IX.
[2] It is unclear how this principle of equality plays out in the Report. At times in certain sections of the Report, the word “abuse” is used broadly, as in this quote on page 2307. At other points in the Report, “abuse” is used in a limited way to denote the type of abuse being discussed in a given section. However, even the Report acknowledges that our d
octrinal Standards (i.e., WLC 151) do not count all sins as equally heinous (p. 2309). Yes, all abuse is sin deserving of Hell. Yes, emotional abuse is really and truly abuse (and therefore, sin), and as such it inflicts damage upon souls and calls down God’s just judgement upon the perpetrator(s). However, rape and child sexual abuse are clearly more heinous sins than non-physical sinful abusive patterns and behaviors that men and women commit in their various relationships. Our doctrinal commitment to understanding gradations of heinousness of sin from one instance or kind of abuse to another is not clearly articulated in the Report.
[3] Each section includes unverified case studies that allegedly happened in the PCA, described for illustrative purposes.
[4] This is in line with how Calvin understood the soul, as is reflected in his Institutes.I.15.
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We must affirm the deeply theological character of ministry. We cannot properly understand or navigate the complexity and controversies of church life without reference to the Father, Son, and Spirit, the nature of their action in the world; nor can we understand the character of the world’s reaction without John’s anthropological and demonological insights. On the other, it means that theologically-educated ministers must not wistfully pine for a life soaring two hundred feet from the ground. The eagle must land.

Third John feels a long way from John’s Gospel, and not just because they are separated by Acts and the Epistles in our Bibles. The Fourth Gospel is rightly regarded as a soaring work of theology; John is known as “the Divine”—that is, the theologian—and his Gospel is a rich source of Trinitarian and Christological reflection; it is a “spiritual gospel” in the view of Clement,1 and he is symbolized by the eagle in Christian tradition, amongst other, more earth-bound evangelists.2 That distinctive ability to reach theological heights in the beguilingly simple language of Father and Son, life and light, truth and love, endures as far as 1 John and 2 John. But by contrast, 3 John is thin on theology (as the shortest NT document, with no mention of Jesus by name) and thick with the dirt and dust of everyday life. Its concern is with hospitality to travelers and it depicts church life mired in strife and conflict.
At first glance, therefore, 3 John makes a curious terminus for John’s letters in the New Testament.3 Indeed, as Fred Sanders has pointed out, one could have justifiably anticipated a trajectory towards evermore concentrated and compact statements of truth. John’s Gospel itself has distilled more material than the world could contain into twenty-one chapters (21:25); in 1 John 1:1–4 we can recognize something of a summary of those twenty-one chapters; and the distillation continues in 1 John 1:5 where “the message we have heard from him and declare to you” can be boiled down to a single sentence: “God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.” Those compact summaries rely on the longer forms to fill out their meaning but they demonstrate the remarkable capacity of the Christian good news to be expressed in simple and sublime ways.4 And so one can imagine an alternate version of 3 John as the most distilled version of the Johannine material: perhaps a one verse summary of the 1 John 1:5 sort, or perhaps simply the fabled exhortation of John’s latter years “Little children, love one another.”5
Even without such hypotheticals, turning to the substance of 3 John can feel like a move from the sublime to the pedestrian. And yet the burden of this article is that 3 John is the fruition of so much that is anticipated in and resourced by John’s Gospel. Taken together, there emerges a strikingly theological vision for pastoral ministry. John remains the eagle, and here in 3 John we glimpse what happens when the eagle lands in the day-to-day trenches of life and ministry.
1. The Ordinary Ministry of Christian Believers
The first observation to make is that 3 John navigates the transition to the post-apostolic age. We move quite seamlessly into the world of Gaius and Demetrius, a new generation of believers and an extending cast of co-workers in the truth. John’s stance within that transition is noteworthy. He does not present himself as the landmark apostle, an eagle amongst pigeons. Rather he presents himself as the elder writing to one who shares in his ministry. Gaius is loved in the truth (v. 1), is walking in the truth (v. 3) and is a co-worker in the truth in acts of hospitality (v. 8). Likewise, the unnamed brothers in verse 3 who testify approvingly concerning the loving ministry of Gaius take their place alongside those who testify concerning Demetrius, and John himself as he testifies to the quality of Demetrius. The language here provides a strong link back to John’s Gospel, which is characterized as John’s testimony (John 18:35, 21:24) and in which testimony to the truth and the identity of various figures is so central.6 In one sense, John is the witness par excellence, and we receive in his testimony what he heard, saw, and touched, but 3 John also reflects the ways in which every believer is called to be a witness to the truth and to identify and affirm the ministry of those who walk in the truth.
Accordingly, John’s Gospel anticipates the ministry of many more than just the twelve. It is an exaggeration to say that John ignores ecclesiology or presents a radically egalitarian or individualistic vision of the church,7 but nevertheless, these are features of the Gospel: there is a call to acknowledge and love all fellow believers within the household of God,8 and the prominence of individual encounters with Jesus in John’s Gospel is noteworthy, especially relative to the other Gospels. The Samaritan woman and the man healed of blindness are especially vivid examples of those who go on to a life of testifying to what they have experienced. Both of these themes are fleshed out further in 3 John. The welcome and affirmation of brothers is emphasized in verses 5–8 as a hallmark of walking in love. And in 3 John, Gaius and Demetrius take their place alongside the Samaritan Woman and the man healed of blindness as models of ministry within their communities and within the Johannine writings.
2. The Contested and Ambiguous Nature of Ministry
John’s Gospel also previews and accounts for the contested nature of ministry and identity in 3 John. Life within those churches receiving and sending on the traveling workers is tense and ambiguous; the efforts of Diotrophes cast doubt on the ministries of the visiting brothers and of the elder himself. To be sure, many brothers, and the truth itself, commend Demetrius (v. 12) but in the present time the ambiguity of claim and counter-claim must be endured. In pastoral ministry this is a deeply painful and frustrating reality; in some cases the truth of the matter will be known to us but obscured and denied by others; in others, the truth will be less clear and we will have to live and act and persevere in the absence of clarity.
None of this is foreign to the Gospel of John, where contested identity is such a significant theme. The blind man’s identity as well as his healing is contested in John 9 and so is his character as a truthful witness. The way in which his experience echoes that of Jesus (both are dismissed as sinners [9:16, 34] and both affirm their identity with “I am” statements [Jesus, famously and frequently; the blind man in 9:9]) means that John’s Gospel has more to offer than sympathy. It offers a theological account of the claim and counterclaim, grounded in the darkness and its unwillingness to receive the truth, its recourse to lies, and its culpable blindness. With that account also comes a measure of comfort: the ambiguities that beset the church of Gaius and Demetrius or, for that matter, the contemporary church, are not signs that the church has fallen into crisis, but rather that crisis is always the atmosphere when light collides with darkness. In this regard, 3 John serves to highlight the reality that light and dark will commingle within the church.9
3. The Centrality of Hospitality
The third major way in which 3 John relies upon and grounds the theology of John’s Gospel is in its emphasis on hospitality for those who come in the Lord’s name. The theme is often observed in 3 John, which explains its popularity as a text by which to encourage churches in their support of mission.10 This use is entirely fitting, given John’s language in 3 John 7, where those who go out “on behalf the name” echoes the description of those who have suffered for Jesus’s sake in Acts 5:41, 9:16, 15:26, 21:13,11 and, perhaps more significantly, evokes John’s Upper Room where their identification with the name of Jesus is the cause of the disciples’ suffering (15:21) and the source of their safety (17:11–12). Likewise, John’s note about their lack of support from unbelievers in 3 John 7 calls to mind both Paul’s unwillingness to depend upon those he seeks to reach (1 Cor 9:15–18) and Jesus’s instructions to his disciples that they should entrust themselves to God’s provision amongst those who receive them.
3 John places a very high premium on such hospitality. Although 3 John 11 contains the only formal imperative in 3 John, verse 8 also has that force: “we ought therefore to show hospitality to such people.” And in the elder’s earlier remarks, hospitality of that kind is a defining mark of what it means to walk in the truth.
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