Those and many other things in our theory and practice of church government follow from an inference, and in many cases one that is much less clear and logically necessary than the inference that it is imprudent in the extreme to ordain men given to unnatural lust, or that the church may act on such prudence by refusing office to such men.

In previous articles I wrote that the constitution of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) prohibits the ordination of men who experience unnatural lusts,  prudence also recommending against it. If it be doubted that there are mistaken ideas on this matter among us, one need only consider Missouri Presbytery’s report on its investigation of allegations against Greg Johnson, a teaching elder who publicly confessed the experience of such lusts. Time would prohibit a full response to that report, but a single section shall suffice to show why this question is of continued importance.

One of the allegations brought against Johnson was that his identifying as a man who experienced such lusts meant that he was not “above reproach” (1 Tim. 3:2) and was therefore disqualified. Missouri Presbytery ruled the allegation false, because it “does not follow by good and necessary consequence.” Elsewhere it says that “necessary=logically necessary,” and since they insist on its logical necessity, here are three arguments for why the allegation was correct and did in fact follow from “good and necessary consequence.”

Argument One:

• Premise 1) Scripture says that “sexual immorality and all impurity . . . must not even be named among you” (Eph. 5:3).
• Premise 2) Self-identification as an experiencer of abominable impurity necessarily entails naming that impurity in the church.
• Conclusion) A man who does so may be justly reproached for violating scripture’s command to not name such things among God’s people.

Argument Two:

• Premise 1) We are commanded to give no offense to the church of God (1 Cor. 10:32).
• Premise 2) Self-identifying as experiencing the lust in question has offended much of the church of God.
• Conclusion: A man who does so may be justly reproached for causing needless offense to the church.

Argument Three:

• Premise 1) We are to “put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness” (Jas. 1:21).
• Premise 2) Unnatural lust is a form of filthiness and rampant wickedness, being an inclination to what God calls abominable (Lev. 18:22, 26).
• Premise 3) Publicly declaring one’s unnatural lust as a prominent, unremitted experience and a large part of one’s identity is not putting it aside, but rather keeping it near at hand.
• Conclusion: That a man who self-identifies as experiencing abominable lust may be justly reproached for failing to put it aside, and thereby being a bad example to others.

Of further concern is that, having blithely asserted that it does not follow that abominable lust is reproachable and disqualifying, the report then deflects the conversation by refocusing it on “heterosexual men” who “bring their own set of challenges to ministry with regard to sexual temptation,” which temptations are “not demonstrably less serious.”  Such a deflection is unwarranted and unhelpful. Unnamed and hypothetical “heterosexual men” were not under investigation for their presumed temptations; an actual man named Greg Johnson was, for his publicly-acknowledged statements and character. The point of an investigation is to investigate the accused, not to ponder in the abstract the possible implications of other men’s possible sins.

Actually, the thing is worse than that, for Johnson being the only PCA minister to publicly identify as experiencing the lust in question, the report in effect draws a distinction between him and all our other ministers, since all of them are, unlike Johnson, “heterosexual,” at least in the framework of the report. It constitutes them a class, and ascribes “not demonstrably less serious” temptations to their class. This is the tu quoque fallacy writ large, implying that the concern about Johnson is misplaced since our other ministers – including, by implication, his accusers – are part of a class that has “not demonstrably less serious” sexual temptations.

Again, we are not talking about normal men and what they may or may not experience. The point was what Johnson did, and by this attempt to change the subject the report has invited the question why it felt the need to do so. Could it be that a concern to not be deemed excessively harsh lay behind it? The report later speaks of “what will gain the respect of outsiders” and says that “we should realize that we are likely to lose rather than gain respect ourselves if we do not allow men to sit in the teaching/ruling office of the church just because they self-identify as those who feel same-sex inclinations within themselves” (pp. 83-4, emphasis original). It is out of the heart that the mouth speaks (Lk. 6:45), a corollary of which is that it is out of the heart that the presbytery report is typed.

(As an aside, I trust it needs no elaboration that conducting an ecclesiastical judicial investigation with a view toward how it might be perceived by the unbelieving world is not the right mindset in which to do so.)

This consciousness of the world’s opinion means it is therefore disappointing but not surprising to read what follows. Having deflected as above, it further digresses into a strange bit about how “what may be more important than sexual orientation is the divide between married and single pastors.” Whatever the merits of that statement, it is irrelevant to the question of whether Johnson’s behavior and character were justly reproachable and disqualifying. The report then says:

Here is the principle, grounded in the Word of God: Since there is no clear command in Scripture to prohibit a spiritually mature and celibate man who lives with enduring SSA from becoming a ruling or teaching elder, it would be “to go beyond what is written” in the Word (I Corinthians 4:6) for the Church to decline to ordain all such men, whether by claiming it to be binding as the outworking of the law of Christ, or even as a temporary precaution of prudent necessity.

Pray tell, on what ground may we say that a man is spiritually mature if he admits the continued experience of unnatural lust? What maturity is this which leaves him with such heinous aberrant desires? While we are asking questions, may I ask how it is that the men who wrote this report, all of whom have sworn to approve the form of government of the PCA (BCO 21-5, Q. 3), can so readily speak against it? For they say the church may not decline to ordain the experiencers of recurrent unnatural lust without being guilty of going “beyond what is written” and violating a “principle, grounded in the Word of God.” Yet our constitution says (BCO Preface II.2):

Every Christian Church, or union or association of particular churches, is entitled to declare the terms of admission into its communion and the qualifications of its ministers and members, as well as the whole system of its internal government which Christ has appointed.

And further:

In the exercise of this right it may, notwithstanding, err in making the terms of communion either too lax or too narrow; yet even in this case, it does not infringe upon the liberty or the rights of others, but only makes an improper use of its own.

That same section begins with saying this “form of government [is] founded upon and agreeable to the Word of God.” So on the one hand they say that they approve our form of government, which says the church has the right to qualify or disqualify whom it will; that an error in this respect does not infringe any aspirant minister’s rights; and that this arrangement is scriptural. Then on the other hand they say that scripture prohibits the church declaring the qualifications of its ministers in the case of men who experience unnatural lusts.

That is rather inconsistent. If 1 Cor. 4:6 establishes the principle that no class may be prohibited from office absent a “clear command in Scripture,” then our form of government is wrong and not “agreeable to the Word of God,” and these men ought not to approve it. In fact, there is a thick irony here, for in arguing that scripture must be clear and explicit if the church is to wield her governmental powers in a way that disqualifies anyone, the report has appealed to an obscure passage. It’s not clear what “what is written” refers to in 1 Cor. 4:6. Calvin says that:

The clause “above what is written” may be explained in two ways — either as referring to Paul’s writings, or to the proofs from Scripture [Job 5:13 and Ps. 94:11, just quoted in 3:19, 20] which he has brought forward. As this, however, is a matter of small moment, my readers may be left at liberty to take whichever they may prefer.

Chrysostom quotes Jesus’s statements about humility in Matthew and Mark and says, “these are the things which ‘are written.’” John Gill says it means, “either in the word of God in general; or in some particular passages of Scripture he might have respect to; or rather in the above places in this, and the foregoing chapter.” Albert Barnes, that it is “probably referring to what he had said in 1 Corinthians 3:5-9, 1 Corinthians 3:21; 1 Corinthians 4:1,” but that “it may refer to the general strain of Scripture requiring the children of God to be modest and humble.” The Pulpit Commentary, that it “is of very uncertain meaning” and “perhaps it is a sort of proverb,” coming down with the conclusion that “the text, like so many others, has only a very remote connection with the sense in which it is usually quoted.”

It is widely-acknowledged that it is unwise to base a doctrine on a single obscure passage, not least one that will have an immense bearing on how the church governs its affairs. 1 Cor. 4:6 fits that bill, and therefore the only scripture this section of Missouri’s report quotes does not suffice to prove the scripturality of the principle asserted.

Now, does scripture require a “clear command” to disqualify? Apply that idea to other matters of qualification or polity and practice and it falls apart faster than a straw hut in a tornado:

• ‘Since there is no clear command in Scripture to prohibit a spiritually mature and celibate man who lives with enduring pedophilia from becoming a ruling or teaching elder . . .’
• ‘Since there is no clear command in Scripture to prohibit a spiritually mature and celibate man who lives with an enduring romantic love for his cow . . .’
• ‘Since there is no clear command in Scripture to prohibit a spiritually mature and celibate man who lives with an enduring amorous infatuation with his sister . . .’
• ‘Since there is no clear command in Scripture to prohibit a man who lives with an enduring temptation to sorcery . . .’
• ‘Since there is no clear command in Scripture to prohibit gambling, there is no reason to prevent a responsible, competent professional gambler . . .’
• ‘Since there is no clear command in Scripture to prohibit a spiritually mature man who lives with an enduring inclination to Buddhism . . .’

We could – and in the interests of logical consistency, must – justify any sinful desire by that logic, provided it wasn’t acted on and the man claiming it asserted he was ‘mature.’ And while we’re on the topic, do please tell me where there are explicit commands to baptize infants; disqualify all non-Presbyterians from office, no matter how godly; require an academic education for ministers (BCO 21-4); or have study committees. Those and many other things in our theory and practice of church government follow from an inference, and in many cases one that is much less clear and logically necessary than the inference that it is imprudent in the extreme to ordain men given to unnatural lust, or that the church may act on such prudence by refusing office to such men. More could be said about the errors of Missouri’s report, but for now let it be seen that there are false ideas abroad among us about the church and its power viz. perspective officers, as well as the proper character of such men.

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.