Theology in the Raw - S8 Ep876: Same-Sex Attracted, Sexually Pure, and...Unfit for Ministry? Dr. Greg Johnson

Episode Date: June 17, 2021

Greg grew up as a gay atheist in DC area and converted to Christianity at UVA  in 1990. He has a PhD in historical theology and serves as the lead pastor of Memorial Presbyterian Church (PCA) in St. Louis. He’s also the author of the forthcoming book, Still Time to Care: What We Can Learn from the Church Failed Attempt to Cure Homosexuality (Zondervan, Sept 2021).  Greg is 49 years old and has never touched another human in a romantic way, and yet he has been brought up on charges for being unfit to be a pastor for issues related to sexualtiy by some people in his Presbyterian denomination. This conversation will be difficult to comprehend for some of you, but it’s important to understand how some fundamentalist Christians think. We also talk about the history of evangelical approaches to homosexuality and the role that the Ex-gay movement has played in this trajectory. Oh, and we also bring up C.S. Lewis’ struggle with Sadomasochism (think: 50 Shades of Grey). Anyway, lots of interesting stuff in this episode!  Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Youtube | Preston Sprinkle Check out his website prestonsprinkle.com If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

Can someone be cured of their homosexuality? Or another way of saying it is, can somebody go from gay to straight? Can somebody change their sexual orientation? This has been a hot-button issue in the church over the last several decades, and it's been really hard, really, to have a conversation about this topic. There's lots of people on one side who says God absolutely can change people's sexual orientation. On the other side, there are those who see it as immoral to even try to change someone's sexual orientation. There's others who would simply say that for whatever reason, this isn't the way God has chosen to work. And there's all kinds of other variations in between these various views. Greg Johnson, Dr. Greg Johnson, is on the side of being very critical against sexual orientation change efforts. Greg is gay

or same-sex attracted. We talk about the different terms there. He's also a pastor of a Presbyterian church in St. Louis, lead pastor of Memorial Presbyterian Church. He has a PhD in historical theology. He grew up as a gay atheist in the Washington, D.C. area and was converted to Christianity at U of A in 1990. And he has a book coming out called Still Time to Care, What We Can Learn from the Church's Failed Attempt to Cure Homosexuality, coming out by Zondervan in September of this year. Greg is, as you'll see, a super genuine, humble, kind person. He's very wise, very smart, humble, kind person. He's very wise, very smart, very pastoral. And I've only known Greg a little bit through some brief interactions. And even in those brief interactions, I just immediately said, this guy seems like the real deal. So I was really excited to have him on the podcast and

just so appreciate this conversation. And yeah, towards, I would say the second half of this conversation, we do kind of dig into the ex-gay movement, if we can call it that, that really started to, well, began kind of in the late seventies and then really started to wane in the early, what, about 2012, 2013, even though there's some still kind of residue of that movement. Greg has done a lot of research on it, and not just on the ex-gay movement, but also research on the evangelical approach to same-sex sexuality prior to the rise of the ex-gay movement. I learned a lot from this podcast. I've done a lot of research on this topic, and there is a lot of stuff Greg was talking about that I have never heard of, didn't know about, and so I'm excited for you to learn as well. So yeah, Greg's just a wonderful guy, and I'm excited for you to listen to this

conversation. If you would like to support Theology in the Raw, you can go to patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw, support the show for as little as five bucks a month. If you can't support, don't want to support, or can't support at this time, please do consider leaving an honest review. If you think this show is garbage, then leave a garbage review. If you think it's amazing, then leave an amazing review. Leave an honest review. If you don't even want to do that, please consider sharing this episode or other episodes on your social media handles, I guess is what you call them. Tell others about the show if you find it worth telling others about it.

If there's a conversation you find to be particularly helpful, please consider sharing that on your social media platform. All right. Without further ado, let's get to know the one and only Dr. Greg Johnson. Hello, friends. I'm here with my friend, Greg Johnson, pastor in the Presbyterian Church, author of a forthcoming book, Still Time to Care, which you can pre-order on Amazon. It comes out in September. Greg, thanks so much for being on Theology in the Rock. Hey, thanks, Preston. Glad to be here. So we met, I think it was the first Revoice conference that you hosted at, is it PCA Memorial?

What's the name of your church again? Yeah, Memorial Presbyterian Church. It's a PCA church. Memorial Presbyterian Church in St. Louis. And yeah, we didn't get a chance to hang out too much, but I had, you know, a five, 10 minute conversation with you and have obviously kept up with your, sorry to laugh, man, but it's just some things in the evangelical world, they kind of are, they're sad and laughable at the same time. I'm glad you're smiling. So

you're smiling. So it gives me room to smile as well. But I just looking on from a distance at some of the stuff you've gone through is it is both saddening and so weird that it's, it is kind of laughable in a sense. I don't, yeah. sense. But why don't you, for my audience, it's like, I don't know what you're talking about. Tell us about your last several years of life in ministry. How's that? We'll start there. Yeah, it's been fun. I've been at the same church since 1994. I started as a singles minister, you know, grew up atheist. I was the gay kid and became a Christian in college through what now is CRU. It was Campus Crusade for Christ then just fell in love with Jesus and and then went to seminary and, you know, shared my testimony in 2019 in Christianity Today.

It was the second most read testimony that year, actually. And it was interesting, the reaction. You know, there were pastors in my denomination who, you know, tweeted my testimony saying, this is disgusting. And my thought was, no, you're supposed to say we had to rejoice and be glad because this brother of yours was dead and now was alive again, you know? Uh, but, um, you know, I've tried to take it with grace because, um, you know, we are dealing with particularly in conservative evangelicalism, we're dealing with the legacy of the ex-gay movement, which for 40 years said that gay, gay people could become straight if they wanted to, if they tried hard enough, prayed hard enough, went through the program. And that didn't happen for most people. In fact, I found terms of gay to straight conversions, 800,000 people went

through conversion therapy, and I've found 10 so far that had gay to straight conversion. So that's very low success rate. Wait, I got to linger on that because I've found 10 so far that had gay to straight conversion. So that's very low success rate. Wait, I got to linger on that because I've never seen an actual stat like that. I've seen percentages like in the Yardhouse Jones study. But even that's kind of a big. So did you talk to or how did you first of all get that number? And then, OK. And then how do you know that even those 10?

Like, because is that longitudinal is that 15 20 years after they're just loving having sex with the opposite sex or how do you even measure gay to straight it sounds easy on the surface but as you know sexuality is very complex i mean yeah it's it's tricky but you know i've just had conversations with a great many of former exodus international leaders that was the big umbrella organization over 240 ex-gay ministries. And we know from, I think it was UC Davis did a study that identified 698,000 people who went through either reparative therapy or ex-gay ministry between the ages at the time, ages of 18 to 60. So you're probably looking at when you had people over 60 or under 18 or people who didn't make it this far because of things like HIV and suicide and just normal people die, then you're probably talking around a million people who went

through some attempt at sexual orientation change efforts. And within those million, some of them did it with a secular reparative therapist. Some of them did it with, you know, a psychologist. Some of them did it with, in that constellation of ministries we called the ex-gay movement that started in the late 1970s, then blew up and died around 2013 with the closure of Exodus International. And for a lot of conservative evangelicals, you know, they remember that guy who came to their church who talked about how he used to be gay, and then Jesus changed his life, and then he paraded out the wife and the kids and ended the testimony there. And they don't know that most of those marriages, 70% ended in

divorce. And, you know, many of those ex-gay ministry leaders who paraded out the wife and children now have husbands and are in a very different place theologically. You know, even, and I had a book I wrote for InterVarsity Press back in 2002 called The World According to God. book I wrote for InterVarsity Press back in 2002 called The World According to God. And in my chapter on sexuality 20 years ago, I remember talking about how there were people I knew who by God's grace had changed their orientation and others who were being faithful in celibacy. And if I ever reprint that book, I've got to rip all that out because every single person I knew, they recanted their testimony because there's something about sexual orientation that is deeply rooted, especially with men. With women, you have a great deal more sexual fluidity. There's been a lot of research on that recently. But with men, I mean, I'm still a six on the Kinsey scale. That's the top of the scale.

I kissed a girl once before I was a Christian in high school and it didn't do anything at all for me and that's the last hit I got. I'm going to be a 50-year-old virgin next year. That's pretty rare in my demographic box. You're not 50. Meaning male. You were talking in your book in early 2000s. You've been pastoring since

late 1990. You look 35 at most like you're, you know, there is a, there is a saying about that in the LGBT community that, you know, a gay man's 40 is a straight man's 27. And in which case I should probably look about 35, but, um, so that's, I'm probably doing it right um but um but by and large i'm terrible at at at you know if if the gay script is that i'm supposed to have you know in my teens gone out to bars and let men buy me drinks and then spend a lot of time at at the gym building the perfect body to make me lovable and then go through multiple two-year relationships that each end in a mini divorce i stink at being gay i've just there's nobody who's been worse at it than me because i'm i'm still a virgin i've never held hands uh so if we ever shake hands don't hold on too long because i want to be able to keep saying that um but uh yeah it's been crazy you

know since uh since that testimony in christianity you know, there are, I think, six overtures that have been sent up to my denomination's General Assembly, which is going to be next month. Well, it'll be late June in St. Louis. What's an overture? I don't know what that is. An overture is when a local regional presbytery, like in a state, sends up a proposal for some resolution that they want to pass the General Assembly. And so there are about six of them that all have the upshot of basically trying to say you can have no more same-sex attracted pastors in the PCA. And, you know, they word it differently. And then there's also currently a court case. You know, they word it differently. And then there's also currently a court case. I have been investigated twice now by my presbytery, once for hosting Revoice 18 and once for, you know, my testimony and being public about my sexuality.

And and so there's you know, my presbytery has vindicated me twice and cleared my name and restored my honor. But the last time it was appealed to the denomination Supreme Court and they're currently weighing the evidence. They've done all the hearing. And so it's just a patient waiting. I'm not worried because I think the Presbyterian Church in America has had a pretty consistent track record. The Presbyterian Church in America has had a pretty consistent track record. Did I lose you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can just pick it up.

The Presbyterian Church in America has had a pretty good track record in terms of, you know, carving out spaces for believers who aren't straight and who are committed to the biblical sexual ethic. And so it would be really a big change of direction if any of these things went through. But I think what we're looking at is we're looking at a lot of fear and anxiety of people who are sensing the culture war, which has radically changed how Americans think about sexuality. Uh, you know, no norm has gone unchallenged over the last decade or three. And so you've got people who are seeing all of that and they're afraid. And, uh, and so you can easily get some, uh, friendly fire situations. You've been brought up on... I just want to apologize to my non-evangelical, non-Christian listeners who are probably so confused.

Because you said, I've never romantically touched another person except for you kissed a girl, didn't enjoy it as a teenager, and you've come up to 50 so what are the charges like is sexual purity the chart like what what's what charges are you being brought because people i'm sure people listening are like who aren't in that world like i i'm so confused right now like is it a is it a hyperive church that are like, no, like, you should not be this sexually pure, Greg. Like, we're going to bring you up on charges for not acting on your sexual inclinations. Like, what are you? So, you know, so just to clarify, this is not a hyper-progressive church, right?

No, no. Well, our denomination has its, you know, fundamentalist wing, culturally fundamentalist, and they're not always the same as theological conservatives. We've got both. But for those who are cultural conservatives and particularly enmeshed in culture war thinking, they can look at a gay person who becomes a Christian and becomes a pastor. they can look at a gay person who becomes a Christian and becomes a pastor. And that to them is a threat because they view it as the LGBT agenda infiltrating their church. Now, I think that's pretty, seems pretty off base to me. Are you, would you be allowed to go to a church? Are you allowed to like attend a church or where's,

what would you be allowed to do in the realm of Christianity? According to some of these maybe more fundamentalist types? Like, are you allowed to attend a search service? Would they say, oh, yeah, you're totally free to sit in the pew or even that? Would that make them nervous? No, I think that would be fine. But, you know, there is the argument that some on the far right wing of fundamentalism make that because homoerotic temptation is unnatural, that anybody who experiences it could not be above reproach. And that's kind of the argument that therefore cannot be a pastor.

And that's the argument. Now, I've offered publicly to compare Internet search histories going back a decade with any other pastor in our denomination. It has to be public. And nobody's taken me up on the offer yet. But, you know, it's an issue of being above reproach. And, you know, for some folks, that's just the world they come from. And they're my brothers and sisters in Jesus. And so I roll with it and try to love them and hold nothing against them and take nothing

at all personally, because God continually leads me in triumphal procession in Christ. I am nobody's victim. I am more than a conqueror. I have to go back there. You've offered to compare personal internet search histories with other pastors that are nervous about your sexual immorality and nobody is jokingly. I mean, it's jokingly, but nobody's chomping at the bit. That's bold. I've been on Covenant Eyes for 20 years. You know, it's been squeaky, pretty squeaky clean. Wow.

AI doesn't pick up nothing. So how have you weathered that? Because that could, somebody could, I don't know what Enneagram you are or how you're wired, but that could be very dehumanizing. It could cause several people to say, I am done. I am done with this. But you, you're laughing, you're joyful, you're still pastoring your church. How have you gotten, like, how have you, How have you responded to these attacks? Yeah, you know, you have to go back to the gospel again and again and again.

There but for the grace of God go I. After I became a Christian, I became a raving, legalistic, angry, hyper-Calvinist, cage-stage Calvinist, and I'm very much still a Calvinist. But, you know, I'm not the angry guy anymore that I was. But I look at some of these guys and I see myself not that long ago. Only it was different issues, but it's that constant need that many Christians feel to have an enemy within the church that they're fighting against, where they tend to filter things through a kind of Jeremiah narrative of decline. And so then they see somebody like me, and they're like, they're not praising God saying, wow, the gospel reaches gay people.

They're saying, oh, no, our standards are declining. And so, but I don't think I think it's a small minority within our denomination. And, you know, I don't think it all represents who we are as the Presbyterian Church in America. I think we're a denomination that puts the gospel first. We put grace first. We're not trying to be the best church. We're not trying to be the best denomination. We're trying to point people to the best savior, who's Jesus. And so I've weathered it pretty well. Uh, you know, there was a season back in, you know, several years ago where I was pretty much crying every day at some

point, but very often they were tears of joy because in the midst of, of suffering, God would meet me very personally. And, uh,, I would say I remember five years ago preaching at a Presbytery meeting and sharing that I could count on one hand the number of times I had actually felt loved by God. I knew I was loved by God cognitively, but I never felt it. And I can't say that anymore. I know my Father in Heaven loves me. You know, He's not an angry ogre shaking a stick. He's my dad, and he's wild about me. And anybody who wants to mess with me is going to have a talk with him eventually, even if it's one of loving correction. Wow. And your own local church, how has it affected them? Have you had people leave?

We had a few people leave at the beginning, often because of family members of theirs. But we're not a church that's really made up of Calvinists who looked for the Calvinist church hanging up its shingle and joined. We're a church that has a lot of people who join by reaffirmation of their faith or they're by profession of faith. And so they don't really follow denominational politics much. They've been made aware of this so they can pray. But, yeah, it hasn't affected us badly. And when I gave my testimony to my congregation, they gave me a standing ovation, and then the elders read a letter of support for me.

And my local presbytery has been great. Like I said, they've investigated me every time somebody's asked and they've found me innocent every time. So there's a lot of love there. I'm sorry, the language trips me up. You've been brought up on charges to the

Supreme Court of the Presbytery and they've investigated you. A lot of that, maybe this is the world you're used to. To me, it feels like odd. I'm not sure how it is. and they've investigated you. Like a lot of that, it's just, maybe this is the world you're used to. To me, it just, it feels like, I don't know, I would, I'm not sure how I'd handle that.

I don't know if I would have the grace you have or if I would just lose it and go postal. I don't know. Well, the PCA is the denomination I became a Christian in

and it's where I was baptized at age 20 and it's denominational seminary, covenant seminary was where I went at age 21, because I wanted to learn the Bible because I had never been to Sunday school or anything. So it was, yeah, it's kind of wild. But, you know, but again, all of this, I think really is, particularly with conservative evangelicals, particularly of a certain age, there's a very

steep learning curve that they have, because they're still thinking ex-gay narrative. They're still thinking, oh, well, gay person just needs to repent. And then and then, you know, God will change their heart and they'll marry a woman and have kids and live happily ever after. And they don't realize how how hollow that narrative was. how how hollow that narrative was um you know there are people who can develop uh i've seen it quite a bit where they develop a sexual attraction to just one person of the opposite sex right and that enables them to be in a mixed orientation marriage and some of the best marriages i've seen have been mixed orientation as well as some of the most difficult. But that attraction to their spouse is not generalized to the opposite sex. Right.

But by far the most common story is mine. You know, the one that, okay, well, God's called me to celibacy unless he changes something and he didn't. Right. And so— I've gotten to know a lot of those mixed orientation marriages too. And, and the hard thing with those is kind of like the X gate narrative.

Some of those have been, um, prescribed as kind of the solution or, you know, or, or just like, I think some of the, the obvious difficulties that those relationships could have and often do have are often downplayed

or people aren't honest going into them. There's so many challenges, but having seen all that, I've just, and more and more just seen, I mean, sexuality is complex, right? Like I like, there is, as Lisa Diamond and others have pointed out, there's definitely these broad categories of orientation, but there is a lot more fluidity and unpredictability. Not fluidity in the sense of, oh, if you just do these things, then you will change your sexual orientation. Lisa is very clear that these kind of fluctuations in one's sexual attractions come upon you through various environmental, circumstantial, unpredictable things. It's not something like you can just do this formula to kind of change yourself. But yeah, some of those marriages, it's helped me and some of my heterosexual married friends to see that what makes a marriage flourish goes beyond sexual attraction. Because most heterosexual couples, that's going to wear off too. If you put so much stock beyond sexual attraction because most heterosexual couples that that's

going to wear off too. Like there's, if you put so much stock in sexual attraction in a marriage, that's just, um, yeah, it's, it's misguided. I think it's a very secular view of what marriage is, but is that a category for you? I mean, is that like, uh Or is it just like, man, no, I would much rather be single and celibate and not even try to explore something like that? I love being celibate. There have been times through the years where I have taken seasons to pray and get other people praying for me to see whether or not God would want me to get married to a woman. And I've always felt peace with my celibacy. And so my plan has always been to pursue Christ in celibacy. I mean, Paul says it's better if you can do it, if it's your gift. And I've been content with it. There is certainly things like loneliness that have to be dealt with. But, you know, I've got one friend of mine that we have met for 20 years, Thursday mornings for coffee, and he gets my Covenant Eyes report, and we pray for each other.

I've got another friend that for the last 17 years has come over for drinks Thursday night. We never miss it. I have a group of friends that I vacation with once or twice a year. I have another friend's family that has had me in their home. You know, other friends, family that has had me in their home. They moved here 20 years ago to be involved in my life and ministry, and they've had me in their home hundreds and hundreds of times, you know, on family. And so, you know, I find with with, you know, sexual orientation and when you're called to singleness, you have to be very deliberate and intentional about building friendships that last long term. And it can't be friendships with the 22 year old who's going to move away in three years. You know, you can have some of those, but they're going to be harder to maintain. But, you know, really committing to a place and a community of people and a group of friends that are family, to me, it's been a great joy.

I love my life. You know, I'm so thankful that God called me to myself as this gay atheist kid who was mad at the world and God called me. And, you know, there has certainly been sacrifice, as with any path of sanctification and holiness, but I don't regret it at all. It's the best thing I ever did. Jesus is worth it. He's worth everything. But I'm kind of the guy who saw a field and sold everything he had and bought the field, and I'm really happy with my treasure. That's obviously disqualifying for ministry. How could you dare be a pastor and point people to the treasure? I'm sorry. I don't want to be cynical, but it's just, it's, it's,

in this day and age when you could be, you can find a same-sex relationship, obviously celebrated by society and by large pockets of the church, broadly speaking, to still say, no, my treasure is Jesus, and I'm going to go against the tide of culture. I'm going to go against the tide of certain strands in the church. I'm going to go against everything because I believe this to be true about what God has revealed about himself and his design for me through his word. Like that, that just, it's just, it's just such a, it's a radical expression of obedience. It's, it's, I don't, and I just say, where else am I going to go? I mean, Jesus alone has the words of eternal life, you know, the option, you know, I do every now and then I do the calculation because, you know, so many of my friends who have, you know, gone a different path, they have these two year relationship cycles.

And I think if I did that at this point, I'd be on my 15th breakup by now. And I that's not that's not what I want. I have, you know, by keeping my friendships in second and third gear, I've been able to make them last decades or God has done that because I haven't sexualized them. Um, you know, and, and, and so, yeah, it's been good, but, but I'm doing what I can to try to help the church catch up. I wrote this book, which is coming out in September with Sondervan, Still Time to Care, What We Can Learn from the Church's Failed Attempt to Cure Homosexuality. And I wrote it because there was a time in Christian history, in North America and the UK, in which there was a really positive vision being cast for gay people who come to Jesus.

You know, I'm talking, you know, C.S. Lewis. I'm talking John Stott. I'm talking about Billy Graham. I'm talking about Francis Schaeffer. I'm talking about Richard Lovelace, you know, they cast in the 1970s and before a beautiful vision that God casts for a gay person who becomes comes to Jesus. You know, C.S. Lewis in a letter to I think it was Sheldon Van Alken. He wrote about homosexuality and he said, like with any vocation that involves suffering, there is a vocation within it, if you can find it, a calling from God to glorify him. He compared it to the man born blind, where it was so that the works of God could be made manifest.

And I'm not there saying that gay sex and blindness are morally equal. I have to say that because that will be another set of charges. But but, you know, it's you know, I think back when in 1964, this is all in the book. And in 1964, there was a huge gay sex scandal in Washington because President Lyndon Johnson, four weeks before his reelection did, his top advisor was busted in a Washington, D.C., YMCA men's restroom having sex with another man. And, you know, at first the the the press hushed it up until they found out that 10 years earlier he had been busted in the same restroom for the same offense. And this guy was married. He had converted to Catholicism to marry this woman. He had kids and he immediately resigned. But it was a huge scandal right before a presidential election. Barry Goldwater,

his campaign printed bumper stickers that said all the way with LBJ, but don't go near the YMCA. You know, it's this homophobic thing to try to defeat Lyndon Johnson. And about four days into this scandal, the phone rings at the White House, and it's Billy Graham on the line. And President Johnson agrees to take Billy Graham's phone call. And Billy Graham's small talks, you can actually still hear this on the University of Virginia, uh, uh, archive, uh, still has the recording of this phone call and, uh, Billy Graham's small talks for a while. And then it says, uh, the reason I called is I wanted to talk to you about Walter Jenkins. Who's the, the aid who had been, you know, caught in the gay sex scandal. And, uh, And Billy Graham interceded for Walter Jenkins.

He identified as a fellow sinner. He said, I too know what it's like. I know I too know what is in the heart of man. And I want us to have mercy on Walter because he's a sinner just like us, and he's no different. And I hope you'll give him my love and my support. And here you have the pastor to presidents calling during a major sex scandal that risked bringing down Lyndon Johnson's entire agenda. And he's using what power he has to leverage for a gay man who got busted in a sex sting and caused scandal. You know, that is a Christian heritage to build on, that we're going to use what power we have to leverage people who fall, people who fail, people who get caught.

people who get caught. You know, I remember, you know, Francis Schaeffer in, you know, he was kind of the evangelist to intellectuals in the 1960s, formed the Labrie Fellowship. Christianity Today has said he single-handedly has had the biggest impact on evangelical intellectuals in the United States. But, you know, he, there was a time when he was, it's the first time he met Jerry Falwell. And he was there with his son, Frankie. And Jerry Falwell asked Francis Schaeffer, so what do you think about homosexuals? And Schaeffer in classic Francis Schaeffer, so what do you think about homosexuals? And Schaeffer, in classic Francis Schaeffer manner, said, well, you know, it's a very complex issue. And Falwell shot back and said, if I had a dog that did what those people do, I'd shoot it. And there was no humor in his voice. And on leaving, Francis Schaeffer turned to his son Frankie and said, that man is disgusting.

Schaeffer said that for those who are exclusively attracted to the same sex, that they should accept celibacy because there is no cure in this life. Some people have a level of bisexuality or fluidity and are therefore able to marry. But he said the church's calling is to weep with them, to support them, to be their friends. You know, so, yeah, there's a history. You know, John Stott in his book, Same-Sex Relationships, talks about how, and this goes back to 1982, but really it goes back to a sermon he preached in 1978 or 79 at All Souls Langham Place in London. But he said, you know, gay people have an innate longing for community and dignity and respect and family. And if they can't find this in the church,

then the church needs to stop calling itself family. Wow. And this is coming from a guy who is celibate his entire life. He never dated. He never married. And so he knew what it was like to walk in celibacy for in service to the Lord. And yet he said that sexual orientation is a part of our identity. He said it was a part of our constitution.

is a part of our identity. He said it was a part of our constitution. He warned against, you know, the testimonies then coming out of California in the late 1970s of cures to homosexuality through ex-gay ministries, and they couldn't really be verified, he said, and they still can't. So yeah, there's a history to learn from that's very different from conversion therapy. God hates gay people. You can't be a Christian, all these things that we say that are really not from Jesus. You mentioned C.S. Lewis, too. How has C.S. Lewis been into this? C.S. Lewis is fascinating because he was, of course, earlier, British context, never called himself an evangelical, but he was certainly an Orthodox Christian, had been an atheist. His best friend growing up, though, was a guy named Arthur Greaves, was gay and remained C.S. Lewis's best friend his entire life. Lewis wasn't. Lewis was straight. He said that homosexuality was one of only two sins that he never struggled with, the other being gambling.

But Lewis's best friend, Arthur, was gay. And when Arthur first came out to Lewis in around 1920 or so, you know, Lewis never let it be an issue. Lewis was still an atheist at the time. But Arthur had been raised in a very strict Plymouth Brethren family. But Lewis could not ever look down upon his best friend Arthur because Lewis's own kind of tendency, as he describes it, had been toward sadomasochism. There's a really good recent bibliography of Lewis that talks about it. I believe it's Alistair McGrath. But, you know, he had, Lewis had signed, you know, when he was a young man, he had signed his letters to Arthur Philomastix, or Whiplover, and he talks about how he always had this longing to combine sexual intimacy and the infliction of pain. They never understood Lewis, Lewis struggle. Oh yeah. He was, we all have our issues. There's not righteous, not even one, you know,

don't whitewash CS Lewis. And when Lewis then became a Christian, of course, Arthur was the very first person he told. And Arthur was thrilled for him. And then not long after that, Arthur asked him to please destroy the letters which he signed as whip lover, which Arthur obviously didn't do because we've got the letters. But they were best friends. They vacationed together, their letters to each other, because C.S. Lewis was celib friends. They vacationed together. They're letters to each other because C.S. Lewis was celibate for all but four years of his life. And they're letters to each other. Well, just C.S. Lewis's letters were over 500 pages in length. You know, they wrote together constantly. Luther begged Arthur to move in nearby so that they could be closer. Lewis always

had his circle of close friendships, and he worried about Arthur not having that. Arthur had some disabilities that hindered his ability to get out. But yeah, it's really fascinating. You know, C.S. Lewis, even toward later in his life, when divorce laws were possibly going to change and loosen up in the UK, there was a lot of pressure from the church to not relax divorce laws. And Lewis argued just the opposite. He said, you know, most people in the UK aren't Christians, and we shouldn't pretend that they are. There need to be two very different kinds of marriage, Christian marriage done by the church of two people, the opposite sex who are committed to each other forever. And then secular marriage, which is done by the state,

which is a completely different thing. And anybody should be able to look at your marriage and know which kind of marriage you have. I think in a post-Obergfell world, we have an option where, you know, Lewis presents the possibility of an option where Christians aren't using legislation to try to control non-Christians, but they are committing to having a very radically different kind of marriage than what the world has. So there's a lot to learn from Lewis Schaeffer. And, of course, what's fascinating is Richard Lovelace, who he was a Presbyterian churchman, taught at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, very conservative. He was known for his writings on the spiritual life and continual, you know, the dynamics of spiritual

life and continual life of renewal. A lot of pastors have learned a lot from him, but he, in a 1978 book called Homosexuality and the Church, proposed a path forward for gay people in the church. And what he proposed was what he called a double repentance. This is 1978, remember. A double repentance, a repentance in which the gay Christians in our pews repent of their actual active lifestyle. This is 1970s language here. And a double repentance in which they repent of their sexual sin and the church repents of its homophobia. And he said that the test of the church repenting of its homophobia will be when it actively recruits and develops celibate gay men and ordains them to ministry. Really? 1978?

Yeah, this was not, you know, you're like hipster trying to be cool, showing how repentant we are because we want to be seen as inclusive. There needs to be a double repentance because he said that's what will prove to the world both the gospel's power to free the gay person from guilt and shame and to free the church from homophobia. It happened on the other side of the Atlantic as well. conservative Anglican leaders together for a cohort to try to discuss homosexuality and how we could, as the church, better love gay people, and yet while also holding to the biblical sexual ethic. And it was a star-studded list of people. I mean, bishops and counselors and all sorts of folks. Richard Winter, who later became the head of the counseling program at Covenant Seminary here in St. Louis. But it was fascinating that they, in their document that they produced, they personally publicly repented of their own homophobia and called upon all Christians to join them in that repentance, and then specifically said that, you know, sexual orientation should

not be a bar to ministry. You know, we were on the right track. So what happened? Was it just the rise of the ex-gay movement? Is it that simple or is there more to it than that? Or what caused the rise of the ex-gay movement? Yeah. gay movement. Yeah, what happened was in the late 1970s, Frank Worthen was, he was a 40-year-old, very successful gay businessman, wonderful guy. He had a very radical conversion experience. He

described it as a vision in which Jesus specifically, or God the Father specifically, told him not to go to, you know, the gay bathhouse that he was going to go to. It was going to be the raucous in town. He'd been thinking about it all week, but he knew if he did go to that bathhouse, this was late 70s, 76 or so, that it would be his final rejection of God as his father. And so he ended up finding some Christians, becoming a Christian, and then his pastor began to encourage him to start sharing his story, which he did on a cassette tape. You know, he ran an ad in the smuttiest newspaper in the city by the bay, you know, are you looking for a way out of homosexuality? Write for a Brother Frank tape. And, you know, are you looking for a way out of homosexuality? Write for a Brother Frank tape.

And, you know, he sent out a lot of tapes because there were a lot of people who were looking for change. And he, of course, never became straight. But, you know, with the ex-gay movement from the very beginning, there was always a lot of equivocation. You know, we'd say things like, I mean, I remember telling in 1997, telling the painter in my apartment that I used to be gay because he was gay and he was saying he couldn't go to church because I used to be gay. And in my ex-gay mindset at the time, I was not lying. I was claiming my new reality. I made a decisive break and my identity had changed and I was no longer, I remember sitting in a doctor's office, a new doctor, and the questionnaire asked me my sexual orientation.

And I – of course at that time there were only three options, gay, straight, or bi. And I remember thinking long and hard and finally I wrote down heterosexual because that was the reality I was living into. And then I felt convicted. I felt like, Jesus, do you really want me to lie to my doctor? But I was being a good ex-gay. That's what we were taught to do. And so Brother Frank Worthen, he talked about how when we founded Exodus International, we believed that you could be converted from gay to straight that's the language he used at that point early on he claimed a 70 success rate that then became a 50 success rate and then a 30 success rate and then it then pretty much no success rate uh because of the

longevity like people or people like saying, oh, it worked. And the next thing you know, they're divorcing their wife and marrying another man or something like that. Like, yeah, there was huge pressure to to especially pressure to marry and have kids and pressure to describe your your degree of transformation as being more than it was. free of transformation as being more than it was. A lot of these, particularly men, and it was a very male-dominated movement, often they had two things going on. They were homosexually oriented and they had a sex addiction. And often what ex-gay ministries helped them address was their sex addiction. And then when the addiction seemed to be broken, then they could

see that as I've, I've broken free from homosexuality because I'm not acting anymore. But what audiences always heard, and it was as much by design, I think as anything was his orientation has changed. Um, and, and that snowballed so fast, You know, there was a book around 1977, I believe it was Philpott was the author, called The Third Sex, in which he took the testimonies of five people who at Love in Action, which was that first Exodus ministry, had seen complete change of their sexual orientation. And he got a publisher to publish it. It was sold across the country. And, uh, and then, um, four of the five, uh, threatened a lawsuit to the publisher because they had not changed. They, they, that he had, he had completely misrepresented what had happened in their lives. And all of them eventually recanted.

But that was, this was before the internet. This was before you could look something up on Snopes and find out whether it's a hoax or not. And so hundreds of people started traveling to San Francisco to Love in Action. And then others started seeing these, these ex-gay ministries and began multiplying them in other cities across across the country and then eventually around the world. And and it wasn't until I mean, we didn't get really honest until really 2012 when Alan Chambers, the president of Exodus International, the president of Exodus International admitted publicly stated that 99.9% of clients of Exodus International Ministries had seen no change in their, had not seen a change in their sexual orientation. They might've seen some heterosexual functioning. Now there is the ability to love a wife or love a husband, but they hadn't gone gay to straight. And, and that's, and, you know, but it,

people keep repeating these things from, from old books. There was a satin over book back homosexuality in the politics of truth. I think it was around 96 that he said, you know, anybody going into an ex-gay ministry can expect that 50% will change their sexual orientation. And if they're highly committed, 100% will change their sexual orientation, and if they're highly committed, 100% will change their sexual orientation. That was being said 25 years ago, and that book has been referenced in recent years by people touting the same claims, and they're just not true. You should never throw that on someone.

When you get a cancer patient and they find a faith healer who tells them to name and claim their healing, a cancer patient and they find a faith healer who tells them to name and claim their healing, you know, that offers a false hope that leaves them wondering whether God hates them or whether they're not really a Christian when it doesn't, when they don't get healed. And so, yeah, what I'm trying to get us back to is that older narrative, not a paradigm of curing homosexuality, but a paradigm of care, of actually loving our siblings who aren't straight, whatever terminology they use. And a big part of that, of loving, is not beating them up over what terminology they use.

If they want to say they're same-sex attracted, that's fine. That doesn't mean that they're supporting conversion therapy. If they want to say gay, that's fine. That doesn't mean that they have a different sexual ethic. Just stop manipulating people emotionally like this because they need love. They need community. They need the brotherhood because when Jesus redefined family, when his mother and brothers were outside while he was teaching and somebody said, oh, Jesus, your mother and brothers are outside. He totally redefined family and what obligations we have to one another because he did the shameful thing in an honor-based society. He let them sit out there. And he turned to his followers and said,

these are my mother and brothers and fathers and all of that. This is my family. And family has mutual obligations. If a family member of yours needs a ride to the airport, you give them a ride to the airport. If a family member of yours needs bail money, you bail them out. If a family of yours is in a family member of yours is in a public scandal, you publicly support them and then chew them out privately afterwards. You know, there's their basic obligations you have to your family. And, uh, And Jesus says that the

nuclear family is not the primary locus of those obligations, the church is. And, you know, like John Stott said, if gay people can't find that kind of family in the local church, then the church needs to stop calling itself the family of God. That's good. Now, I want to go back to the terminology things. I know that's a sticking point, and we'd love to hear your, I mean, kind of open that door. Do you, do you refer to yourself as gay, same-sex attracted? Do you alternate? Does it matter? I tell people they can call me whatever they want, so long as it's not mean. You know, I have been gay, I've been ex-gay and I've been same-sex attracted. And I can't say that any of those terminological attraction was developed by reparative therapists. Richard Fitzgibbon's Roman Catholic reparative therapist developed in the late 90s

what he called same-sex attraction disorder, SSAD, as his euphemism for homosexuality. And then others began to pick that up. And by the mid 1990s, it was becoming fairly common. And that's when I started saying that instead of ex-gay. And that was a relief because I always felt every time I said I was ex-gay, I felt like I was lying because if, if gay was a lifestyle, I had never been gay. If gay is a sexual orientation, it has not shifted a millimeter. And so I was, I was actually thrilled to call myself same sex attracted, uh, when, when that language came out, because at least I wasn't lying. Uh, the language of same sex attraction has negatives. It is very closely

associated with conversion therapy. That's where it came from. And, the language was, in a sense, it is a relic of reparative therapy. Now that nobody's nobody's teaching reparative therapy anymore. There's not a single program in North America that teaches reparative therapy. It's dead. There aren't reparative therapists who are this minority who are afraid that choice is taken from them. Most of them have closed up shop and no new ones are in the pipeline. But that's where the language came from. And it was part of, you know, it's even part back when Alan Medinger, the first executive director of Exodus International, said that there is a change that happens when one becomes an ex-gay

in which he no longer perceives of himself as homosexual. That sort of believing yourself, that homosexual self-perception, you repented of that and began to think of yourself as heterosexual. And that was a part of conversion therapy. That was a part of the ex-gay narrative. It was one of the tools. And that narrative has failed, but we are still using the language of that movement. And I'm fine with it. It's the language that I've used more often than any. But if somebody wants to call me gay, that's fine. I mean, my orientation never changed.

And I just use the language that I think can best be understood by my audience. And so when I'm in very conservative evangelical spaces, I use their language in order to be heard and understood by them. When I'm in more secular spaces, I'll use their language in order to be heard and understood. And all the language needs qualification. You can't just throw out a label and think that people know what you mean. can't just throw out a label and think that people know what you mean. Um, you know, when I, however I identify, you know, I, I go out of my way to explain what that means to me. How do you feel about that? I mean, you said that there is, there are no reparative therapists anymore and yet there are, I feel like there's several like ex-gay-ish type ministries that are still going. I mean, I feel like I get more, I feel like I'm, and this is anecdotal,

but I mean, I feel like I almost get more pushback from that, kind of those ministries and stuff more now than ever, you know? Like how come, don't you think change is possible is the one that I always get, you know? Don't you think God can still change? I don't think there's change. I mean, gosh, I used to be an incredibly bitter, angry guy, and now I'm having to grab out of the everyday. But that's not what they mean.

Well, I often say, well, what do you mean by change? Even then I would say I think God can make somebody with Down syndrome to not have that anymore. I think God can part the Red Seas. I think God can change people from gay to straight. I think God can change people from gay to straight. I think God can change people from straight to gay. That doesn't usually go well. I'm deaf on my left ear.

I've prayed for healing before. I'm still deaf on my left. Like, yes, is change possible? How are we defining change? And what is the expectation? Like, is it, and like, well, just a renewed kind of like identity or it still is very vague. And I, if anybody's listening from these ministries who are like, no, change is possible, please, please

like be aware of how that, that language has been used and really damaged people's faith over the last 40 years. Make sure you're extremely clear on what exactly you mean by change. But I feel like there are still a lot of those. I can think of a few names. I won't name them, but I mean, they are like, I don't know if they're thriving or not. I'm willing to name them. But yeah, you know, I talk about, you know, at one point in my book, I talk about the walking dead. Because if the ex-gay movement kind of died with the closure of Exodus International in 2013, that was the big umbrella.

The cadaver is still walking about undead among us. God Undead Among Us. And you see it in the Restored Hope Network, which is a group of ministries, former Exodus ministries that have continued the XK narrative primarily. You know, there was another network of slightly more moderate ones that disbanded last year. But, you know, I think one former head of the Restored Hope Network has a ministry in Oklahoma who was on Bot Radio Network a couple of years ago claiming a 72 percent success rate at changing people from homosexuality. And, you know, Janet Medford was just sitting there lapping it up. And every listener understood him to be saying these are straight people who are gay people who became straight through his ministry, 72% success rate. But I went and looked at his numbers because he published them and I crunched the data and he treated as success.

Those who said, I don't consider myself gay, but I am still exclusively attracted to the same sex. He called that a sexual orientation change. That's not, that's a sexual orientation terminology change, but that's how he gets away. It's the, it's the equivocation of suggest using words that suggest to the listener one thing, but meaning actually something different by it. Um, in fact, when I looked at his numbers, the number of people coming into his program who said they were same sex attracted and the number of people who left his program, the number went up by one, meaning there was one straight guy who became gay because of his ministry or somebody didn't count right. But, you know, it was just, it was, there's no orientation change happening through his ministry, but he goes on Christian radio and presents it with very equivocative terminology that from where I stand, it looks deceptive.

Wow. Okay. And I don't know how thriving those ministries are. I literally don't know. I don't know. I don't know if they've got loads of people coming in and out or if it's kind of... No, they're a shadow of their former selves, graying leaders with very small ministries. I realized Exodus International, by 1999, it had already referred more than 200,000 clients to XK Ministries. And so the number of people, you're probably talking a half million within its entire lifetime. That's a lot of people. Ministries now, the ones still doing an Xay ministry, they will insist they're not doing conversion therapy, but most of them really are using the same, you know, the same curriculum that they were using 20 years earlier. They haven't changed. Now, what did happen to a lot

of Exodus ministries, you know, because when they broke up, when, when Exodus broke up, they, they didn't have all these referrals coming in anymore. They had to go find their own clients. Uh, and so many of them closed, many of them shrank and many of them changed direction. Uh, you know, like two, uh, Exodus ministries that never really did conversion therapy. Well, conversion therapy, well, three, um, um, where grace abounds in, uh, uh, Denver and they, they left actually, uh, Exodus fairly early in, in the 2006 or 2008, somewhere in there. And then, um, Harvest USA in, in, uh, Philadelphia, and then First Light here in St. Louis. Those are three ministries that never really did conversion therapy. They focused on, you know, sexual integrity and supporting people and praying. And they may have been some discussion about why I'm gay and was it abuse or was it because I had daddy issues or, you know. But, you know, they weren't promising these kinds of outlandish things that some of the ministries were.

So there was always undercurrent within. There was always the minority view within Exodus of ministries that were not pushing orientation change. Yeah, I met a guy who works for Directs, might even wear Grace Abounds, and he's definitely not reparative therapy at all. Those guys are fantastic. They're some of the Those guys are fantastic. Yeah. They're some of the best guys too. They were the one, you know, I talked to Jill Renick, who she was a volunteer coordinator for the last four Exodus conferences.

And, you know, she talked about her early experience in the ex-gay movement. And the first time she went to an Exodus conference. She had not told very many people about her being a lesbian and whatnot, but she went in this Exodus conference, and she went up in the balcony because as soon as she walked in, she realized she was ragingly homophobic about gay men. She was terrified of them. And there were all these gay guys around who didn't call themselves gay guys, but they were. of them and there are all these gay guys around who didn't call themselves gay guys but they were and and she went up in the balcony and she said she just prayed lord have mercy on me and change my heart and then shortly after that she walked down she was in the coffee shop there at the

conference and this bunch of guys from where grace abounds turned around and said, come over here, play Uno with us. I think we're playing Speed Uno or something like that. And she was terrified, but they kept after it. Finally, she joined in and she said it was almost instantaneous that God just melted her heart. And she has loved gay guys ever since. But, you know, it was it was they were the fun group at Exodus conferences. Some of the some of the ministries were very controlling. You know, they weren't allowed to use their last names and they weren't allowed to meet outside of group meetings in case they'd hook up.

You know, they they they they had to be anonymous. They had to, you know, everything was monitored. Everything was controlled. But then there were the ones like where grace abounds, where they were just a whole lot of Christians trying to figure out how to walk with Jesus. And that was also a ministry that never pushed marriage as a solution, you know, because in the X Day movement, there was this every time there was a marriage, it was this huge celebration and it was the success story. And and and and they never did that. I think it took them 10 years to get their first marriage. Great guys.

They're thriving ministry. Yeah, Scott King, they're good guys. Yeah. I met him. I met Scott. We spoke at a church a couple weeks ago, actually. Yeah, he's awesome. Really?

Great. What about, I've heard good things about Living Waters. Was that kind was that kind of a spinoff that, or I don't know much about it. Yeah, Living Waters was Andy Komiski's XK curriculum. And it was one of the most commonly used XK curricula. It was used everywhere. It still is in XK circles. It was used everywhere. It still is in XK circles. Andy, interestingly, became Roman Catholic a few years ago. So that was kind of curious because the Roman Catholic Church has never been big on orientation change necessarily. Okay. I think I had some email dialogues with him a few years ago. Really, really gracious and kind.

So I don't know the teaching or even beliefs or whatever, but it was one of the... Because I haven't... I don't know. Maybe I've said something triggering. I don't think I've ever said anything negative about any of these ministries, but they've come after me pretty hard, but probably some of the most aggressive.

They're still very much doing the old Xgate model. When I was looking at some of the dialogues among Exodus ministry leaders, right, as Exodus was falling apart, Andy Comiskey was definitely one of the ones saying, no, we got to go back to change. testimony of a same-sex attracted woman who lesbian who talked about how you know she had been pursuing holiness for seven years and her orientation hadn't shifted at all but she was just going to trust god with celibacy until unless god showed her otherwise and and andre komiski was very unhappy about that and that was a concession to to same-sex attraction like no she needs to double down on changing and becoming straight. That's the identity that God has for her, and she needs to aim for marriage and children and all of that. But there was a divide. Those later years of Exodus and the XK movement, there was a division between the older guys

who were all about reparative therapy, they were all about orientation change, and they used the term ex-gay. And the younger guys who were all about discipleship and who used the term same-sex attracted. There was a very deliberate shift that happened toward the later years. Well, Greg, I'm super excited for your book to come out. So it's slated for September 14th. Again, the name is It's Still Time to Care by Zondervan. And yeah, I'm super excited to read this book. So you guys listening, a lot of the stuff you talked about,

like Fifty Shades of Lewis and John Starr and all these things, all of that is like this kind of more older mid 20th century evangelical posture that was seen to be like moving in the right direction. And then just kind of got, you know, the few hurdles along the way there. All of that's documented in the book, right? Is that kind of a main point, like showing that the actual evangelical heart is a more care model rather than conversion therapy model.

Yeah, we took a bad wrong turn at Albuquerque, but we can get back on track. There's still time to care. You can pre-order on Amazon today, Still Time to Care, Greg Johnson, What We Can Learn from the Church's Failed Attempt to Cure Homosexuality. Awesome. Awesome, man. Well, thanks so much for being on Theology in a Raw. Appreciate your heart, your mind, and keep pastoring those people well, man. Take care. Thank you.