A Course Change that Always Will Lead to Disaster, Part 4

Concerns About the Revoice Movement Continue to Mount

Last time we issued a warning not to be misled by those within the evangelical church who are attempting to change the direction of what the Bible teaches regarding homosexuality. Major vehicles for their “feel good” rhetoric is the Revoice movement and the Revoice Conference, the second of which concluded this past Saturday, June 8, in St. Louis, Missouri. Here was a portion of our warning: “Do not be misled! Revoice is a movement within the PCA and other once reliably conservative denominations and churches to deny the inerrancy and authority of Scripture with regard to one of the most critical issues of our day—homosexuality.”

Do not be misled! Revoice is a movement within the PCA and other once reliably conservative denominations and churches to deny the inerrancy and authority of Scripture with regard to one of the most critical issues of our day—homosexuality.

Mark it down! The ominous shift of which we speak is not limited to churches and denominations. Significantly, InterVarsity Press, the publisher of several important works by Francis Schaeffer in the 1960s and 70s, is a sponsor of the 2019 Revoice Conference. Schaeffer, you may know, warned about how secular philosophies and ideas, even then, were infiltrating the church. Schaeffer later would write,

Here is the great evangelical disaster—the failure of the evangelical world to stand for truth as truth. There is only one word for this—namely accommodation: The evangelical church has accommodated to the world spirit of the age. First, there has been accommodation on Scripture, so that many who call themselves evangelicals hold a weakened view of the Bible and no longer affirm the truth of all the Bible teaches—truth not only in religious matters but in the areas of science and history and morality.…And second, there has been accommodation on the issues, with no clear stand being taken even on matters of life and death.¹

As recently as 2002, InterVarsity Press published A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality by Joseph Nicolosi, Ph.D., and Linda Ames Nicolosi.² Dr. Nicolosi was a pioneer in the area of providing effective counseling and therapy for individuals wishing to overcome unwanted homosexuality and same-sex attraction.

Misleading Not Just Individuals, but also the Church

The vision statement of Revoice is as follows.

Revoice exists because we want to see gay, lesbian, bisexual, and other same-sex-attracted people who adhere to historic, Christian teaching about marriage and sexual expression flourish in their local faith communities. We envision a unified Church where these individuals can be transparent with their faith communities about their orientation and experience; where local churches utilize and celebrate the unique opportunities that lifelong celibate people have to serve others; where Christian leaders boast about the faith of people who are living a sacrificial obedience for the sake of the Kingdom; and where all people—regardless of their orientation or experience—are welcomed into the lives of families so that all can experience the joys, benefits, and responsibilities of kinship.

Here is the Revoice mission statement.

To support and encourage gay, lesbian, bisexual, and other same-sex attracted Christians—as well as those who love them—so that all in the Church might be empowered to live in gospel unity while observing the historic Christian doctrine of marriage and sexuality.

Both of these statements provide additional clear evidence of an assumption that a gay identity and a Christian identity are compatible in an ongoing sense. This premise flies in the face of the apostle Paul’s command to the Colossians Christians—as well as to us—to “[p]ut to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.” (Col. 3:5-6, NIV). Elsewhere, Paul was explicitly clear that homosexuality is a sin, and the rest of Scripture is no less unequivocal. Somehow, however, proponents of the Revoice movement have concluded that as long as a same-sex attracted (SSA) individual remains celibate, he or she can embrace that attraction as gay and meld it with a commitment to Christ and a Christian identity.

Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.
—the apostle Paul in Colossians 3:5-6—

Making a Disastrous Course Change

The Revoice mission and vision statements represent blatant attempts to move the lighthouse of God’s Word to suit fleshly, sinful desires, even if they’re never acted upon! And while it’s true Revoice leaders currently admit the Bible forbids homosexual sex, Scripture never affirms SSA as a legitimate reason for embracing singleness. Both Jesus and Paul addressed celibacy and singleness, and you’ll not find in either of their statements any mention of same-sex attraction or homosexual temptation. Instead, Scripture teaches that such temptations and desires should be resisted and renounced.

Do not misunderstand. I am not saying that all temptation in the realm of SSA is sinful. I am saying it is sinful for the believer to embrace SSA as a part of who he or she is—even if he or she never acts on it. As we already have noted, Colossians 3:5 (NIV) tells us to put evil desires to death, not just evil deeds.

Nor am I suggesting that a Christian who is experiencing homosexual temptation should marry to remedy his or her problem. SSA is indeed difficult to overcome. Some Christians may engage in a lifelong struggle to conquer it. Yet they have the Lord’s help (see 1 Cor. 10:13; Rom. 7:1-8:14). Nothing in the Revoice mission or vision statements, however, offers any hint of encouragement or help for SSA persons to overcome a sexual desire for members of the same sex. On the contrary, these statements encourage embracing it. The statements also urge the church to accept this approach wholeheartedly, and to celebrate the special contributions SSA “Christians” can make in, to, and through the church and the kingdom of God.

Pride, and a Victim Mentality

There’s more—much more than I can cover in this article. Yet I must mention this. Reread this excerpt from the vision statement: “We envision a unified Church where…Christian leaders boast about the faith of people who are living a sacrificial obedience for the sake of the Kingdom….” Isn’t this a bit prideful on the part of SSA individuals? It’s almost as if Revoice is encouraging those in their movement to feel they are special because they have a special burden to carry—a heavier load than other believers. I’ve got to call this what I believe it obviously is: a victim mentality.

It’s the same kind of victim mentality fostered and exacerbated by the phrase “sexual minority in the church.” On the Revoice 2019 website, you’ll find the phrase “sexual minority,” “sexual minority believers,” or something similar here, here, here, here, here, and here. These webpages may not be up much longer, so I have reproduced them for you. All of the examples below are from pages on the 2019 Revoice website that describe conference workshops.

Political Correctness as a Tool to Manipulate Emotions and Divide the Church

The workshop described in the lower right-hand corner of the above screenshot provides even more evidence of the problematic nature of Revoice. Through this workshop, the conference is emphasizing intersectionality, a concept the left, including the evangelical left, is using plant and amplify feelings of victimhood among individuals who are members of more than one “oppressed” group. According to Dr. Josh Buice, pastor of Pray’s Mill Baptist Church in Douglasville, Georgia,

Intersectionality was originally coined in 1989 by Kimberlé Crenshaw, a political activist and radical feminist, in order to help identify and aid individual classes of discrimination or victim groups. Through intersectionality, the more victim groups a person identifies with—the more power they can obtain. What Kimberlé Crenshaw was able to do in the leftist world of the LGBTQA+ movement through intersectionality is now being used to leverage a social justice movement within evangelicalism.

Within evangelicalism—including, but not limited to, the Revoice, “gay Christian,” woke,³ and other social justice forces within the church. In the name of unifying believers, these politically correct and unbiblical ideas foster feelings of victimhood and guilt and divide the body of Christ. You can learn more about intersectionality from this presentation by Pastor Buice.

Hitting the Bottom

Another workshop at Revoice 2019 is one titled “Queer Culture: Missiology and Contextualization.” If you think what you’ve read already is bad, you’ll be thoroughly alarmed and even outraged to learn about this workshop. Here is the description.

God created human beings in his image and commanded them to fill the earth, subdue it, and rule, thereby creating culture (Genesis 1:26-29). At the end of time, diverse worshippers from around the globe and throughout time will bring “the honor and glory of the nations”, and their cultures, into the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21:24-27). In the meantime, followers of Christ are faced with the task of approaching every human culture with wisdom and hope, discerning what is to be rejected, redeemed, or received with joy (Acts 17:16-34). When we consider queer culture through this biblical lens, what “honor and glory” do we see? How might God, through the beauty already present in queer culture and the faithful witness of his people, enrich the Church and bring more people to Himself?

When we consider queer culture through this biblical lens, what “honor and glory” do we see? How might God, through the beauty already present in queer culture and the faithful witness of his people, enrich the Church and bring more people to Himself?
—description, in part, of a workshop offered at the Revoice Conference, June 5-8, 2019, in St. Louis, Missouri—

Yet another of the workshops for 2019 is titled “Coming out as a gay pastor.” The description for this workshop begins with a question: “What does it look like for a church not only to embrace gay people in their congregation but also to include them on their staff?” It continues,

Jeff [Maness] and John [Wilson] share from their experience of creating a church culture where John was able to come out to their congregation as a celibate, gay pastor. Together, they reflect on the principles and practical steps that led up to John’s coming out and the spiritual impact this has had on them and their church.

Greg Johnson / Memorial Presbyterian Church

Greg Johnson, the pastor of the church that hosted Revoice last year, possibly could have led this workshop in 2019. In an article in Christianity Today (CT) dated May 20, 2019, Pastor Johnson came out as gay. You can read his story here. In the article, Johnson is painfully honest, and only someone with a heart of stone would not feel for him, given his journey and the struggles he has experienced.

However, he is a spiritual leader, and his conclusions are dead wrong. This must be stated, for Pastor Johnson is leading people astray. Be aware: “Christianity Today and Johnson left their Bibles at home while crafting his coming out article. God’s Word gets not one word in it.” This statement in the article is especially significant: “While sexuality has a degree of fluidity in some people, the real change for me has not been in my sexual orientation but in my life orientation.” Pastor Johnson continues, “Jesus has rescued me. That’s everything.”

From what, one might ask, has Jesus rescued Rev. Johnson? Alarmingly, not his homosexuality or his SSA. He writes, “[A]t age 46 I’m still a virgin fighting a constant battle for sexual holiness. (Goodness knows, for the last 15 years I haven’t been able to trust myself with an unmonitored internet connection.)” While Greg Johnson has done well to remain celibate and to resist the temptations arising from the ever-present Internet, his problem is essentially the same problem that plagues the movement of which he is a part, and that he leads. We’ve stated it before. The underlying assumption of Revoice—and clearly that of pastor Johnson—is that a gay identity and a Christian identity are compatible. The Bible teaches unambiguously that they are not. Consider Pastor Johnson’s approach to his SSA in light of Paul’s instructions to Timothy regarding the qualifications of overseers and deacons in 1 Timothy 3:1-13.

Responses to Revoice Among PCA Leaders

The reaction to Revoice within the PCA, both official and unofficial, has been mixed. Some objected, even strenuously (also go here and here), but others, unbelievably, affirmed it, along with Pastor Johnson. Writer Diane Gaskins observes,

In the space of three days, Christianity Today (CT) published this PCA pastor’s gay coming-out article and his Missouri Presbytery published a committee report that affirms gay celibate pastors and exonerates the controversial LGBTQ affirming Revoice conference that Johnson’s Memorial church spearheaded.

How convenient was that?

But both the CT article and the committee report stand out for missing the obvious: Greg Johnson has actively forwarded the gay-Christian agenda in Evangelical churches and moved 2,000 year Christian church markers all while deceptively hiding his own vested interest in this cause.

Note carefully the word moved. Remember that we are sounding the alarm about the efforts of evangelical leaders to move the lighthouse of God’s Word.

Reaction From the Leaders in the SBC

Remember as well that Revoice is not a movement limited to the PCA; Nate Collins, as we have said, is the founder and president of Revoice, and he has ties to the Southern Baptist Convention.

While a number of Southern Baptists expressed grave concerns about Revoice last year, the responses of Russell Moore and the SBC entity he heads, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), were mixed. This is especially evident when one takes into account what wasn’t said, how what was said was framed, and the timing of statements that were released. Karen Swallow Prior, an ERLC fellow, even endorsed the conference.

For many weeks, even as other leaders discussed the conference, Dr. Moore was silent. Then, finally, late in the afternoon on Friday, June 22, 2018, the ERLC’s Andrew Walker tweeted an article he had written about it. A little later Dr. Moore retweeted the article with this statement: “Good balanced analysis by my @ERLC colleague @andrewtwalk.”

The timing raised questions. More to the point, why did Dr. Moore not respond himself? After all, this was an issue on which we would expect Dr. Moore to comment, given his position as ERLC president. At the time, Tom Buck, pastor of First Baptist Church in Lindale, Texas, wrote,

If you missed the statement altogether, you are likely not alone. It was released, in what is called in media, as a “Friday News Dump.” No one who is media savvy publishes anything remotely significant on a Friday – especially at around 5:00 PM. In addition, while Dr. Moore tweeted no less than twelve times in a week about Trump’s immigration policy, he has not pointed to Walker’s article since his Friday evening tweet. It makes one wonder whether Dr. Moore sees this issue as critical of an issue as Walker communicates.…

If Dr. Moore had personally taken the time to research and respond, he would have been prepared to give a much stronger argument against Revoice than was offered in Andrew Walker’s piece. Walker’s approximate five-hundred-word response to Revoice was less than robust in comparison to all the lengthy and thorough responses that preceded it. Amazingly, neither Moore nor Walker even referenced any of these articles – many written by SBC leaders – that warned about Revoice.

While Walker merely referenced that the speakers held troubling views, other articles gave their graphic details. There is little doubt that Revoice is intended to be revolutionary in shaping the thinking of evangelical churches. What was once unimaginable to even openly voice is now considered worthy of “celebrating.” The views of many of the speakers are an assault on the doctrines of sin and sanctification. Although they all declare that LGBT people should not engage in homosexual behavior, they offer new definitions that are not biblical and will not help people overcome its power.

What was once unimaginable to even openly voice is now considered worthy of “celebrating.”
—Pastor Tom Buck, commenting on Revoice—

Pastor Buck went on to offer several examples of jaw-dropping statements made by Revoice speakers. You can read his list in his article.

All that was last year, and I have highlighted these things to convey the urgent reality that in the SBC, some SBC leaders appear to be softening the denomination’s stance on homosexuality. At least, this is the direction the denomination seems to be headed. Discussion about Revoice this year seems to be muted by comparison, but as we have seen, the cause for concern and even alarm remains.

And astute SBC churchgoers and leaders are indeed alarmed. I haven’t even been able here to explore another entire aspect of the “gay Christian” movement—that of Sam Allberry, the same-sex attracted pastor from England who, along with Sean Doherty and Ed Shaw, run an online “ministry” called “Living Out.” Living Out is problematic for many of the same reasons Revoice is, and in some instances it may even have traveled further down the same road. Nevertheless, ERLC has, at least in the past, endorsed it. ERLC and Russell Moore have been challenged to renounce the endorsement, but as of June 6, he had not. You can learn more about this aspect of the effort to uphold righteousness in the SBC here.

Will the SBC Reaffirm Biblical Teaching?

Against this backdrop, in a Facebook exchange about the ERLC’s failure to stand unequivocally against homosexuality by taking a fully biblical posture, one concerned participant wrote this.

If Pastors in next week’s Convention in Birmingham do not stand against this depraved agenda, then the SBC will fall, and never recover.

Do not be surprised when the first homosexual “Same Sex Attraction” pastor is announced in the SBC. Listen for the reaction. It might be a standing ovation, as many perceive this to be Christianity “progressing” toward Christ likeness, when in reality, it is a fall into the abyss (minor edits made for clarity).

Numerous other people participated in the discussion, including journalist, reporter, and SBC pastor and evangelist Thomas Littleton. Having reported on the drift in the SBC for some time, he is in a position to know about it. Here is his observation.

We are seeing the last remaining biblically faithful denominations in the US going over to the dark side on one of the most black and white issues in the Word of God. Very telling and very sad (minor edits made for clarity).

Rev. Littleton is absolutely right! So, what can we do?

Manning the Lighthouse of God’s Word

Stephen Black is a former homosexual who now heads First Stone Ministries, through which he seeks to help clients overcome unwanted homosexuality and same-sex attraction. He also is the author of Freedom Realized: Finding Freedom from Homosexuality and Living a Life Free from Labels. Black has said this about Revoice. It

promotes their need to bring all things LGBT+ into the Church for complete acceptance as legitimate identities to be embraced. They communicate that a person’s sexual orientation is a fixed nature of human beings. I completely disagree with this ideology as it is not biblical. A true Christian identity is man and woman, male and female, and found in Christ alone, not in an unclean term of sexual brokenness.

In February of 2019, Black and a few other Christian leaders organized and held a conference that directly responded to the lies and half-truths promoted by Revoice. It was called “God’s Voice: A Biblical Response to the Queering of the Church.”

Admirably, Stephen Black is simply manning the Lighthouse of God’s Word, conveying its message with boldness and clarity, helping people everywhere find the truth.

This includes calling out the Revoice movement and its leaders, who continue to try to move the lighthouse of God’s Word to make it less offensive to the surrounding culture, and, incredibly, to make the lies of this world more attractive to Christians—whether or not this is their intention.

We must join Stephen Black. You don’t have his platform, but neither does he have yours, and you can reach people he cannot.

Learn and uphold what the Bible teaches about homosexuality. Learn to recognize departures from biblical teachings, even those that appear at the outset to be insignificant. No departure from any biblical truth ever is insignificant! Expose the myths and falsehoods. Point out that truly loving one’s neighbor never can mean ignoring the truth, nor can ignoring the truth ever be compassionate. Support the counter-movement led by those who, because of their relationships with Christ, have left homosexuality behind!⁴

Go here for links to articles that will help you get started.

We live in a world where way too many people are being deceived. Just one is one too many. As an agent of truth, you can make a positive difference—not just in others’ lives, but in the culture as well.

Get going!

The previous article and this article are available here on a single page.

To access additional Word Foundations articles on social justice, go here.

top image: Photo by Daniil Silantev on Unsplash

Notes:

¹Francis A. Schaeffer, The Great Evangelical Disaster, (Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1984), 37.

²Joseph Nicolosi, Ph.D., and Linda Ames Nicolosi, A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality, (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2002).

³Go here for an excellent presentation by Dr. James White on the woke church movement.

⁴Numerous expressions of this counter-movement exist, including this one.

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