Six Ways J. D. Greear Goes Wrong in His Recent Blogpost on the Church’s Discussion About Homosexuality, Part 2

The whole truth is generally the ally of virtue; a half-truth is always the ally of some vice.
—G. K. Chesterton—

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Key point: J. D. Greear’s sermon and blogpost on homosexuality are ominous for several reasons, not the least of which is the unbiblical direction they are taking Southern Baptists and the rest of the evangelical world with regard to the sin of homosexuality.

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This is part 2 of a 2-part series. Part 1 is available here. Go here to access a streamlined version of this series as a single article. An epilogue to the series is available here.

Last time we discussed three specific errors in Pastor J. D. Greear’s blogpost titled “Three Ways We Go Wrong When Discussing Homosexuality.” We said,

1. 1. 1. Greear goes wrong when he maligns the church for not dealing with the subject of homosexuality effectively through the years, and when he accuses the church of not caring about those experiencing same-sex attraction.¹
      2. Greear goes wrong when he fails to explain that for the man or woman who’s involved in homosexuality, moving from being spiritually dead to being spiritually alive includes moving toward heterosexuality.
      3. Greear goes wrong when he implies homosexuals are “born that way.”

Here we continue examining items on our list. Our record of the half-truths and errors in Greear’s article likely is not exhaustive, but the remaining three items are critically important for us to see as false and misleading—because they are.

All Sins Are Not Equal

Item four: Greear goes wrong when he makes the case that homosexuality isn’t worse than numerous other sins. This minimizes the serious nature of homosexual sin. 

We’re wrong if we think same-sex behavior is a fundamentally different type of sin, says SBC President Greear. In Romans 1, Paul lists same-sex behavior as one corruption among many. We may not think of deceit, boasting, greed, or a rebellious attitude toward parents as equally depraved as same-sex behavior. But if you look at Paul’s list, they are.

Whoa! Wait just one minute! It’s true that homosexuality isn’t the only sin Paul mentions in Romans 1:18-32, but this does not mean that all the other sins listed, or that all other sins in general, are as offensive to God as homosexuality. Sure, one sin is enough to render a person a sinner in need of divine forgiveness, and one sin is enough to make a person “eligible” for hell. As we heard Jon Harris affirm in last week’s post, however, in Romans 1 Paul is talking about a specific group of people who are sliding more and more deeply into sin. They rejected core truths they innately understood, so they therefore “suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” Accordingly,

the wrath of God is being revealed against” them, against “all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.…Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever.

Yet, as Pastor Joseph Spurgeon astutely observes, Greear essentially says, “Yeah, [homosexuality is] a sin but don’t get your panties in wad because there are other sins too.”

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J. D. Greear essentially says, “Yeah, [homosexuality is] a sin but don’t get your panties in wad because there are other sins too.”
—Pastor Joseph Spurgeon—

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Perhaps the reason Christians and the Church of Jesus Christ through the centuries have spoken so forcefully against homosexuality, and warned so urgently against it, is because God’s Word speaks in alarming terms about this sin.

• • • Paul says sexual sins are unique because, while other sins are committed outside the body, sexual sins involve the body.
    • Homosexuality is unique among sexual sins because it is unnatural. Heterosexual sex outside of marriage, though sinful, is natural.
    • Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed, in part, because of homosexuality.
    • Homosexuality also is called an abomination.
    • It is a sin associated with God’s giving people up to their vile passions.
    • In addition, Scripture is explicit that those who practice homosexuality will not inherit God’s kingdom. While the Bible says this about sinners guilty of other sins as well, the weight Scripture assigns to homosexuality is more than significant.

In saying other sins are as bad or worse than homosexuality, Greear effectively minimizes the seriousness of an act the Bible calls “an abomination” (also go here). In a day when homosexuality is celebrated and treated as something to be proud of, we must not minimize, even unintentionally,  it’s sinfulness or its ominous nature.

Pharisaical?

Item five: Greear goes wrong when he implies that condemning homosexuality and warning against it are pharisaical. 

Greear writes,

We only grasp the gospel when we understand, as Paul did, that we are the worst sinner we know (1 Timothy 1:15), and that if Jesus came to die for us, there is no one that he would not die for. When we realize that, we’ll cease being a Pharisaic teacher of the law and we’ll become a gospel witness.

Recall here that J. D. Greear believes Paul was part of the group of people the apostle was describing in Romans 1. Greear actually sees everyone as being a part of this group. Of course, all are sinners, and no one ever is right to think of himself as less needful of God’s grace than anyone else. Yet, interpreting the passage in the way Jon Harris interprets it is not being prideful. Certainly, humility is important for every believer. At the same time, warning people and the culture about homosexuality’s dangers—physical, spiritual, and otherwise—is not being prideful or Pharisaical. It’s being faithful to God’s calling!

We do well to read and understand what the church has said about homosexuality in the past. Years ago, church leaders were more objective than we are, since they were not as afraid of offending people. Here are statements from three men of God, compiled by Pastor Joseph Spurgeon.

• • • Sodomy is a “monstrous insanity,” “clear proof of the ultimate degree of corruption,” and “lusts after monstrous things.” – John Chrysostom
      
    • “the fearful crime of unnatural lust is worse than bestial desires since [it reverses] the whole order of nature”- John Calvin
    • Shall the bestial vice of which Sodom was guilty never be checked? Why, if this should spread amongst the sons of men, it would bring in its infernal train ten thousand times more damage than the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. The sin itself is infinitely worse than the fire which burned it up.”- Charles Spurgeon

People in our day have become too casual about sin. We must guard against this and lovingly, yet clearly, warn people that while God is love, He also is a God of absolute holiness. He cannot abide sin. Isaiah was overcome with a strong sense of his sin and unworthiness when he saw a vision of God, in His holiness, seated on His throne. The prophet Habakkuk wrote, “Your eyes are too pure to approve evil, And You can not look on wickedness with favor.” We must recover this understanding in the church!

The Roads to Heaven and Hell

Item six: Greear goes wrong—very wrong—when, quoting Tim Keller, he says, “Homosexuality does not send you to hell. I know that because being heterosexual doesn’t send you to heaven.”

Here is the statement in context.

Let me say something very clearly: Homosexuality does not send you to hell. I know that because being heterosexual doesn’t send you to heaven. What sends you to hell is refusing to allow Jesus to be the Lord and center of your life, regardless of how that manifests—whether it’s in your refusal to let Jesus be Lord over your sexual life or in your refusal to obey him with your money or your right to control your career.

Taken together, the first two sentences are blatantly unbiblical! No one ever can know any particular trait, quality, or action will not send a person to hell “because” — J. D.’s term — its opposite doesn’t make a person qualified to enter heaven! This is dangerous! It is treading on razor-thin spiritual ice! Can’t you see how hearing such a statement would effectively relieve concern in a homosexual person’s mind? Hey! That’s right! Heterosexuality can’t get anyone into heaven—so my homosexuality certainly won’t condemn me to hell! 

Don’t be surprised when homosexuals and same-sex attracted people who “hear” Greear’s full statement don’t really hear the last part of it—that “[w]hat sends you to hell is refusing to allow Jesus to be the Lord and center of your life, regardless of how that manifests—whether it’s in your refusal to let Jesus be Lord over your sexual life or in your refusal to obey him with your money or your right to control your career.” Why won’t they hear it? Because the statements made prior to this one effectively give homosexuals and those dealing with same-sex attraction a “feel-good pass.”

Yet, despite what J. D. Greear believes or says about heterosexuality, homosexuality, heaven, and hell, God will judge unrepentant sinners—for their sins!

The Impact of the Whole

As we have seen, each of J. D. Greear’s statements carries danger and potential danger. The subject of homosexuality is not something to take lightly or to minimize. We began this post by highlighting Greear’s sermon on homosexuality and Romans 1, which he preached in late January of this year.² Jon Harris raised a number of red flags about it on his podcast, and I’ve alluded to one or two of his concerns already.

While each of Greear’s misleading statements poses serious problems, those issues aren’t as damaging as the effect of the collective whole. In the following three-minute clip, hear Jon Harris’s final comments about Greear’s sermon from his podcast. They’re a warning flare for the Southern Baptist Convention and for all of evangelicalism.

I want to end with this. I want to ask, Why was this sermon preached? I’ll let you be the judge. Why was it preached? 

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Southern Baptist are in trouble.
—Jon Harris—

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Southern Baptists are in trouble. Like I said before, I’ve had some of my own experiences with trying to minister to homosexuals. This kind of stuff is not helpful. It’s really not helpful. It gives somebody the impression that they can live with these desires, that they’re not that big of a deal to live with them. At least it has the potential to give them that. It also has the potential to give Christians the idea that this isn’t really that big of a deal.

I would submit to you that Greear has put in a framework [from] which it’s not a big jump to say—to easily lead to, it’s like two rungs up the ladder—gay Christianity. I think he may even be advocating it here, he’s just using so much veiled language, but [here’s where this is headed]. The orientation of homosexuality is OK as long as you don’t act on it, that idea, and creating a separate space for gay Christians, this category. 

This is the President of the Southern Baptist Convention. I don’t know exactly why he’s saying this, but I can take a guess. I do think that Southern Baptists have been caving. And Greear has, before this even happened, done a little bit of caving on other things. I’m not going to get into that. But there’s this need, in a sense, to be loved by the world, to get the numbers up, to show the world that Hey! We have the same concerns as you. Look at us. We’re not bigots. We’re not the things the world says we are. 

The bottom line is that the world will always hate us. The world will always hate Christians because the world loves sin. And anyone calling a sinner to repentance will be hated by those who love their sin. That’s just the bottom line.

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The world will always hate Christians because the world loves sin. And anyone calling a sinner to repentance will be hated by those who love their sin.
—Jon Harris—

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So I do say this with some degree of passion. I also say this, though, with a degree of sadness, and concern—for J. D. Greear, for the Southern Baptist Convention, for evangelicalism in general, and for even people I know that are, I think, being persuaded because of these arguments. They’re not good arguments.

We need to get back to the authority of Scripture. Stick to the text. Go through it verse by verse, exegetically, original languages—I mean, these are important things. And I’m afraid those methods are not being utilized to further this agenda. When I say agenda, I’m not saying conspiracy, but there is an agenda out there to get the world to like us. And I think the social justice message, I think this is just one, if you will, front, in that social justice fight. These are the oppressor and oppressed categories. They kind of come out, even in Greear’s sermon a little bit. The church being an oppressor, and then homosexuals being oppressed. And that’s why the emphasis on our needing compassion. We do need compassion, but I fear that there’s something behind this which is on the nefarious side. And it’ll be interesting to see what happens in the next year.

Well, J. D. Greear has, as we indicated last time, doubled down.

When will he be forcefully challenged? Actually, he has been—by Jon Harris and several others—but as of yet, public pressure has not risen to a point where he has been held accountable for his bad theology and misleading statements.

This is why the movie Enemies Within the Church is so important. Unfortunately, Greear is just one of many popular evangelicals taking the church in a bad direction. Under the noble-sounding mantra of “social justice,” they are perpetuating false teachings and dividing the church. Enemies Within the Church will expose them. Learn more about this informative, soon-to-be-released documentary here. Prayerfully consider supporting this effort.

Meanwhile, learn everything you can. You’re invited to start here. Stay informed, and inform others.

A great deal is at stake!

 

Go here to access a streamlined version of this series as a single article.

An epilogue to this series is available here.

 

Copyright © 2019 by B. Nathaniel Sullivan. All rights reserved.

Unless otherwise indicated, Scriptures in this article have been taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Note:

¹This is a summary statement of our discussion of this item in part 1. It acknowledges the church hasn’t done a perfect job, but it also highlights instances where it has made relational connections, shared the truth in love, and led homosexuals to faith in Christ. Greear specifically says the church has done a poor job “historically.” Yet historically (through the centuries), the church has been right to say unequivocally homosexuality is a sin. We are losing that today. Yes, of course we need to be loving, but a major missing ingredient today seems to be a willingness to also uphold the benefits of a healthy fear of God. Instead, the church tends to equate loving people with not offending them. Genuine love and compassion are willing to warn people of impending danger, even at the risk of offending them, and even at the risk of being accused of being hateful. For more information on the duty to warn, read the epilogue to this series.

²All the images of Greear in this post come from a You Tube video of that sermon.