Many ministers and churches are preparing to leave your church (the EPC) because of a recent vote by the General Assembly to allow the ordination of men who are tempted to violate Leviticus 18:22
By Tom Hervey
Originally published by the Aquila Report, July 30, 2026. Reprinted by permission of the author and The Aquila Report. The Plumb Line Editors appreciate the support and prayers of Mr. Hervey.
It is a bad thing when a small minority gets its way at the expense of vastly larger groups, or where the whole church is contorted to make way for one man. A man who is only applying for membership in your own midst because he left our denomination after causing a firestorm of controversy and threatening to split it, and after already driving many from its midst. Such a man does not have that honor which ought to characterize elders (2 Corinthians 8:21).
A recent article reports that many ministers and churches are preparing to leave your church (the Evangelical Presbyterian Church – EPC) because of a recent vote by the General Assembly to allow the ordination of men who are tempted to violate Leviticus 18:22. A great many elders had already warned it would come to this in the Red Line Statement. But the General Assembly proceeded with its work, the offense and potential for offense notwithstanding, and now it has come to the point that the threatened split is set to become a reality. And with that comes now the time for hard words.
One, if someone is inclined to disregard the warnings, fears, consciences, and happiness of large numbers of brothers in good standing, he is not walking in either love or prudence. He is setting his own notions ahead of the good of the church and of his fellows. Does this fulfill the command to “give no offense to Jews or Greeks or to the church of God” (1 Corinthians 10:32)? Can those who do so honestly say that “we put no obstacle in anyone’s way so that no fault may be found with our ministry” (2 Corinthians 6:3)?
No indeed, and it is a remarkable fact that when the Apostle Paul — whom we are to imitate (1 Corinthians 11:1) — then says that he and his co-laborers “commend ourselves in every way” (2 Corinthians 6:4), he lists as proof such things as enduring hardships, calamities, riots, hunger, genuine love, etc. (vv. 4ff). Not irritating much of the church on behalf of one or a few men, nor disregarding repeated warnings and complaints of men in good standing, nor forcing a split on account of one’s stubbornness. Those in the EPC who have pushed forward this matter have wronged their fellows and many of their sheep, and they have done a great disservice to the wider church. This has all been conducted on behalf of a very small percentage of professing believers, and in practice mainly on account of one man, Greg Johnson of Memorial Presbyterian in St. Louis, Mo.
It is a bad thing when a small minority gets its way at the expense of vastly larger groups, or where the whole church is contorted to make way for one man. A man who is only applying for membership in your own midst because he left our denomination after causing a firestorm of controversy and threatening to split it, and after already driving many from its midst. Such a man does not have that honor which ought to characterize elders (2 Corinthians 8:21). He is not above reproach (1 Timothy 3:2), as God requires, and whatever his reputation with outsiders (v. 7), he is not well thought of by many inside the church. And which is more important in a leader of God’s church, that he be favorably regarded by outsiders or by those within? Surely you know! Moreover, if he had that honor which Scripture requires of us, he would not put himself forward, nor insist on his way, but rather yield to the desires of the many and not make himself a source of offense to them (Romans 15:2).
Johnson has had plenty of opportunity to do that — years — and has seen all the strife his proposed joining has caused. And still he has pushed on, disregarding the many whom it has offended, the many whom it is driving away, the controversy that distracts from other matters of ministry. He and his church could remain independent, but they have insisted on joining your midst, the pain it has caused notwithstanding. Such a man is selfish and puts his own desires ahead of those of others, and ahead of the whole church he is troubling.
And why, unless indeed he intends to pave the way for others like himself, and to further a process of destigmatizing and normalizing the experience of immoral desires that Scripture regards as proof of being given over to utter depravity by God (Romans 1:24ff), as occurring in societies that come under his temporal judgment (2 Peter 2:6; Jude 7), and as occurring among his people when they are leaderless and forget him (Judges 19-21, esp. 21:25)? That such a man is a false teacher can be seen from various of his statements and deeds, but I shall content myself with three.
- One, his book Still Time to Care is pure filth, an ongoing violation of the command that, regarding sexual immorality, “such things must not even be named among you” (Ephesians 5:3). Far from not naming them, that book discusses such things at length, and he even makes at least one graphic sodomy joke that would get one in deep trouble at a secular workplace — and shall Christians tolerate vile speech that unbelievers would not? More to the point, it disobeys the commands to “be innocent as doves” (Matthew 10:16) and to “let there be no filthiness, nor foolish talk, nor crude joking” (Ephesians 5:4).
- Two, his church allowed its property to be used to celebrate Transluminate, a play festival that glorified nature-denying and nature-mutilating ideas, the misnamed ‘transgenderism’ that regards gender and sex as distinct, and that regards the latter as mutable and subordinate to the former, which is regarded as sacrosanct and unchangeable. That is the moral equivalent of the ancient Israelites allowing the temple to be used for pagan idolatry, a thing that provokes our jealous God to wrath and proves the apostasy of those that do it. It proves that those who do it are not taking their notions of holiness, neighbor love, and evangelism from the New Testament and are laboring under fleshly and worldly ideas, that they are conducting ‘ministry’ in a way that enables people in their sins rather than abhorring the sins and calling people out of them.
- Three, Christ said “beware false prophets … you will recognize them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:15-16). Tell me, is troubling and driving people and churches out of two denominations a good fruit or a bad one? Indeed, where are the good fruits that Johnson has sown in your midst? How many other churches and other denominations look at yours and say, “look at how the EPC is flourishing and is a model of peace and holiness,” and are rushing to join it or develop closer fraternal ties? Are they not rather distancing themselves from you, as the Associate Reformed Presbyterians recently did? And are they not warning you and remonstrating with you, as so many in your own midst have done?
Yet you will not listen. You have stopped your ears, hardened your hearts, and refused to accept either warning or rebuke. Have you never read that “whoever hates reproof will die” (Proverbs 15:10)? And that one “who is often reproved, yet stiffens his neck, will suddenly be broken beyond healing” (29:1)? Or again, that “it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God” (1 Peter 4:17)? And are you so blind that you do not recognize that is what is happening to you? Shall you refuse warning and escape judgment? You cannot. And as your predecessor made itself desolate by allowing itself to be infiltrated and captured by false teachers and false ideas, so also are you doing now.
You ought to repent posthaste while the opportunity remains. For my part I fear that you are bewitched like the Galatians (3:1) and duller of hearing than the Hebrews (5:11), and that I have wasted my words to you. Prohibit that troubler of the churches from attaining to leadership among you while the opportunity remains, and perhaps you may regain your offended brothers. Elsewise those outside your midst shall consider you a byword and an example whose deeds are to be avoided. We shall think that God saved you from the Egypt that is the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) only for you to rebel further against Him and incur His wrath (Jude 5).
Tom Hervey is a member of Friendship Presbyterian Church in Laurens County, S.C. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not of necessity reflect those of his church or its leadership or other members. He welcomes comments at the email address provided with his name. He is also author of Reflections on the Word: Essays in Protestant Scriptural Contemplation, and helped modernize Volume I of James Hervey’s classic dialogue on evangelical faith, Theron and Aspasio, available now at Monergism.
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