1 Missouri Presbytery Ad Hoc Committee to Investigate Memorial

Missouri Presbytery Ad Hoc Committee to Investigate Memorial Presbyterian Church for Hosting the Revoice 18 Conference in July 2018 Full Report Presented to the Missouri Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church in America at its called meeting on May 18, 2019. The following actions were taken at this called meeting: 1. The entire report was received by Presbytery; 2. The Judicial Judgment was adopted by Presbytery; 3. Theological Judgments #1-9, and their Arguments were approved by Missouri Presbytery as being, in general substance, consistent with Holy Scripture and our confessional standards, the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms; 4. The Commendations and Recommendations were adopted by Presbytery; 5. An overture to General Assembly drafted by this committee was adopted by Presbytery. It petitions the GA to erect an ad interim study/consensus-building committee on these sensitive issues. The full overture is included in the appendices of this report. 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION 4 A. A LETTER FROM THE COMMITTEE 4 B. OUR COMMITTEE’S CHARGE 8 C. COMMITTEE MEMBERS 10 D. PRINCIPLES OF INQUIRY AND JUDGMENT 10 E. GLOSSARY OF TERMS AND ABBREVIATIONS IN THIS COMMITTEE REPORT 15 II. CONTEXT 20 A. HISTORY AND CONTEXT OF REVOICE 20 B. TIMELINE OF EVENTS 23 C. COMMENTARY ON TIMELINE 25 D. SUMMARY OF RECEIVED CORRESPONDENCE 27 III. SUMMARY OF ALLEGATIONS AND JUDGMENTS 29 A. JUDICIAL ALLEGATION AND JUDGMENT 29 B. THEOLOGICAL ALLEGATIONS AND JUDGMENTS 29 IV. JUDICIAL AND THEOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT 35 A. THEOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES 35 B. INTRODUCTION TO ALLEGATIONS, JUDGMENTS, AND ARGUMENTS 47 C. JUDICIAL ALLEGATION, JUDGMENT, AND ARGUMENT 48 JUDICIAL JUDGMENT: ON THE CONDUCT OF TE JOHNSON AND THE MEMORIAL SESSION 48 D. THEOLOGICAL ALLEGATIONS, JUDGMENTS, AND ARGUMENTS 52 ALLEGATION #1: ON THE QUESTION OF THE ORIGINS AND MORAL STATUS OF HOMOEROTIC DESIRE 52 ALLEGATION #2: ON THE QUESTION OF TERMINOLOGY 61 ALLEGATION #3: ON THE QUESTION OF MORALLY BENIGN QUALITIES TIED TO HOMOEROTIC DESIRE 72 ALLEGATION #4: ON THE LEGITIMACY OF AN SSA OR GAY IDENTITY 76 ALLEGATION #5: ON THE ISSUE OF FRIENDSHIP AND ROMANCE 84 ALLEGATION #6: ON THE QUESTION OF CREATING GAY “SPACES” 92 ALLEGATION #7: ON WHETHER THERE WILL BE “QUEER TREASURE” IN HEAVEN 96 ALLEGATION #8: ON THE QUESTION OF THE ANALOGY OF JEREMIAH AND SSA BELIEVERS 101 ALLEGATION #9: ON THE PRESENCE OF ROMAN CATHOLIC SPEAKERS 105 E. CONCLUDING STATEMENT ON JUDGMENTS OF ALLEGATIONS 107 2 V. COMMENDATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 110 A. TO REVOICE 110 B. TO MEMORIAL PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 110 C. TO MISSOURI PRESBYTERY 111 VI. APPENDICES 112 A. APPENDIX 1: MISSOURI PRESBYTERY’S OVERTURE TO THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY 112 B. APPENDIX 2: CALVARY’S LETTER OF CONCERN TO MISSOURI PRESBYTERY 115 C. APPENDIX 3: TE JOHNSON’S PUBLIC COMMUNICATIONS REGARDING REVOICE 124 3 I. INTRODUCTION A. A Letter from the Committee In I John we are told that, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.” In the modern church, there may not be a topic that stokes more fear than that of homosexuality. Even many well- intentioned pastors won’t talk about it out of fear of offending their congregations. In this report we have been tasked with talking about it in a narrow sense, in connection with Memorial Presbyterian Church. However, by being tasked with assessing Revoice as a phenomenon, we have been tasked with talking about it in a wider sense, as we suspect that many in the wider church may be interested in this report as well. First, there is the fear many of us have about the influence of the sexual revolution on our nation. Who would have believed even twenty years ago that almost every TV show would have gay characters, that children as young as seven would be encouraged to embrace a transgendered identity and march in Pride parades, or that Christians could be facing jail time for refusing to participate in gay weddings? Many of the people we have read and spoke to who are critical of Revoice expressed this type of fear. These brothers and sisters are wondering if Revoice is proof that the very same ideas from the sexual revolution that have led to so much sexual confusion in our nation are finding their way into our churches and seminaries—the very places that should be helping people see just how ungodly the sexual revolution truly is. Second, there is the fear felt by our brothers and sisters in Christ (and often shared by their families and close friends) who know firsthand what it means to experience same-sex attractions. They know the fear of wondering what might happen to them if their churches discovered their sexuality. They, along with their family and friends, are looking on, anxious that if the PCA rejects Revoice it will be a confirmation of their fear that the church really wants to reject them—and ultimately that there is no place for them in conservative denominations like ours. And lastly, as a committee, we recognize our own fears. As we labor, we feel the eyes of not only our Presbytery and denomination, but of other Christian brothers and sisters within the evangelical world. We fear getting things wrong. And we fear not understanding accurately the perspectives of Revoice, Memorial, our brothers who sent letters of concern, and (by no means least) the many same-sex-attracted (SSA) Christians in our churches. There has been much fearful and alarmist rhetoric in these discussions already, and we fear adding to that cacophony instead of helping to cast out fear so that love may be perfected. We ask that all of our readers join us in the prayer and hope that the Holy Spirit would use this report to help us all know and better love one another in grace and truth. We hope that as we do, all those involved—our critics, Revoice, and Memorial, and our SSA brothers and sisters will know that we have tried diligently to understand their concerns and fears. A Word to the Critics We understand how the critics can perceive the Revoice project as being a cloaked invasion of LGBTQ+ propaganda into the church. When reading some of the Revoice workshops or seeing incendiary or problematic social media posts from some of its attendees, it is easy to see how people can become alarmed and not notice the nuances that are actually there. We see how the insufficient communication by Revoice and its early mistakes added to the confusion and 4 polarization in the heated debates around the conference. We can see how some might view the Revoice project as no more than a way young evangelicals can embrace the culturally popular gay narrative—the only caveat being, no sex. The committee has sympathy for how many sincere critics of Revoice would find this frightening. We also agree with the critics that just because someone refrains from sex, it does not mean that they are necessarily free from syncretistic worldly ideas. We believe there has been much misunderstanding and misrepresentation of what Revoice actually teaches at the hands of its critics. But we also believe there are real disagreements between Revoice and the critics. It is not simply that if critics only understood Revoice’s teachings better they would come to understand that all their fears are unwarranted, and thus can safely be dismissed. There are many threads in the Revoice rope, and some of them certainly have more potential for syncretism—an improper blending of biblical truth with worldly ideas—than others. We are not unaware of the tweets that sound like gay pride, the celibate gay couples who exhibit romantic bonding, and the gay fellowships that seemingly emulate gay university groups. Revoice is a complex phenomenon. By this we do not just mean that Revoice brings up complicated questions—which it does. Rather, Revoice itself is not easy to define. The question “What is Revoice?” in many ways became one of the most difficult questions for our committee to answer. Who gets to give a definitive answer? In the lead up to the conference, Revoice, which was in its infancy as an organization, put out very few statements on many of the contested issues, especially compared to the number of statements written by other people about what they believe. Is Revoice represented by Spiritual Friendship’s writers? Not completely. Is it represented by the books written by keynote speakers? Perhaps, but there isn’t agreement across those authors on every issue either. Maybe this or that critic who attended the conference understands what Revoice really is, or maybe that blogger defending Revoice gets it right? The truth is, there were many experiences of Revoice and many answers to what Revoice is about, all of which give insight, while potentially missing other aspects of it. It is understandable why so many critics who have expressed concern about Revoice would be afraid. From the outside, Revoice sounds so much like the gay ideology of the world. These critics remind the church that Paul warns believers not to be taken captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ (Col. 2:8). These voices remind us that the wider culture in which we now live is flush with the philosophy of sexual freedom: people with homosexual desire should embrace it, enjoy it, and celebrate it, because the supposition is that sexuality is a core aspect of our human identity: “Be what you are sexually” about captures it.

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