Can Drunks–or Gays–Go To Heaven?

We had a great conversation in my church recently about the issues coming up at next week’s General Assembly, thanks to the great work of several elders wading through all the overtures and presenting to us the details.

Probably the issue that brought about the most conversation was the ongoing concern by many in the PCA about an openly gay, though celibate, man (Greg Johnson) serving as a pastor in our denomination. There was some discussion about the extent to which he “identifies” as gay, so I thought it worthwhile to share what he spoke on the floor of GA in 2019:

“I knew I was gay at age 11 … that was the day I realized Christians hated gay people. … At this point I am 46 years old and still same-sex attracted. My orientation has not changed. … I love Jesus and I want to serve Him and I am willing to suffer for Him and yet, friends, when I read Article 7 of the Nashville Statement, it hurts, because Article 7 says it is a sin to adopt a homosexual self-conception. And we don’t do that for any other people group. We don’t tell alcoholics that it is a sin to conceive of themselves as alcoholics because drunkenness is a sin. It is the beginning of learning to manage your alcoholism in obedience to Christ so that it doesn’t define you. We don’t tell paraplegics that they should conceive of themselves as able-bodied because that is God’s ideal.

Johnson also made statements about his beliefs on being gay in his “coming article” article in Christianity Today:

Bill, I’m gay. … There were two sons in our happy secular household. I was the gay one. … I got my Easy-Bake Oven. But then I was sentenced to not one but two terms on a boys’ soccer team. … At age 11 the realization hit me. The fact was that I felt toward other guys the way they felt toward girls. … So there I was. A gay atheist teenager trying to cover over my shame. … Decades have passed, and at 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.) … When I welcome people to my fantastic little condo with my Saarinen table and Corbusier chairs, I compulsively mention that my undergrad was in architecture. It’s an instinctive strategy to obfuscate their gaydar. … Even the language of same-sex attraction—which many believers have found helpful as a way to disassociate themselves from assumptions about being gay—feels to many others like a tool of concealment, as though I were laboring to minimize the ongoing reality of sexual orientations that in practice seldom change. … Jesus hasn’t made me straight. But he covers over my shame. Jesus really loves gay people. … My sexual orientation doesn’t define me. It’s not the most important or most interesting thing about me.

It is a good thing that Johnson says his sexual orientation doesn’t define him. Yet his narrative is clear that he was/is gay and is currently same-sex attracted. He also finds its hurtful that the GA would say “it is a sin to adopt a homosexual self-conception.” He sees himself as gay or same sex attracted and finds no problem with that (as long as he does not act out his attractions), though he does have problems with those who have problems with him or others adopting a homosexual self-conception.

I would add here is that Johnson is wrong when he says that “We don’t tell alcoholics that it is a sin to conceive of themselves as alcoholics.” Yes, we do. In fact, Scripture tells them that in Galatians 5:

Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

We all know that people who have been drunk can go to heaven. It is when someone’s identity is in their drunkenness rather than in Christ that they are not going to inherit the kingdom. So when someone goes around identifying themselves with their sin (to be clear—it is not sinful to be a paraplegic), as in “gay” or “gay Christian,” or as a drunk, a murderer, or an adulterer, it is a very dangerous thing. Of course, drunks, gays, fornicators, etc. can repent of this identification and still inherit the kingdom. Which is why it is important for the church to tell them that persisting in identifying themselves with their sin can cost them their lives.

Our same-sex-attracted PCA pastor needs to hear this as much as we all do. Though I do not doubt the sincerity of his confession as a Christian, I believe—based on his public statements—that allowing him to continue as a pastor is not good for his spiritual well being and harms the witness and peace and purity of the church.