A couple months ago your church wrapped up a tremendous week of revival services led by a dynamic speaker. His messages were engaging. People were encouraged. He called out sin within the community and our nation. He called the church to repentance. He spoke as a champion of family values. Your whole little town was talking about this guy coming to speak. It’s hard for people to think of this speaker and not simultaneously think of your local church.
Today that dynamic speaker has been charged with criminal actions related to sexual misconduct. The legality of all of this is still somewhat up in the air. The guy might do time for his actions. He might not. But he has confessed to the sexual misconduct part being true. It’s apparent that the man you had on the stage didn’t quite match up to the man he was when nobody else was looking.
So what does this local church do?
Here is what I would do. I would write a letter to the local newspaper and speak to the issue. I would lovingly offer prayer for this man and his family. I would navigate this with as much grace as we possibly can. I would not denounce the things that he said from our pulpit which were true. But I would be certain to distance myself from this man’s recent actions. I would certainly not allow him back in our pulpit and I would even confess that his lifestyle did not match up to his words, and we cannot support that. I would make sure that we worked hard to disavow the notion in people’s minds that our local church supports sexual misconduct in any way.
To not do this when I’ve publicly partnered with someone is to communicate that we are okay with the present actions.
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On a Tuesday afternoon during the Missouri Baptist Convention annual meeting Missouri Governor, Eric Greitens, gave an address to the messengers. In this particular speech, to a rousing applause, Greitens called on us to join him in the mission. He promised his support to people of faith. He wanted us to know that we have a friend in the Governor. After the speech I heard several celebrate the fact that we had a “man of God” as the Governor of Missouri.
I’ve written in the past that this muddying of the gospel is unhelpful. But we’re beyond that point. We have publicly given Eric Greitens our platform. It’s not a one to one comparison but we’ve “let him preach at our revival”. In doing so folks associate Missouri Baptists with Eric Greitens. Therefore, it behooves us to publicly address the recent confessions of Greitens.
We do not need to be involved in the politics of the thing (that’s the problem in the first place). We don’t need to comment on whether or not he is guilty of the criminal charges against him (like blackmail). But what he did do was admit to sexual immorality. He admitted to not living out in his personal life the family values he portrayed from our stage. This is hypocrisy. And just as we publicly united ourselves with him for his pro-life stance so now we must also publicly denounce these actions.
We can still offer our prayers and our support of many of the policies he pursued. We do not have to denounce everything about our governor. We can still say we appreciate his political vision and that we appreciate his fighting for family values and pro-life causes. But we can also publicly denounce and be saddened by the fact he did not model this in his own life.
Maybe we can call Eric Greitens to repentance and proclaim the gospel to him. Yes, there is forgiveness to be had for his past. But it’s only found in the shed blood of Jesus Christ. It’s not found in being a conservative or in championing pro-life causes. He will not atone for his sexual indiscretions by publicly promoting healthy human sexuality. His only hope for help is found in the person and work of Jesus Christ. We would do well to call him to repentance and faith at the same time we acknowledge our disapproval of his affair.
I don’t desire to drag a man through the mud. I also could care less about being careful so as not to give fodder to the liberals trying to shut him down. What I care more about than anything is the soul of Eric Greitens and the gospel of Jesus Christ. Missouri Baptists who clapped and applauded and championed him as our friend in the faith, it’s time for us to be good friends. It’s time for us to publicly call him to repentance and to communicate our displeasure at his hypocrisy. Our applause and our platform giving was public. Therefore voicing our displeasure and our gospel proclamation ought to also be public. And we can do this without giving up one inch of our passion for conservative or pro-life causes.
