Most of the church scandals in 2024 have come from known egalitarians, including Mike Bickle of IHOPKC, Robert Morris of Gateway Church, and Tony Evans of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship. However, Steve Lawson is not an egalitarian, nor was he some oddball charismatic. In the wake of Steve Lawson’s adultery scandal bringing about his resignation from ministry and the downfall of his legacy, the knives have come out from the usual suspects: the feminists.
Chief amongst the feminists is Julie Roys, whose Roys Report gives her “journalism” a veneer of legitimacy when she is just an activist who pushes feminism within Christian circles. With the Lawson story breaking, she decided to weaponize the adultery of one man against none other than John MacArthur. Roys has a history of smearing John MacArthur, criticizing his Covid reopening, his wealth, and the false claim that Grace Community Church engaged in abusive counseling against Eileen Gray. The ultimate irony with Julie Roys is that she groomed a former youth group student in which she had lesbian fantasies. For this alone, she should have been canceled and blacklisted, but alas, she largely avoided lasting accountability.
In her latest article, it is unsurprising that she uses Lawson’s affiliation at TMS to perpetuate her hatred of MacArthur. The elongated headline of the article, “BREAKING: Pastor & The Master’s Seminary Dean Steve Lawson Fired from Church for ‘Inappropriate Relationship’ With a Woman” shows her hand early against TMS.
After giving a basic overview of the Trinity Church’s statement, she then delves into Lawson’s resignation from Dauphin Way Baptist Church in Mobile, Alabama as part of a contentious history. Then she concludes the article with a section called “Close friendship with John MacArthur.”
For decades, Lawson has been not only a colleague but a close friend of author and pastor John MacArthur, who’s also known for his doctrinal dogmatism.
When MacArthur pulled out of Ligonier Conference in March 2022, about 10 days after TRR reported that MacArthur had protected a child abuser and shamed the abuser’s wife, Lawson posted a picture golfing with MacArthur on Instagram.
Lawson has called MacArthur “the greatest influence on my preaching” and also referred to MacArthur as the “greatest expositor of our day.”
At a TMS conference in 2020, Lawson was even more effusive, saying, “It seems that in every generation, there is one man who is uniquely positioned to have the dominant voice in the church. . . . I really believe in the 21st Century that it is John MacArthur who has been raised up by God in an unprecedented manner.”
By including the compliments and history between Lawson and MacArthur, Roys is sinisterly going for guilt by association. Meanwhile, she has already started labeling Lawson an abuser, going so far as to cite a Texas law against clergy sexual abuse. Texas labeling consensual acts between clergy and laity as sexual abuse does not make it so according to Scripture. Calling it abuse gives the other party, typically a woman, a pass for their sinful actions.
Feminism is the biggest enemy within the church. The story of Steve Lawson is a disappointment for the many who respected him and benefited from his work. Yet, it is slanderous to weaponize it against other teachers like John MacArthur or those at Ligonier Ministries. It is quite pathetic that these people thrive off of sexual abuse in the church. They need abuse in the church. Every situation, even those between consenting adults must be abusive. If they did not have abuse, they would read abuse into the words of men, like they did against Josh Howerton. Julie Roys is the worst of them.
One Response
Totally she is – dude she has a vendetta against him, and in reality is just jealous of the man. Her feminism alone sums up her “issues” 😉.