Recently, Jeff Wright published five posts about Josh Howerton. In these posts, he critiques Howerton’s initial response to George Floyd, his understanding of the purpose of the Gospel, toxic empathy, his approach of accommodation to false worldviews (Social Justice), and his approach to egalitarianism and Paula White.
In this post, I will try and sort through some of this, and add rebuttals and some context to a few things.
Josh Howerton has repented of his accommodating and social justice strategies as far back as 2018, and up to 2021 (those are the dates he expressly mentions).
In this clip, Josh describes what his approach was, how he realized it was wrong, and that he repented of it.
In this longer clip, he is much more specific about his repentance, and how it came about.
As for George Floyd specifically, I think it is important to remember how Donald Trump responded to it his death. It was really hard to figure out how to respond, and I think that the Social Justice stuff, and not anything else, is the issue to be repented of (which Howerton has repented of).
“It’s very hard to even conceive of anything other than what we did see. It should never happen. It should never be allowed to happen. A thing like that.”
Now, on the issue of toxic empathy: yes, in the video Wright posted, it’s undeniable that that is what he was falling into. However, in the video below, Josh Howerton clearly takes Charlie Kirk’s position on toxic empathy (see timestamp 1:39:00).
On the racial component Josh said was the goal of the Gospel… Is the unification of people from all nations a consequence of salvation? Yes. And I would use many of the same arguments Josh Howerton did in the video Wright posted. But is it THE goal? No. Can it be said to be A goal? I think so. Just like sinlessness can be said to be a goal of God saving people.
Now, that is very different from the Social Justice version of racial unification, which Christians should never adopt, and which Josh Howerton has repented of (as far as I can tell as someone who only watched his YouTube videos and isn’t a member of his church).
As for Paula White and Josh’s approach to egalitarianism… yep, that’s an issue. However, it is clear that Josh thinks that Paula White does get the true Gospel across. Is Josh wrong? That’s for another post. For now, you can find the whole video below:
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Someone linked this to me (Jeff Wright). Nothing you have there is repentance. Josh pushed a false gospel and false teachers when woke was cool. He then deleted everything and rebranded.
“I made a shift in my preaching strategy where I realized I shrank back…” can’t be tied to what I’ve criticized; he never “shrank back” from pushing wokeness and its false gospel. That clip isn’t repentance, he hasn’t repented, and he should.
I concede, as I did in my post, that Josh didn’t repent via a public statement (as far as I know of) for specifically what he said in that morning devotional on George Floyd in 2020 which is still on FaceBook (not deleted). In 2021, he was actively going against critical theory from the pulpit (https://www.youtube.com/live/36LkSB8_Fpw?si=7kiK81M1nKodDz_z). This is not the point at which woke went out of popularity — it obviously still was popular, and Josh spoke against it anyway.
In the podcast episode you quote from and which I linked to, at the 46 minutes mark, Josh calls what he earlier said was a “shift” actual repentance. Now, what exactly did he repent from? Quote: “And then, if I’m being really honest, there was… a social justice era where I would sit down and I would have an imagined aggrieved group in my mind, and I would think, “Okay, what would that aggrieved group think about my sermon,” and reverse engineer [my sermon] from that.”
Now, why does he describe this as “a shift in his preaching”? It’s because they were doing a podcast on preaching, not repenting. The repentance isn’t the main thing Josh was focused on in the video, the preaching change was, and the repentance underscored the point. Unfortunately, it’s one of the only comments we have in terms of public/internet acknowledgement of sin or repentance. However, surely you have to acknowledge, it is at least in some sense repentance?
Lastly, to your point that he “deleted everything and rebranded.” First, that isn’t true, as the Facebook devotional video still up on his site proves (find here: https://www.facebook.com/HowertonJosh/videos/179166296798909/). Second, I cannot find anything from Jeff Wright, not his website, not his church, not his churches sermon archive, from before 2021. All I can find are some articles from third party SBC sites of articles he wrote. Now, I am not accusing Jeff of anything here, as if he is hiding something. But please, use equal weights and measures. Just because we can’t find sermons from someone from a given time doesn’t mean they are trying to cover something up.
All this said, I share concern about Josh Howerton. I’m not watching or listening to him with my head in the clouds, ignoring past statements, ignoring issues where he is wrong (like the Paula White stance he takes, mentioned in my post). However, some people are being extremely hard on him, and saying he hasn’t done what he has.
Oh, one other thing I forgot initially. He didn’t say racial reconciliation was a goal. He said it *was* the gospel.
I mentioned that in my blog post.