The elders clarified that Lawson was a member of Trinity Bible Church but he was not an elder. “He didn’t want to be an elder, and we weren’t led to make him an elder,” they said. “He was not the pastor. He was a lead preacher. [Lawson] said himself he did not want to marry or bury. He had pastored in Mobile and he wanted to have a ministry that was more peripatetic of teaching and working at the seminary.”
The elders also answered questions regarding the discipline process they enacted after Lawson confessed to his sin. The elders indicated that they “take exception” with the implication that Trinity Bible Church hasn’t disciplined Lawson.
“We sought wise counsel [from] men like John MacArthur and others. We dealt with his issue, his sin swiftly. We dealt with it firmly. We immediately ended his remuneration. We disqualified him, and we would now say permanently from ministry,” one of the elders explained. “We don’t have, that I know of, in the Scriptures, extradition, where we can go to Tennessee and drag him back to Dallas.”
“When we exposed him, that was a discipline and he acknowledged it,” one of the elders said. “So when [Lawson] says, ‘Yes, I agree and I submit to the elders,’ he has been disciplined and he has acknowledged it.” The elder explained, “The next phase is the ball is in his court to show repentance and that he goes back to [his wife] and to his family and others.”
One elder, who described himself as the one who was “closest” to Lawson, shared that he didn’t believe that Lawson is “repentant.”
“[Lawson] says he’s repentant, and I don’t think he is. I’m just telling you right now. [Lawson] will tell you he is, until I see him—until he goes to his wife and he goes to his family—I don’t care who else he says he’s repented to,” the elder said. “His wife that he’s been married to for 43 years, nobody else matters and this no communication with his wife and children. We need to continue praying for him.”
Clint Archer Addresses Lawson Scandal
Archer, who is the senior pastor of Christ Fellowship Baptist Church in Mobile, Alabama, and a friend of Lawson’s, posted an article at Cripplegate last week titled: “Steve Lawson Interview.” In it, he shares that he was “shocked, appalled, hurt, and bewildered” when he heard the news of Lawson’s “adulterous relationship.”
“I texted him that I would pray for him,” said Archer. “His poignant response contained a word that has echoed in my thoughts every time I thought of him since then: he described his situation as a ‘shipwreck.’”
Archer shared that he recently spoke with Lawson on the phone and that Lawson “poured out his heart, expressing his deep remorse” and has “wanted to make a public statement for a long time but has been wisely counseled not to because anything he said could be misconstrued and used to further hurt the many people affected by his sin.”
Lawson and Archer were working on a plan to create a video that would have allowed Lawson to share his heart. It would have been released to the public only with the approval of his family, counselors, Trinity Bible Church elders, and the OnePassion Ministries board.
