Andrew Brunson Urges Evangelical Presbyterian Church to Resist Ordaining Homosexuals

The EPC pastor was imprisoned in Turkey for his faith in 2016.

Andrew Brunson, an Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC) pastor and missionary who was imprisoned for his faith in Turkey for two years, has weighed in on the ordination of same-sex attracted individuals within the denomination.

Andrew Brunson / Photo via Presbyterian Plumb Line

Currently, the Ad-Interim Committee on Same-Sex Attraction and Ordination is working on its draft report to present to the EPC General Assembly. According to its website, it expects the final recommendations to be completed in the spring of 2026.

Brunson, along with members of the Presbyterian Plumb Line, — a group of leaders within the EPC that “seek to lead [the] denomination toward a more biblical expression of our Presbyterian conviction” — have raised concerns about the direction of the report, specifically regarding homosexuality and ordination.

“I am specifically concerned that our witness and fidelity to Scripture are in danger of being compromised,” Brunson wrote. “Rather than providing clarity, [the report] introduces ambiguity and confusion. Compromise formulations have too frequently led to a drift away from orthodoxy, with irreversible consequences.”

Longtime EPC pastor Nate Atwood believes the advice to church elders and presbyteries in the proposed draft of the “Pastoral Letter” leaves room to allow the ordination of a same-sex attracted individual.

The pastoral letter states in part, “The courts of the church should always listen charitably and consider carefully the testimony of those who experience [same-sex attraction] and are seeking office in the church.” If the same-sex attracted person is committed to “chastity and sexual purity,” then the letter advises elders to inquire about seven areas regarding how they view themselves, their same-sex attraction, and their ability to “appropriately model godly relationships.”

If satisfied with the candidate’s answers to those inquiries, the letter says the candidate “may be considered for church office.”

“This is utterly unacceptable,” Atwood told MinistryWatch. While the committee makes strong theological statements about homosexuality, he said, it then breaks with those when it comes to applying that theology to the polity of the church.

Critics of the committee report have authored a Red Line Statement. “[N]either a person who self-identifies as a ‘gay Christian,’ nor one who continues to experience ongoing same-sex attraction—regardless of how they label it—should be considered a qualified candidate for ordination in the EPC,” it says.

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Brunson’s letter encourages others to sign on to the “Red Line Statement” and to support overtures at presbytery meetings “calling for a constitutional amendment that would forbid the ordination of those who identify as homosexual.”

Atwood said the elders at his church have already supported such an overture, and he expects many other presbyteries to do so in coming weeks and months.

“As Christians, same-sex attraction is not an identity to be embraced; we find our identity in Christ, not in our sinful desires,” Brunson said. He hopes to see the committee amend its report and “preserve the historic testimony of the Church of Jesus Christ.”

“Absent such clarity, we are setting the stage for significant conflict and division in the years ahead,” he said in closing.

Andrew Brunson was imprisoned in Turkey on “terror-related” charges after working as a pastor and church planter in the country for 23 years. He was released in October 2018, and penned his story in “God’s Hostage: A True Story of Persecution, Imprisonment, and Perseverance.”

The Ad-Interim Committee did not respond to a request for comment about Brunson’s letter before the time of publication.

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