The Deception of "Outrageous" Grace

A Progressive Trap for Zealous Evangelicals

Progressives love to speak of God's “outrageous grace” when they want to redefine their sin. Evangelicals are especially susceptible to this trick because we’ve spent years making the Gospel sound like it’s God’s love “winning” against God’s judgement.

The notorious Jayne Ozanne quit as the UK government advisor on LGBT+ inclusivity a couple of years ago, claiming the government was “hostile” to LGBT+ people and that it “only listens to right wing evangelicals”. In a now-familiar pattern, she also resigned from her role on the Anglican General Synod, claiming the CofE causes “harm” to LGBT+ people.

This is how it usually tends to go with progressive activists when they don’t get their way. Those who oppose their blatant hostility to the truth are themselves labelled “hostile”, “harmful”, and “bigoted”. They know this will often be enough to keep their opponents quiet.

We’re used to seeing this pattern out in the world or amidst the declining embers of liberal denominations. But Ozanne does it whilst swimming in supposedly evangelical waters. Towards the end of last year she wrote a controversial article for Premier, the UK’s best-known evangelical media platform.

Now, what is someone like Jayne Ozanne doing writing an article for an evangelical publication, you might ask? Well, because she calls herself “a gay evangelical”. So fear not, evangelicals, Jayne Ozanne is apparently in your fold! Howso, you might ask? Well, because she said so.

And how is it possible to hold to the authority of Scripture and to proud celebration of homosexuality? Easy. By simply self-identifying as one of those evangelicals who happens to have a “different opinion” on Biblical authority, that’s all.

Ozanne’s article was a response to John Stevens, director of the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches, who had recently written a Premier article challenging Ozanne’s unbiblical view on sexuality. Ozanne’s response essentially argues for a form of universalism where God’s “outrageous” grace renders even repentance from sin not-necessarily-necessary for salvation:

if repentance is not a salvation matter, Christians can agree to disagree on what is or is not sinful without it causing...ruptures in the Church.

It’s almost as though salvation had nothing to do with saving you from sin!

After receiving online pushback about this glaring problem in her reasoning, Ozanne responded on Twitter/X, saying:

The message of Outrageous Grace is never more needed it seems - for it is grace that is so often missing in so much of what is posted on twitter.

This, of course, is a clever way to undermine those challenging you without appearing to do so. If anyone contradicts her from that point, they will automatically fall into her category of the graceless Twitterati.

But there may be other reasons evangelicals might feel confused as to whether or not they should contradict her. This is because, at times, she almost sounds like she’s speaking our language about the Gospel.

On Evangelical Recklessness

Progressives often seem to highlight God's “outrageous grace” at just the time when they want God to excuse their sin as though it were not sin at all. Evangelicals are especially susceptible to falling for this deception precisely because we have often packaged the Gospel with “crazy”-sounding adjectives to highlight the outlandish nature of the Gospel.