So now we know.
Last week I wrote about motivational speaker Andy Stanley and the Unconditional Conference he was holding at his North Point Ministries facility. Despite having maintained the pretense of promoting orthodox Christian doctrine, Stanley has made his drift towards apostasy modern Christianity's worst kept secret.
Sunday, he addressed the topic directly in a morning message.
I think it's important to note that Stanley still, to my knowledge, expresses adherence to several core Christian doctrines, including the Holy Trinity, the virgin birth, the exclusivity of Jesus for salvation, and others. He even verbalizes his submission to the inerrancy and authority of Scripture. But like many other professing Christians eager to earn the applause of men and collect the dollars and street cred offered at the cultural cool kids' table, Stanley has chosen one select group of people to deny the full counsel of those Scriptures.
Because the worldly benefits to affirming and promoting the sin of homosexual and transgender behavior are far more lucrative than affirming and promoting the sin of, say, idolatry or adultery, Stanley has tragically decided that unlike all other sinners, gay, lesbian, and transgender individuals are worth forfeiting. After all, why tell them the truth when doing so could cost you popularity and speaking contracts? Why choose self-sacrificial love when self-love is far more beneficial for landing book deals and TV interviews?
Christians can call such conduct a lot of things, but Christlike is not one of them.
Apparently in response to the criticism he was receiving for his approach to these precious souls, Stanley addressed the heretical conference in a Sunday morning message at North Point. In it, he explained that singleness was simply not a sustainable choice for many who are same-sex attracted. After reiterating that it was "their decision" to marry one another, he lectured,
Our decision is to decide how we respond to their decision. Our decision as a group of local churches is how are we going to respond to their decision. And we decided 28 years ago, we draw circles, we don't draw lines. We draw big circles.
One of the noticeable characteristics of a mind adrift in a sea of moral confusion is the inability to use clear and concise language to speak in meaningful sentences. What does "we draw circles, we don't draw lines" even mean? Does that mean Stanley thinks his approach doesn't exclude people? If so, I'd ask what about those people on the outside of the circle he draws? Specifically, those who believe that all men and women, regardless of their sexual predispositions and urges, deserve to hear the truth in love?
Circles are made of lines - curved ones. They have boundaries and barriers, blocking out just as many as straight lines do. But the most concerning thing about this from a Christian perspective, is that it isn't up to Stanley, his North Point team, you, or me, to draw lines or circles.
God has already drawn His lines, circles, triangles, and polygons exactly as He wanted them to be. He then told us exactly how He did it. We aren't asked to draw new, different lines that accommodate; we are simply asked to convey where His lines are and why they're there.
And that was my singular takeaway from hearing Stanley's sermon. LGBT behavior is not the most pressing or the most significant issue on the church's radar screen. But for some reason, most likely personal and economic, men like Stanley have decided to make it such - choosing to disrupt and alter Christian witness to the totality of God's truth by telling this one group of people they shouldn't trust it.
In any long-term competition between the staying power of the Bible versus Andy Stanley's self-serving apostasy, I'll roll with the Holy Scriptures. But that doesn't mean consequences aren't still legion for those caught up in this modern surge of apostate teaching.
Scholar and writer Andrew T. Walker explained it well:
What Stanley considers as a failure to live up to an unattainable ideal, Scripture calls sinful. Nowhere in the messages was there any expectation that someone would turn from their same-sex relationship. This is an example of unbounded empathy that listens (which is good) but never invites toward transformation (which is not good). For Stanley, if there's a general commitment to Jesus, that is sufficient. Ethics takes a backseat to empty affirmations of "belief."
...
A textbook move of theological liberalism is to sever doctrine from ethics, a severing that the Bible in no way, shape, or form justifies (John 14:15). Stanley is attempting to be more compassionate than Jesus, which is impossible.
To be clear, God's word will obviously endure and survive this latest manmade attempt to diminish its authority and undermine its love. Contrary to what our recency bias tells us, there's nothing particularly unique or impressive about current apostates compared to those who have long since passed.
Still, I remained concerned and troubled - for Andy Stanley and his team, yes, but more than that. In fact, my heart is primarily focused on the misled, not those who mislead. In this challenging hour may there remain faithful disciples willing to risk marginalization at the hands of the culturally sophisticated in order to tell sinners they need a Savior, and that far from stripping us of our "identity," obedience to God is the only path to fulfillment.
