Andy Stanley’s House of Cards

Much of the online world has been abuzz as of late owing to a short clip from Andy Stanley, where he speaks rather candidly on the virtues of homosexuals coming into the church with the way that the broader Evangelical community has treated them. In one sense, I have no real beef with that particular statement if several important qualifiers are stated.

Rosaria Butterfield has written an excellent book called “The Gospel Comes With a Housekey,” illustrating a phenomenon that is well-known within the homosexual community, where they are exceedingly hospitable, welcoming, etc. In the same breath, she offers much-needed qualifiers to speak to the fact that this common bond is drawn around a common sin. From this point, she encourages Christians to adopt, in one sense, a hospitable, welcoming stance towards homosexuals—but with the explicit purpose of being able to give them the gospel.

Here’s where we ought not miss her point: Christians do need to invite sinners of all stripes in their homes and genuinely welcome them—without compromising on the truth. That’s the basic gist of practicing hospitality toward unbelievers. This isn’t a practice foreign to Christianity so much as it is a practice often neglected within some Christian circles, and that’s her point. In other words, the gay community doesn’t have the market cornered on hospitality, and she illustrates this rather wonderfully with her own personal story. God called her to faith in Christ in a hospitable environment, where she was able to “come as she was,” yet remain under no illusion that she need not repent and believe the gospel.

At the forefront of her story is the concept that any show of love devoid of the truth is not love. In the same manner, any show of truthfulness without love is nothing more than a clanging symbol. Love and truth always work in tandem with one another, and thus, they are not mutually exclusive realities to try and uphold for the Christian. Our Lord modeled this routinely, but the example of the woman at the well will suffice to illustrate my point. Jesus revealed himself to the Samaritan woman as the Messiah, but not before laying bare the fact that she had no less than five adulterous relationships.

If you were to spend any time with Jesus during His earthly ministry, one thing would be quite clear: He loved you enough to not only sup with you as a sinner, He would call you to the carpet on your sin, and then call you to repentance and faith. At no point would we call His frankness with the truth, calling out sin, or even calling some “broods of vipers” a “lack of love.” We would rightly see this as the very embodiment of love, namely, because these very same routine offenders were always called to place their faith in the Messiah, who came to deliver sinners from the penalty of sin and death. But what about Christ’s church? Do they model the same faithfulness of Christ in this same endeavor today?

Surely, anyone can latch on to fringe groups like the Westboro Baptist Church and make the claim that Christians do not. However, the Westboro Baptist Church is not indicative of Christianity as a whole, and everyone knows it. If we move it a step beyond this though and isolate the mainline Evangelical church, I don’t find it much of a stretch to conclude that many individuals within the broader church have likely treated homosexuals poorly simply because they lacked love. Spend any amount of time within a church and you will certainly find instances where love has been found wanting. You can go to an exceedingly godly couple’s house and find instances where love has been found wanting in their marriage.

I would even be willing to concede that entire churches could be guilty of this toward homosexuals in particular, above and beyond any other group. But even this is not truly the issue at hand. When Stanley makes this assertion, he speaks of the church as a whole, meaning that the predominate makeup of the Evangelical church is one in which it is said to be an axiomatic truth: the church treats the gay community poorly. However, you can’t reach such a broad-brushed conclusion without affirming other certain key conclusions along the way—and here’s what I think is the real issue at hand.

I don’t think Andy Stanley can pinpoint particular instances within the broader church that clearly demonstrate a lack of love toward the gay community. If there were clear abuses, he would draw them out and confront them. What I believe he is doing, however, is what could be called “pre-encoding.” Pre-encoding is, simply defined, a way of dropping key statements to a people averse to change. This can be done for good or bad purposes, so the practice itself is not problematic. However, this is the emblematic calling-card for many higher profile ministries looking to make a crucial shift in doctrine.

You begin by casting aspersions on commonly held positions, such as the clarity, inspiration, inerrancy, infallibility, and authority of the Scriptures. All the while, you lift up the person and work of Jesus Christ, particularly, something like the resurrection, as the terminus point. We need not worry about all of the other particulars of the Bible. We need not hold to any dogmatic interpretation, nor contend for the faith—that body of doctrine handed down once and for all to the saints. All we need is the gospel, which is the core to the Christian faith. As we go along this trajectory, you affirm with everyone else that this is a place where we can all figure this out together. We are all on a journey, after all.

Little by little though, message by message, you subtly shift a group toward a particular end-goal. To any who have followed the trajectory of Andy Stanley over the past several years, he has already hit many of these milestones. He has pitted the Old Testament against the New Testament. He has denied the importance of Scripture’s clarity, inspiration, inerrancy, and infallibility. He has routinely dismissed many important doctrinal issues under the guise of lifting up the resurrection of Christ—even first order issues. And all the while, he has conveniently dismissed the authority of the Scriptures by snidely deriding those who do, in fact, simply believe something because the Bible states it.

Now, read the remainder of this statement from the clip circulating the web and see if you can pick up on the cues:

“I know 1 Corinthians 6, and I know Leviticus, and I know Romans 1, and it is so interesting to talk about all that stuff, but just oh my goodness. Gay men or women that want to worship their heavenly Father that did not answer the cry of their heart when they were 12, or 13, or 14. God said ‘No.’ And they still want to worship God. We have some things to learn from a group of men and women, who love Jesus that much that they want to worship with us. And I know the verses. I know the ‘clobber passages,’ right. We gotta figure this out, and you know what? I think you are.”

What doctrinal concession might Andy Stanley be pre-encoding now?

Well, it’s much the same one he dropped in a message called “When Gracie Met Truthy” back in 2012. In this sermon, he tells a story of a family that came to North Point that dissolved into an adulterous affair. He recalls how the wife found out about the husband’s affair with another man, and the marriage inevitably ended in divorce. The man continued in an openly homosexual relationship, and as one thing led to the next, the wife found them attending Stanley’s church. She reacted to this by demanding that they not attend the same church, so they left, and instead found themselves at one of Stanley’s satellite campuses, where the openly homosexual couple began to serve.

However, it came to light that the other man had not finalized his own divorce, so Stanley is quick to check a box by telling how he confronted the homosexual couple. He stepped up and told them they could no longer serve because the Scriptures were clear: they were in an adulterous relationship. No mention of them being in an openly homosexual relationship and that this was sin—but that the adulterous relationship barred them from being able to serve. No mention of church discipline throughout any part of this process either. Presumably, had the other man annulled his marriage properly in the eyes of the state, they would be free and clear of any guilt in the eyes of Andy Stanley.

The story culminates in Andy following up with the wife of the first marriage, where she began to soften toward her former husband and invite them to family meals and gather for holiday functions. Again, no confrontation of unrepentant sin. Presumably, once both marriages ended in divorce, there is not only no adultery, but there is no sin of homosexuality.

The point of this whole story served to illustrate Stanley’s thesis for his sermon: Jesus met with sinners and the way Jesus loved sinners was messy. We are to be a people of extraordinary love, because Jesus demonstrated extraordinary love toward us. What is conspicuously missing from his treatment of these events is the fact that Jesus’ extraordinary love toward sinners included the call to repent, not merely for adultery, but for an abominable relationship between two men (or women).

When you take this, along with Andy’s entire “biblical house of cards,” it is not too difficult to discern what he believes about homosexuality. While he has not yet overtly stated there is nothing wrong with a monogamous relationship between two men (or women), this is clearly where he is going. He has cleverly avoided calling homosexuality sin. He has clearly avoided any call to repentance, but instead affirmed the faith of practicing homosexuals. This is the same path many before him have walked, he is merely not brave enough to admit it.

But the more important thing to note is that his tacit affirmation of homosexuality is the fruit of his rejection and twisting of the Word of God. You cannot call the Word of God “clobber passages” in earnest without having a derision for God and His Word. But Andy’s derision of God and His Word is nothing new. In short, the argument I am making is that Andy Stanley is not just recently embracing his heretical conclusions and revealing his stance on the Scriptures. He has long been a wolf. He is simply rolling out his optimal plan so he can try and keep as many butts in the pews as possible when his doctrinal shift rolls out in full.

But that doctrinal shift isn’t merely the embrace of homosexuality. That doctrinal shift is Progressive “Christianity,” and nearly all the benchmarks along the way to this have been reached. He departed the faith a long time ago, so it shouldn’t be much of a surprise to see the natural conclusions of this come to light. Many of us have been crying out about this for some time though, and our plea has been the exact opposite of Stanley’s. The Bible is true in all its contents. It is Divinely inspired by God and without error. The Word is supremely authoritative in all of life. Finally, the Bible is clear. As you remove these doctrines, the biblical “house of cards” crumbles and any who believe it can remain standing apart from them is a fool.

For any who still doubt if Andy Stanley is truly a wolf, we simply ask you yet again to take up and read the Scriptures, and submit yourself to God’s Word. Recognize that he does not love the gay community, nor anyone else in his church, nor does he love the Lord for that matter. He hates them because he is not willing to simply say, as a servant of the Word, “Thus saith the Lord.” Instead, he promulgates doctrines of demons.

Yet, we would kindly ask that you likewise examine any and all who have continued to support Andy Stanley and his ministry. The Scriptures are clear: those who welcome a false teacher as a brother participates in his evil deeds, and will likewise fall under the condemnation of God (2 Jn. 1:10-11). The age-old question must be raised once more to such ministers: whom will you serve this day?