Andy Stanley came in with a late reaction to the Southern Baptist Convention’s disfellowshipping of Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church this past Sunday. Stanley, the Pastor of North Point Community Church, made the issue of female pastors a sermon illustration of undoing “progress” of “removing barriers.” He then pivots to Rick Warren as an illustration.
The people fueling it are conservative. And I’m so theologically conservative, I’m even politically conservative. But this whole thing has been fueled by conservative fearful fundamentalists, don’t have time to define that, academics and pastors.
And churches, church leaders are resurrecting old barriers that we spent years tearing down and they’re adding new barriers. Now, I’ll give you a quick example. I texted him this morning, told him I was gonna talk about him in church.
One of the two people who really launched this movement way back in the late 70s is Rick Warren. Purpose-Driven Life, before he wrote the Purpose-Driven Life, he wrote the Purpose-Driven Church. That book sold millions of copies to pastors. And it was a book about how to create a church that’s for outsiders, for unchurched people. I mean, he inspired so many of us, right? To get, help get the church back on mission. He is a modern church reformer, there’s no way about, around it.
Last year, some of you know about this, last year, his denomination kicked him out of the denomination for something immoral? No, something illegal? No. Something that had to do with money? No, because he’s had some addiction? No, none of that. You know, glamorous stuff, right? They kicked him out because he had the nerve to ordain three female staff members who were functioning as pastors. He ordained them as pastors, which is actually a *legal status.* It gave them a tax benefit. They’re doing the work of all the other male pastors. He’s like, well why in the world would we not make them pastors? They’re pastoring, and they weren’t gonna go out and lead a church, they were working on his staff. He ordained three women and they kicked him out of the church.
You don’t get any more insider focused than that. And there’s example after example, after example, after example, after example. And here’s the problem, evangelical leaders, and I consider myself evangelical, not evangelistic, that’s different and evangelistic, but evangelical, evangelical leaders are prioritizing politics over mission.
Stanley lies about being theologically and also politically conservative. Stanley supports women’s ordination and also affirms homosexuality. Andy Stanley touts Rick Warren’s resume and influence on the church, as though it’s entirely positive.
Stanley argues that maintaining a distinctive of the Southern Baptist Convention, their stated opposition to women’s ordination, is an example of prioritizing politics over mission. Stanely continues with his theme of unhitching from the Old Testament as he ascribes this to people who want to cling to the Old Covenant.
Andy Stanley goes all in saying Christians can be Democrats.
Political affiliation has become the litmus test for orthodoxy. I hope you haven’t seen this, but lemme just tell you what I’m about to tell you is not kind of often a corner. This is mainline speaKing and posting and books are written and chapters and books are written about this. Right now, the current thing for the last three or four years is that you can’t,
I was gonna put this on the screen, but there are things I should never put on a screen to have a picture taken because, anyway, so. You know what the messaging is now? This isn’t in the corner, these are, if I named the people who are saying these things, you’ve heard of most of ’em, you’ve read some of their books, that you can’t be a Christian and be a Democrat. You can’t be, you can’t possibly be a true Christian if you’re a Democrat, which is absolutely absurd.
But what’s even more absurd is as conservative Christians, Republicans, demonize Democrats, all Democrats, and you can’t possibly be a Christian, as they demonize Democrats. They basically go against one of Jesus’ primary teachings instead of loving their enemies, all these lost Democrats, they demonize ’em.
They make, they make Democrats the enemy. And what did Jesus tell us to do with our enemies? Anybody remember? Yeah. So lemme just say to those of you who are conservative politically like me, if you do that, stop it. You can disagree, but you don’t write somebody off as bad and evil, here’s why. You think it’s just kind of funny.
He then moves to a thinly veiled Nazi analogy. Andy Stanley mentions that his friends fall into this, but does not name names. He also references their willingness to denounce Stanley’s teachings.
Ultimately Andy Stanley’s message is as deep and profound as Rose Tiko as he believes Christians should not have enemies and should be known for what they are for and not what they are against.
2 Responses
uninformed democrats can be actual christians, yes
Andy Stanley is a heretic. He dishonors his father’s name with his blasphemous tripe. The best thing he could do is remain silent.