Where Andy Stanley Went Wrong

Andy Stanley’s View of the Old Testament and Marcionism

I wasn't going to do it, but now I'm going to do it. And that is talk about Andy Stanley. And the reason I didn't want to is because I dismissed Andy Stanley in my own mind three or four years ago when he started making comments about the Old Testament.

And his belief is that the Old Testament is no longer binding on modern Christians. And this parallels something from church history, an ancient heresy, called Marcionism, which by the way is a form of Gnosticism.

Marcion was an actual Gnostic, not a Gnostic in the sense of the loose Gnosticism that's being thrown around everywhere today, but he was an actual Gnostic in the classical sense of that definition. And he thought that the Old Testament was a product of a different God than Jesus, an angrier God, a God that we did not have to follow as believers in the New Testament.

And Andy Stanley doesn't go that far, but he has the same basic conclusion. Christians are not bound to Old Testament moral principles, laws, etc. We've talked about that issue on this podcast before, but when I first heard the clips from Andy Stanley, I just dismissed him because it's a very clear-cut issue.

Jesus respected the Old Testament. He did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill the law. Paul said, I would not have known sin if it were not by the law. What law is he talking about? New Testament wasn't finished, he's writing it.

Whenever New Testament writers bring up categories for sexual sin, they assume the Old Testament. They assume that there's already a moral standard in effect. And this is the same moral standard that flows from the character of God that condemns sinners today.

And also, for those who are in Christ, serves as a guide for them in how to live. Now, the outworkings of this law, the application of this law in the civil sphere, etc., we can have conversations about.

But the law itself is good, if one uses it lawfully. So this is so clear-cut, you can go to any of the confessions of the Church, the Orthodox Confessions, and it will parse this out more. And the understanding that has been the Church's for 2 ,000 years is not the understanding of Andy Stanley.

So at that point, I just thought, why would anyone listen to him? Well, I'm weighing in now because I realized a lot of people, a lot of people, there's a lot of ignorance out there. And there's a lot of people who have come to Christianity, maybe even to North Point in Atlanta, where Andy Stanley preaches, since that time period, and they don't know about what he said or why that's wrong.

Of course, I'm already giving you away my bias, aren't I? Because I'm going to root the recent controversy over homosexuality and things Andy Stanley has said about that topic in his basic belief about the Bible itself.

The clues were there. In fact, I'm going to take you to a CNN article from, I believe it's 2012, that even show you the clues were there. The clues were there. They've been there. It should not surprise us to see this, knowing even just basic things about Stanley.

Because I haven't done a deep dive on him, I just know a few basic things, and all we need to know is, what did he say, clearly? Let's hear it. What does Scripture say? And then draw a conclusion. This is not a very complex issue at all.

So we're going to talk about that. I think the reason, by the way, I should say this, that this is a big deal, is because of his father. Charles Stanley was a two-time president of the Southern Baptist Convention.

He was respected for being a conservative Christian, expositor of the Word, etc. Actually, I don't know how expository he was, but he was certainly a respected pastor and conservative. And he wouldn't be where he is without that reputation that his father earned.

And now, he's deviated so far from it, that I think a historian in the future looking at what happened to evangelical Christianity, that movement in the United States, would probably be very willing, as one of their first examples, to use the situation, this difference between Charles Stanley and Andy Stanley, as a barometer, or an evidence, I should say, of the drift that was taking place.

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We'll start with the comments right now that initially made people kind of concerned, alright? And this is kind of long, this is 11 minutes, so let me just, I'm gonna go to the middle of it, and we'll just play from there.

Let's go about three minutes in, and we'll just play what Andy Stanley is saying here.

Yes, I know 1 Corinthians 6, and I know Leviticus, and I know Romans 1. It's so interesting to talk about all that stuff, but just, oh my goodness, a gay man or woman who wants to worship their heavenly father, who did not answer the cry of their heart when they were 12, and 13, and 14, and 15, God said no, and they still love God?

We have some things to learn from a group of men and women who love Jesus that much, and who want to worship with us, and I know the verses, I know the clobber passages, right? We got to figure this out, and you know what?

I think you are. I think you wouldn't come to a conference like this, or you wouldn't have come back, right? We are, and we'll be criticized for it, and there's no perfect way to do this, but I give you a hint.

We do what Jesus did. You know who Jesus started with? Jesus never started with theology. Jesus started with the people in front of him, and he went from there. I mean, if your theology gets in the way of ministry, like if there's somebody you can't minister to because your theology, you have the wrong theology.

Is that clear? And this is what drove the Pharisees crazy. It's like, how can you go there? Jesus is like, because they're there. That's why I'm going there. Yeah, but don't you know about them? She's like, I just don't see the world that way.

Here's how I see the world. There are people lost to God, and there are people who've connected with God.

This goes on for a while, and we're not going to play all of it. I just wanted to give you a sample of what Andy Stanley said recently that is getting people concerned, and I think they have the right to be concerned about this because what he's doing, if you notice, it's a tactic that you'll commonly hear on the more progressive left in Christianity, is to try to pigeonhole anyone who might have qualms with homosexuality, and with, well, he doesn't exactly get into fine detail here, and that's why this broad general analysis isn't very helpful because he makes a contrast between homosexuals, and he treats it as a fixed orientation in the way he talks about it, of course, and those who are Christians and not homosexual, but you get the impression he's talking about people who have maybe been raised in the church, but people who cross the I's, cross the T's, dot the I's, and he gives you the impression that the homosexual who is still coming to church is morally superior because he's coming to a place where he's not really welcome, and it's uncomfortable, and he does it anyway, and we should all learn from that, and those who would have a problem with this scenario are now pigeonholed into being Pharisees.

It's a classic tactic, right? And so if you want to listen to the whole clip, you can do that. I don't think I have the stomach for playing the whole thing right now, but it's about 11 minutes, and this is what Andy Stanley does.

Well, since that time, a number of other things have come out. Andy Stanley's church care director, apparently, Debbie Cossie, pits Paul against Jesus. This clip was found. I don't know exactly when it is from, but this is what happens.

More information comes out as people start searching for what other things has Andy Stanley said, and they come up with these things. So here is Debbie Cossie.

The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. The Sabbath was made for man to have a more full life, to be able to rest. God made the rules for the people, not the people for the rules, and so, you know, I'm really a big believer that our theology and ministry do not have to come in conflict with one another.

We can even disagree with somebody and still minister to them and love them, and if you're thinking to yourself, well, I really care more about my theology, then you really have to ask yourself which theology is more important, because Jesus says the two most important commands, and that is theology, is to love God and love others.

So whenever somebody comes to me and wants to say, you know, because I have a lot of leaders around me, they'll say, well, when do we get to tell them the truth? I'm sure you guys have heard this as well, or maybe even have thought it.

And I would say, which truth are you talking about? Are you talking about those scriptures that maybe Paul talked about, or are you talking about the two commands that Jesus talked about, that all the other ones take a back seat to?

Love God, love others.

All right, we'll stop there. So I don't even know what to say. The foundation for Andy Stanley and his ministry seems to be this very, very general understanding of God's law that allows us to infuse our own conceptions of love, which obviously today are very warped, if you're going to go with what society thinks love is.

You hear the word love a lot. All you need is love. But love according to the world and love according to scripture are two different things, because love is a summation of the commandments. Loving God, loving neighbor is a summation of the commandments that Jesus gave, that God gave.

And guess where he gave those commandments? In the Old Testament. So I don't want to get into more details. There is more detail. I know that there was a whole article that I was reading about this particular individual, and I think it was probably from this video, this is just one clip from it, but it's on the topic of how to handle LGBTQ plus people, apparently.

And so this is one of the rationales that's used, and I would submit to you, I think that's exactly what Andy Stanley's doing. Now if you go to a sermon from Andy Stanley from, this is what I was talking about four years ago, this is when I think I just dismissed Andy Stanley.

He is talking about this very thing, and that's why it shouldn't surprise us that he would have a ministry director who would say what you just heard, because Andy Stanley believes the same thing. Here he is.

Basically they're saying, in order for there to be unity in the church, let's not offend. Let's not offend the Jewish sensibilities when it comes to the dietary law. They'll move past this over time perhaps.

And you need to take Paul's teaching on moral purity seriously, because that has the potential to divide you as well, because you have different religious customs when it comes to moral purity. Paul tied sexual behavior to Jesus' new command.

The old covenant, the old covenant law of Moses was not the go-to source regarding sexual behavior in the church. More importantly, and perhaps more disturbingly, if that's a word, or offensively, the Old Testament, or the law on the prophets as they called it, was not going to be the go-to source for any behavior in the church.

Now to make this point, because this is so important, I originally in my notes, I was going to put a screen up here that said, in other words, that means thou shalt not obey the Ten Commandments. But I knew someone would take a picture of that, and it would define me for the rest of my life.

So I'm not going to put it up there, but I want you to hear me say it. Here's what the Jerusalem council was saying to the Gentiles. You are not accountable to the Ten Commandments. You're not accountable to the Jewish law.

We're done with that. God has done something new. Besides, he would say to them, and he would say to you, thou shalt not obey the Ten Commandments because those aren't your commandments. Yours are better, and yours are far less complicated, but they are far more demanding.

Because you see, look up here. When you begin to view every single person you meet, red, yellow, black, or white, rich, poor, vulnerable, not vulnerable, when you begin to view every single person you are eyeball to eyeball with as made in the image of God and a potential dwelling place for the Spirit of God, you will treat them well.

You will not need chapter and verse. You will do for them what God through Christ has done for you. Any.

Questions? This was a new and better day. I'd like to stop there if that's okay with you. I don't know if I could take much more. He's talking about the Jerusalem council, and if you read the passage from Acts 15, I encourage you to read it, you'll find that the issue being discussed at the Jerusalem council was answering the question, upon what basis are we justified before God?

Is it on the basis of our works, or is it on the basis of Christ's? And this was the issue dividing Jews and Gentiles, more than anything else. Fulfilling the law of the Old Testament was no longer, and it never was, Paul says in Acts chapter 15, a basis upon which we are saved, we are redeemed.

It can't be. We failed to follow it. Our fathers failed to follow it, Paul says. And so, that was settled at the Jerusalem council. Now, there is another issue, and Andy Stanley makes this the only issue, it seems like, according to his sermon, that there was much Jewish ritual placed upon Gentile believers.

In other words, things specific to those who were Jewish that did not have universal application. Because if you remember, the laws in the Old Testament are divided into different categories. Paul even calls the division between Jews and Gentiles a division over the laws contained in ordinances.

There were laws that applied to all peoples. Jerusalem was supposed to be a beacon for the neighboring nations, the pagan nations, to see how to follow God rightly. Israel was to be a light to the Gentiles.

And the law certainly had something to do with this. But some of the ceremonial laws that were given to Israelites, things like mixed fabrics, things like dietary laws, were not in effect. They were not to be applied to the Gentiles.

They were supposed to set the Jewish people apart, very intentionally, as a different culture, and one set apart to God. And so some people will say, there's dietary benefits in things. Well, maybe there is, I don't know.

But the intention behind those things was to make sure that the Jews knew that they were different than the people around them. And those laws are not intrinsically moral in the sense that they aren't rooted in the character and nature of God, like a law such as thou shalt not commit adultery is.

They were rooted in the command of God, which is not arbitrary, but the intended purpose was for a specific scenario, okay? And that is clear, because if you read Acts chapters 10 and 11, you'll find that the Gentiles are now accepted in the parallel example being, arise, Peter, kill, and eat.

So the Gentiles are now capable of becoming Christians, becoming saved individuals, becoming part of the redeemed people on earth that God has, not because they were following the law. So following the law, setting yourself apart as God's chosen people by that demarcation of circumcision, was no longer a significant spiritual reality, because God had...things had changed.

When Jesus was crucified, the curtain in the temple was torn asunder. That barrier did not exist anymore. So there are significant changes. There's elements of continuity and discontinuity between the Old Testament and the New Testament.

But what that doesn't mean is that now there is a thou shalt not follow the Ten Commandments. It doesn't mean that now we're not to live by the law, we're not condemned by the law. What it means is that we are no longer in need of becoming part of the covenant community of Israel that had specific laws unique to them in a nation, in a nation with a state with borders and boundaries in the Old Testament.

That no longer is in effect, not for the church, not for those who are in Christ, but not in Israel. So you don't have to become a Jewish proselyte, in other words, to be part of the covenant family of God.

So that would be the difference. And this is something that theologians have worked out for...had worked out for years. This is something that has deep roots in the Christian tradition. It's something that is assumed.

It's something that the New Testament authors assumed. But it's something Andy Stanley seems to want to go reinvent the wheel on. And he wants to make you think that this Jerusalem Council, which was set up to settle first and foremost this matter of justification by faith, but secondly to try to alleviate some of the conflict between Jews and Gentiles, was intended as a way of showing the lack of continuity between the Old and New Testaments.

As a way of demonstrating to believers that they no longer were bound by the laws laid down on Sinai. That these moral laws even were no longer binding and in effect because a new law was given. And that new law is loving God and loving your neighbor.

Even though when Jesus says that, what are the examples Jesus gives of this? If you look at the Sermon on the Mount, he goes back to the laws that God gave at Sinai. And he drills down into the heart of man to show man breaks these laws even in his heart when he doesn't necessarily break them outwardly.

So he shows God's standards are actually much higher. And that supposedly conflicts with the Old Testament. No it doesn't. It complements it. Of course there's a continuity between the two. Jesus assumed it.

Paul assumed it. But they could also recognize that the specific things that made Israel unique were on a different level than the moral imperatives given to all people. Anyway, I've probably beaten that dead horse.

Let me show you one more clip and then I want to cap this with my explanation. Because I don't think that when one leaves behind the Old Testament as an authoritative morally binding source, they are able to even hold on to the New Testament as a morally binding source.

This is a train I've seen multiple times. And it starts in one area and the compromise erodes into others. Let me show you this clip first. This is Andy Stanley on a pastor's panel. And this is not related to homosexuality, but it shows his social justice weakness has been there for a while.

This is from three years ago.

So you just talking about white people for a minute. You have to offend white people with this topic to get their attention. You can't, it can't be, it can't be stated in balanced tones or we don't even hear it.

Because I've, no white person really thinks they're a racist and they don't even think they're prejudiced. We don't. We just, and issues of reparations, all those things. It's like, well, that wasn't us and that wasn't you and why are we even talking about it?

So to even, I really am convinced you have to push harder on that topic to even get a white man, especially if I talk about white men, to get a white man's attention. And I know this from personal experience in terms of things said in sermons, things that our other pastors have said in sermons that finally, it's only when we get negative email that I know, well, we finally got their attention.

They finally heard what we were saying because it is so, it is buried so deep and it is so easily dismissed. And especially for white men who have very few interactions with black men or have virtually no black friends who are in conversations with them, which we can talk about in a few minutes.

So part of it is, you know, the scripture addresses so many topics, but when it comes to this topic, because virtually no white man thinks they are guilty, it's not enough to, you have to push and push and push to the point where, hey, wait a minute, I think you're, I think you're pushing an agenda.

Well, you're finally listening. I finally, I finally got to that point of your conscience that it's bothered by this. Wow, that's great. Yeah, that's great,.

Is the MC. No, it's not great, but it also might just show you that Andy Stanley could possibly take it as a badge of merit that people are going after him for the recent controversy, because this is his tactic.

He wants to overstate things, to offend people, to get their attention. And this is specifically, he said on the topic of things like reparations, that white people need to take some kind of ownership or view themselves as guilty in some way.

And they won't view themselves that way unless you push it. And so this has been Andy Stanley. There's other examples of it. But one last thing before I put a cap on this, I just remembered, I wanted to read a portion from a CNN article.

This is from 2012, this CNN article. And here's what it has to say. On Sunday, a gay pride group planned to march past his father's church. And Andy Stanley's father's, Charles Stanley's church. Leaders of the congregation warned in advance, dismissed church early to avoid contact with the group.

But organizers of the march changed the schedule. Andy watched as First Baptist members filed out of the church and gawked at gay and lesbian marchers streaming by. Then he noticed a Methodist church across the street who members hauled out cups of water for the marchers and signs that said, everybody welcome, come worship with us.

We are the church that sings just as I am after the sermon. And here we are shunning this group of people because of a lifestyle we disagreed with, he says now. Okay, this is from 2012. CNN, the seeds were there.

That's what I'm saying. The seeds were there. Now, I don't know the full circumstance here, but I think it's worth noting that oftentimes you'll hear these stories of my church was super anti-homosexual and we treated them terribly.

And so now we have to like overcompensate for that by making them feel so welcome that we now compromise our biblical stance. And I don't doubt that there are instances of this where you had a church in which there were people who said things that were intentionally offensive or hateful.

I think that cuts in every direction. And certainly when it comes to something as abhorrent, biblically as homosexuality, it is very possible that you'd have people who were insensitive in ways that Jesus would not have been.

However, I have a healthy skepticism about this because a church the size of Charles Stanley's, if this story is true and they changed the time that they were going to let church out to try to avoid this, I don't know if any of you have ever seen one of these rallies, but oftentimes there are extremely evocative and provoking behaviors, sexually deviant behaviors, meant to instill lust, to offend sensibilities, and you're letting a church out that has children in it, included, and women, and if they're going to be...the first thing if they see is this display in front of them, then it's not good for their souls.

And so I could see a loving pastor trying to make a way, especially during this time period, before 2012, how can we avoid this? How can we make sure that you're not seeing these things that will entice you towards sin?

It doesn't say that in the article, but I'm just saying that would be a very logical thing, and I don't have any information either way. All I'm trying to give to you is that there's an assumption here.

When you read an article like this, you automatically assume it's just bigotry. They just didn't want to welcome these people, like the Methodists. Maybe there was another motive in this, and the Methodists saying, you know, come on in and worship with us, that's actually wrong, like fundamentally.

Sure, serving the community or serving the people at the march, I'm not going to say that that's wrong. I don't think it is. In fact, I think there's probably a way you can do that if you're careful that gives you evangelistic opportunity.

But as soon as you include them in worship, Jesus didn't do that. Jesus...there's a principle in Scripture, God resists the proud, gives grace to the humble, and Jesus, when he sat down with the Gentiles and the tax gatherers and the prostitutes, they were repentant.

They weren't people who were actively doing those things and advocating for doing those things. Jesus was with the repentant, with the sinners who knew that they were sinners. That is much different than a pride parade where they're trying to show off how unrepentant that they are.

You don't tell sinners who are wearing their unrepentance on their sleeve to come in and worship with us. They can't worship. It will only condemn them, and it's cruel to do so. It pollutes your church, and it condemns them.

It's a lose-lose. And maybe Charles Stanley had a little bit more sense than his son on this. That was in 2012, guys. That's the same compromise we're seeing now manifested in 2023, 11 years later. Same compromise.

It's just further down the road. This is something I know historically I've seen a lot. For some reason, the first person who came to me—this is obscure to many of you—was Albert Barnes. Albert Barnes, for some reason.

I don't know why, but Albert Barnes was a Presbyterian theologian in the 19th century. And Albert Barnes was instrumental as an abolitionist, right? And there's probably some very commendable things people could say about Albert Barnes, but one of the things that I found curious about him is that he wanted to read the Scripture in such a way that the general commands of God would override, or in his mind, interpret correctly specific commands about the topic of slavery in the Scripture, right?

So general things like loving your neighbor would then inform the specific things of what does it mean to love your neighbor in a slave-master relationship. And the thing that strikes me as interesting about this is when people make this argument, because they do it about a number of different topics— right now homosexuality may be the major one—they don't take the step back to ask the question, and what informs our understanding of love, right?

So you see what I'm saying. If love informs our understanding of homosexuality, or in Albert Barnes' case, if love is the thing that's going to determine the biblical teachings on slave-master relationships in the ancient world, and that means for him that we overturn immediately the institution of slavery because it is a sin in and of itself because of the command to love, that same logic is being played out in this new debate.

It's parallel in a way. And love is now overturning distinctions and separations that the law of God makes on the roles of men and women. Now, obviously I shouldn't have to say this, but because the world we live in—no, not defending slavery, good riddance to it, we don't want it, it was attached to many evils—however, the thing that you need to realize here, and that cannot get lost in the emotional knee-jerk reaction that many people think of when they hear that particular word, is the biblical teaching must also remain firm on this.

That those evils that were features of slavery in various contexts, including in the ancient Roman world, are rightly condemned by what? By specific laws of God. That's the basis upon which to condemn.

Once you wipe away the law of God, what are you left with? A vague notion of love that you've infused with your own prejudice. That's what Albert Barnes, I believe, did. I'm gonna get Albert Barnes fans mad at me now.

That's what he did, though. Why are you talking about Albert Barnes so much? Well, let me just put it to you this way. I had a professor. I won't say where, and I won't say who. It's not important, and it's not important for reasons that I don't think that I need to share.

This person is not a danger to anyone, so far as I can tell at this point. But I had a professor who, let's just say, was an admirer of Albert Barnes, and this professor had some major moral compromise in his life.

Major. It was found out, and this particular individual was soft-peddling things using the same rationale Barnes used to soft-peddle biblical teaching on an offensive topic. The professor that I'm thinking of was using that same logic to then soften the teaching on the role of women in the church, and he went into soft feminist theology because of that logic of, well, we have general commands.

Loving your neighbors is this command, and how do we have this command side by side with these other commands about the role of women and restricting it to only men in the church? Well, what about love?

What about general commands? It's compelling. It gives you a justification for whatever the current zeitgeist is, but it's incorrect. You're just finding a place to justify your own prejudices at that point.

You're not faithfully attempting to understand what the Word of God has to say, and that is Andy Stanley's problem right there. That's it. He wants to infuse his own prejudices into general commands to override the specific things God has said and commanded.

How would you feel if someone did this in other arenas? I mean, think about it. If we did this to our criminal justice system, we would have no system. We would just ignore those laws because of a general principle somewhere of equity, tolerance, or pick whatever general word you want to use.

We can just override the existing laws that have been passed. You could do this in the home. Children could start overriding what their parents say based upon very general things that they believe would be more loving if we applied this broad command to love.

It would mean that I don't have to do my homework. You could do this any direction you want. It people like Stanley get to say, thus saith the Lord while they're doing it. They don't have to become the authority.

They can say, thou shalt not obey the Ten Commandments, as if God himself said it when he never did. Andy Stanley said it. He wants God to say it because he wants that to be what Jesus meant in, you shall love your God and love your neighbor, that that was replacing the Old Testament law.

That's why they do it. They can say, thus saith the Lord while infusing their own prejudice into things. Terribly destructive, terribly inaccurate, and not worthy of someone who's a gospel preacher. So, John, tell me how you really feel about it.

Well, there's a few other things I wanted to talk about before we end the podcast today, very briefly, if I may. One is an article from the New York Post. I thought this was interesting because I was streaming with Eric Muldrow the other day about this whole issue of tire nickels, and I asked, what's going on with that Memphis Police Department?

Did they get social justice or infused, or what happened? Well, this article explains it, and I'm going to read for you at least part of it. The long-awaited video footage has surfaced. Let's see. Could the relentless pursuit of equity as equality is no longer the accepted standard have contributed to this senseless loss of life?

So, in other words, could social justice have actually caused this more than supposed systemic racism? The Memphis Police Department swore in two, Tendarius Bean and Demetrius Haley in August 2020, two years after deciding to attract more minorities by lowering education requirements.

It relaxed its rule that recruits have an associate's degree or 54 college credit hours, five years work experience, and a promise to get an associate degree within four years of hiring were enough. So basically he's saying they're getting cops who aren't qualified because they've lowered the standards.

I suspected this. Memphis has no one to blame for these officers' shocking lack of professionalism and empathy, but its own misguided leveling of the playing field. Like professional sports franchises, it felt compelled to offer $15 ,000 signing bonuses in 2020 and 2021.

Most worrisome, it even offered waivers for felony convictions. You heard me right. Waivers for felony convictions, all in the name of equity. Police reformers have overreacted in typical reflexive fashion to Nichols' death at the hands of cops.