Andy Stanley Laments That ‘Entire Bible’ Has Become Church’s ‘Authority’ / Defends Deconstruction

Hello, as many of you know, deconstruction is a big topic in Christianity right now. Professing Christians are leaving the church, they are deconstructing their faith, turning their back on Biblical Christianity in order to embrace worldliness, LGBT, Marxism, and everything else.

This is a massive movement, and Andy Stanley is trying to capitalize on it by appealing to those people who fall away in order to try to draw them into his anti-church. So in this video, we're going to be covering the latest installment from his sermon series titled The Fundamental List, where Andy is trying to reinvent Christianity in order to fit his gay-affirming megachurch slash entertainment center.

So here's the first red flag I noticed on the introduction to the sermon. See if you can spot the problem.

Watch.

Notice how Andy Stanley includes the 1960s peace sign in his Fundamental List sermon. And that's fitting, because the immorality that came out of the 1960s with the Marxist Revolution, that's the morality Andy Stanley is trying to Christianize.

Of course, it's been said that today's morality is just yesterday's immorality.

Here's the thing, here's why we're doing this series. When non-essentials begin to characterize or define a church or a church brand or denomination or any expression of Christianity, when non-essentials characterize and define a church brand, honest, thoughtful people eventually step away from that church, from that denomination, from that faith expression.

They step away not because they quit believing in God, and they step away not because they quit honoring the Bible, they step away not because they don't believe what they've always believed about Jesus.

They step away because something about their faith tradition, their expression of faith, the Christian faith, just doesn't seem right. And in some cases, they begin to deconstruct, deconstruct their faith, which basically means they step out of organized religion to kind of sort out the essentials from the non-essentials.

Okay, so deconstruct. Andy Stanley has already defended deconstruction before. We've talked about this. Also, last week, his sub-pastor, Joel Thomas, he also defended Christian deconstruction. But you heard Andy say that people deconstruct when churches elevate non-essentials to being essential.

That is not why people deconstruct. People deconstruct because they love their sin and because the Bible speaks against it. So they keep their sin and they drop their faith in God and in his word. That's why people deconstruct.

But this whole statement that people deconstruct when churches elevate non-essentials to being essential, hasn't Andy done this? He got his start as a vision casting leader. He still claims to cast visions.

That's his whole approach to ministry. Well, where's that in the Bible? That's not an essential. His crusade to normalize LGBT in the church, that's not essential. In fact, that's a direct contradiction of Christianity.

I would say it's essential not to do that. Jesus in Matthew 19 defined marriage as being between one man and one woman. Jesus also affirmed Moses' statements in Genesis that in the beginning, God created them male and female.

Male and female, he created them. So two genders, traditional view of marriage, that's essential. That is a fundamental. But somehow that didn't make it into Andy Stanley's list. And let's be honest, this whole fundamental list series, is Andy Stanley just making stuff up in order to try to redefine Christianity?

And he's going to sort of admit that later on.

Do you know why the church and church leaders and Christian people have been able to leverage the Bible for all kinds of harmful things that end up harming other people who claim to be Christians? It's because this statement.

This statement has been reduced to just another verse in the Bible, equated with every other statement or verse in our sacred text. And so the Bible, the entire Bible, became the church's authority. But the Bible says Jesus is our ultimate and final authority.

More importantly, Jesus said Jesus is our ultimate authority.

So this is Andy Stanley's common tactic to downplay the authority of the Bible. He does this because the things he is doing, it's unbiblical. So he once again tries to undermine the authority of scripture, which is a clear mark of a false teacher.

And again, think about this whole series, the fundamental list. He's claiming to have the answers of what Christianity really is. He has the answers. Listen to me, Andy Stanley, not the Bible. So this is really an attack on the authority of scripture.

And it's a departure from historic Christianity. So after 2000 years, Christians have all been wrong. And now Andy Stanley's right. But notice he says Jesus is our authority, not the Bible. And that's going to appeal to a lot of people, obviously.

But you just have to ask the question, OK, Jesus is our authority, not the scripture. How do you know that? Well, if that's true, you know that because it's in the Bible. It's so nonsensical. And by the way, as Christians, we do recognize that some Bible verses are more important than others, of course, because the Bible deals with all sorts of different things and some things are more consequential than others.

Well, let's not forget what Jesus said in Matthew 4, verse 4, Jesus, who is our authority, he said that we should live by every word of God. And when Jesus spoke those words, the only scripture that existed at that point was the Old Testament, which Andy doesn't like and says we should unhitch from the Old Testament.

Scriptures. I think for some people who hear a message like this, especially if you're more of a traditional Christian, you may be thinking something like this, Andy, and I don't take this personally because I'm saying it, not you.

But Andy, I don't really like your list. I think your list is ridiculous. You just made all of this up. OK, Andy, let me just tell you, I'm I'm a little bit more theologically astute than you and the people in your churches, if you call it that, because I like the Apostles' Creed.

I like the Apostles' Creed or some of the other creeds, but I like the Apostles' Creed better than your list. And some of you are familiar with the Apostles' Creed, right? I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.

Then I'm adding this. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only son and our Lord. And it goes from there, all these things that we believe. And you know what? The Apostles' Creed, most of the creeds are way more theologically robust than our fundamentalist.

But you look it up if you don't believe what I'm about to say. That creed, its origins, and as it evolved through time, along with some of the other creeds, were created in an era when the church was condoning all manner of un-Christlike.

Un-Christlike behavior? You mean like undermining the word of God, like affirming gay marriage or teaching evolution? I did a video on that. But I guess that kind of behavior is okay in Andy Stanley's anti-church.

But yes, I admit, because there's a little kernel of truth in every lie, otherwise no one would believe it. But it's true, back then and still today, you have professing Christians doing things they shouldn't.

Why? Because the church, number one, has false converts within it. Number two, even people who truly do believe all have sinned and have come short of the glory of God. So yeah, Christians, whether true or false, have done things that they shouldn't do.

That's always true. Consider James and John. They wanted to call down fire from heaven and burn up the Samaritans. Should we throw away the Gospel of John because John did that? Peter tried to lop off the servant of the high priest, Malchus.

Peter tried to cut his head off with a sword. Should we just get rid of the books of 1st and 2nd Peter because of that? That's the logic here, that the church was doing bad things when it produced the Apostles Creed.

So that gives us a reason to ignore it. Now, I've never been big on creeds personally, but this is just a bad argument. So hopefully you see by now, Andy Stanley is a false teacher. He is not teaching the truth.

He is undermining the authority of scripture. And quite frankly, he's just making stuff up at this point. So I'm going to close by putting on a video I did. It's got a lot of traction. Andy Stanley teaching evolution at North Point Community Church.

So we'll end with that. Thanks for watching. Hello. In this video, we're going to be looking at Andy Stanley, who is now teaching evolution at North Point Community Church. This should come as no surprise because we've talked about Andy Stanley in the past.

He is, you could argue he's deconstructing his faith and he is bringing his church along with him. Although I don't think Andy Stanley was ever a solid Bible teacher. He's been open and affirming since at least 2012.

He taught that Christians should unhitch from the Old Testament. You know, the Old Testament scriptures are not authoritative for the church, even though the Apostles in the New Testament were constantly quoting the Old Testament as a source of authority.

But that's who Andy Stanley is. He's taking the world and he's taking Christianity and he's trying to blend the two to create sort of a hybrid religion. He's opened his church services with Led Zeppelin concerts.

So is it really a surprise that he's saying that the Bible is compatible with evolution? I'm not surprised, but watch the video.

There is no necessary conflict between evolution and theism because evolution is a means. Theism says there was an agent there. I have one high school biology teacher Christian here. It's like, please, would somebody make this clear?

I know this is like really important because people come home, kids come home from biology class, high school, like, well, you know, but evolution, no, we don't believe in evolution. We believe in creation.

All right. So obviously what he's saying is false. Evolution is not compatible with the Bible. Nowhere in the Bible does it teach the theory of evolution. What Andy Stanley is trying to do, he's trying to blend false doctrine from the world, you know, evolution and just add a Christian label.

You know, it's theistic evolution. This is the idea that God used evolution to bring mankind about. Well, that's not what the Bible says. The Bible says that God created everything after its own kind, just repeats that again and again.

So the Bible contradicts evolution in Genesis chapters one and two. Nowhere does the Bible teach evolution. But, you know, Andy Stanley isn't really teaching the Bible. So he's able to get away with it because those who follow him are not really looking to the Bible as their authority.

They're looking at Andy Stanley and his man-made arguments just because he's the son of Charles Stanley. That doesn't prove anything. The prophet Samuel in the Bible, he was a godly man. But it says his sons were utterly corrupt.

And just because Andy Stanley has a large following, again, that doesn't mean anything. Oprah has a large following. It doesn't mean what she says is biblical. The Dalai Lama has a large following. Doesn't mean that he is of God, obviously, if you've seen the recent story in the news about him.

So just beware that Andy Stanley is is dangerous. If you know anyone in your church, friends or family who are listening to him, who think he's a solid Bible teacher. I don't know how anyone could think that.

But if you do know someone who's listening to him, show them this video. Watch out, because these false teachers, they know how to lead people astray. And they are leading people, really, they're leading people straight to hell.

And we need to do what we can to snatch them from the fire. My name is Michael Grant, pastor of Morse Corner Church. Thanks for watching. Till next time, may the Lord be with you.

Have a great day.

The truth is Christians are not expected to believe what we believe based on a collection of ancient manuscripts written by men who never met each other over the course of hundreds of years in a time when everybody was superstitious and everybody believed in the gods and there was no modern science.

There is no necessary conflict between evolution and theism.