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Andy Stanley is a Heretic (Ep. 423)

February 2, 2023 1h 1m Full transcript available
Andy Stanley is a Heretic (Ep. 423)
0:00 / 1h 1m
In this episode, I tackle the alarming heretical teachings of Andy Stanley, who has strayed far from biblical truth. His recent comments on LGBTQ issues and the authority of Scripture reveal a troubling trend that could lead many astray.
Transcript
647 segments
0:00 [Music]
0:18 This is Undaunted Life of Man's Podcast. I'm your host Kyle Thompson. Let's get into it.
0:24 For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles
0:29 of Christ, and no wonder for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise
0:34 if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to
0:40 their deeds. That is 2 Corinthians 11, 13, or 15 may be a kind of ominous beginning to this episode.
0:46 If most of you guys are used to our episodes and used to kind of what we talk about normally,
0:50 and if you got any hints from the title today's episode, you shouldn't be too terribly surprised.
0:53 But before we get into today's content, which is very, very important, I want to talk about
0:58 something that we're doing that is really, really awesome. We're doing a knife raffle.
1:02 Okay. So as you guys know, I'm big fans of Blaine and Sean Stevenson from Stevenson Knives
1:08 down in Florida. And so this is kind of like knife week. So we got, you know, Josh Smith from
1:12 Montana Knife Company on Tuesday. Now we got, we're talking about this. These guys made me a
1:16 custom knife that they did a while ago. I wanted an all black knife. I'm showing it here on the
1:20 screen now. It's got the Undaunted Life logo. I don't know if you can see that right there.
1:24 But this is like, you know, going to be a hunting knife that I'm going to use and, you know,
1:27 definitely going to be a knife that I passed down. But those guys reached out to me at the
1:31 end of last year and they're like, look, we love what you're doing. They're huge supporters of
1:34 our show and what we're doing. But we want to help you raise some money. So what would you think
1:38 if we made a knife specifically for your audience and you like raffled it off to help raise money
1:44 for, you know, your operations and the stuff that you're trying to do? And I was like, yes,
1:48 absolutely. That's great. But an awesome thing is the idea actually morphed from that initial
1:52 idea because I was a little bit a little bit weird, like about all the money kind of coming to us.
1:56 You know, I wanted to see what we could do to support some other entities. So this is what
2:00 we decided. So what me and Blaine and Sean Stevenson decided to do is we're going to raffle off a
2:05 knife that I'm going to show you here in just a second. 50% of that is going to go to support
2:09 the operations here at Undaunted Life. And then 50% of that is going to go to the local
2:13 pregnancy resource center here in my town of Edmond, Oklahoma, the Hope Pregnancy Center.
2:18 And so let me tell you a little bit about the Hope Pregnancy Center. When a woman has a crisis
2:23 pregnancy of some kind in this area, and they go online and do any Google search,
2:27 it leads them to this facility where they will, you know, basically help them with health care.
2:32 They're going to help them with financial support. They're going to give them, you know, baby formula
2:37 and basically everything they could need. Once the baby is here to take care of that baby,
2:41 they minister to the men that get these girls pregnant. So it's not just the woman feeling like
2:45 she's alone. They do ultrasounds. They do everything. And they save lives literally every single day.
2:52 And so I wanted to see what we could do to maybe support them. So let's talk about this knife.
2:56 So I'm literally like unwrapping it from the bubble wrap. Okay, so this is called the Florida
3:02 Hunter. And so this is there. I'm showing it on screen right now. But guys, this will be posted
3:05 online on our Instagrams and every other place. But look at this thing. So this is the Florida
3:10 Hunter knife by Stevenson knives. This normally retails for around $300. This is
3:15 five two one zero zero ball bearing steel. And then this handle right here is actually really,
3:20 really cool. They call this their crazy fiber scales handle. And then obviously with every Stevenson
3:25 knife, you get this amazing, you know, custom made to the knife handmade leather sheath. It's
3:32 an absolutely, absolutely gorgeous knife. And the thing about it is we wanted to do a raffle. We
3:37 wanted to kind of give it away like what's the way that we could give this away and like the
3:41 coolest way, but also the most fair way possible. So we decided to do a raffle. And so this is how
3:45 you can enter. So guys, this is very, very important. Any person, okay, that donates $20
3:51 through the undaunted life donation website between now and February the 23rd. Okay, that's
3:56 the next three weeks and puts the word this is important and puts the word knife in the comments
4:01 section will automatically have their name entered into a randomized drawing for the Stevenson
4:06 Florida hunter knife. Okay, so every $20 you donate equals one spot in the wrath. So if you
4:12 donate a hundred bucks, your name goes in the randomized or five times if you donate a thousand
4:16 bucks, your name goes in the randomized or 50 times, you know, so on and so forth. But also,
4:19 we've had a lot of supporters that have supported us for a very long time. So I want to take care
4:22 of you guys as well to all the current monthly donors. Okay, so as of the recording of this
4:27 podcast, if you were currently a monthly donor, regardless of how long you've done that or how
4:31 much you've been donating, I'm going to go ahead and just put your name in the randomized or twice
4:36 just as a thank you. So obviously to all the people that are monthly donors, we love you guys.
4:41 But if you all want to make an additional donation for the knife to support us and also the hope
4:45 pregnancy center here in Edmond, Oklahoma, you just need to, you know, donate for every $20. You'll
4:50 get another, you know, you get your name added into the raffle every time that you add another
4:54 $20. So I'll likely do a video of the drawing on Instagram or something like that the week of
4:59 February the 23rd. And then I'll announce the winner on Instagram and then again on the show.
5:03 But again, guys, the donation link is in the show notes. Most of you guys are familiar with
5:07 that. Or you can just go to undaunted.life/donate. So go to the show notes wherever you're listening
5:12 to this or go to www.undaunted.life/donate. Don't forget to put the word knife in the comments
5:19 section. And again, minimum of $20 donation, 50% goes to us, 50% goes to literally save lives.
5:25 But I just wanted to give a big shout out and thank you very, very much to Sean and Blaine
5:29 Stevenson from Stevenson knives for doing this. You know, it's time to flow it out, boys. I mean,
5:34 let's let's make this workout. And they are in the show notes as well. So if you guys want to check
5:38 out some of the stuff on their website, they're not an enormous operation, but they make some of
5:41 the best knives that you will find here in this country. And again, guys, if you haven't left a
5:45 review for the show, please do so. And if you haven't checked out origin gear, that is in the
5:49 show notes as well. Now, we need to get into the business end of today. We're not doing any quick
5:54 hitters. And the reason is because I want this episode to stand alone. Okay, I may do another solo
6:00 episode, you know, there's standalone episode because there's something else that I really,
6:03 really wanted to talk about. But this has been, you know, on my mind for the last week or so. And,
6:08 you know, it's time to talk about it. And so obviously, if you're reading the title of this
6:11 episode, it's called Andy Stanley is a heretic. Okay, so stick with me and I'll explain to you why
6:16 and bear with me today. Because in order to get where we we are today, you know, where we're
6:21 what we're talking about, we need to do a quite a bit of foundational work. Okay, so I need to
6:25 really set the stage for you. And also, there's an upcoming the forging table episode where Andy
6:30 Stanley comes up. But that particular episode, and I can't remember when it's coming, it could be
6:34 this Sunday, it could be three or four Sundays for now, I literally can't remember when we talked
6:37 about it. But this, that forging table episode was recorded way before this latest controversy
6:43 was stirred up just last week. So when you hear us talking about him in the future episode,
6:48 just note that because we didn't have all this information. So if you're not familiar with who
6:52 Andy Stanley is, I guess I should kind of bring you up to speed on that. So he is the senior pastor
6:56 of North Point Community Church. That is a non denominational church in the Atlanta area. He's
7:00 the son of Dr. Charles Stanley. So Dr. Charles Stanley was a giant in the televangelism world and
7:06 the radio world. And I think he still does some of that. He's the senior pastor of First Baptist
7:09 Church in Atlanta. I think he's still that he founded in touch ministries. He's twice been the
7:13 president of the Southern Baptist Convention. So heavyweight Andy was a student minister at his
7:18 dad's church for a while. He wanted to attract a different kind of audience, different type of
7:23 crowd than First Baptist. So he founded North Point Community Church in 1995. He wanted to have the
7:28 church have it be a church that unchurched people would love to attend. Okay. So it exploded to like
7:34 over 30,000 weekly attendees. And it did that pretty quickly. And it's consistently like in the top
7:39 two, maybe top three biggest churches in America. I think it's behind, you know, Joel Osteen's church
7:43 and sometimes life churches in there, but consistently in the top three. And he was invited to do the
7:48 National Prayer Breakfast for, you know, President Obama back in 2009, he's been named to list like
7:54 the most influential living pastor, the most effective preachers. He's authored a ton of books.
7:58 His book deep and wide was actually on our book list for several years. He's childhood best friends
8:02 with Louis Giglio from Passion Church. You know, the truncated versions of his sermons used to be
8:07 in it. I think they may still be on Netflix. But this also gives you a little bit of an insight into
8:12 how his brain works. Acts 1519 is framed and on his office wall. And if this was spoken by James,
8:18 the, the half brother of Jesus, it's, it is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it
8:22 difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. Okay. So in terms of my history with Andy Stanley,
8:28 I was not aware of Andy Stanley until he came and did a guest sermon spot at life church
8:33 over 10 years ago. Okay. So I was attending life church, you know, this Craig Rochelle's church here
8:37 in Oklahoma. And he came and did this, this thing. And I was like, Oh my gosh, this guy is,
8:40 this guy is awesome. He's very pragmatic. And he's very engaging and he's making these great points.
8:44 And he's very intellectual, at least I thought at the time. And so I started listening to his stuff
8:48 and reading his books. And for years and years and years, I listened to his content. I took notes
8:52 on his sermons and I even kind of daydreamed about man, if I lived in the Atlanta area, I would
8:56 love to go to his church. And so I consumed his stuff. He was literally one of the main voices
9:02 that I was taking in as I was kind of growing in my Christian walk. And then again, at different
9:06 points, I wasn't really reading my Bible. I wasn't really spending that much time on my Christian
9:10 walk. But he was a big part of that for a very, very long time. And then around four years ago,
9:15 there was the unhitch controversy that I'm sure many of you are aware of. And I actually
9:20 covered this on a very early episode of this podcast episode 23. It's called Andy Stanley,
9:26 a heretic question mark or it was Andy Stanley the heretic. So I'll put that in the show notes
9:30 if you guys want to go all the way back to episode 23 when I still didn't even know how microphones
9:33 worked. But that whole kerfluffle stemmed from one line in his sermon entitled not difficult.
9:40 Okay. And this was the line. Peter James, Paul, elected to unhitch the Christian faith from their
9:47 Jewish scriptures. We must as well. Okay. So unhitching the Old Testament from the New Testament. Okay.
9:55 Now the that sermon, you know, not difficult was part of a three part series entitled not
10:00 difficult. Okay. Or I got the names all mixed up, but it was a three part series. And this was like
10:05 the last one of that series. It's in the show notes. You guys can check it out. But the entire
10:09 series focused on what the, the, I guess, foundation of the first century church was.
10:15 And that was the resurrection, not the scripture, according to Andy Stanley. And you know, because
10:19 essentially the biblical corpus had not yet been fully written or compiled at this time,
10:23 obviously, the big quote from part one of that series was this, because again, I was listening
10:28 to all these at the time. Here's the quote. If you gave up on Christianity because of something
10:32 in the Bible or something about the Bible, something that was actually in the Bible,
10:36 or something that you heard or read about the Bible, you may have given up on Christianity
10:41 unnecessarily. So I want you to make sure that you remember that quote and kind of how he talks
10:46 about the word of God as we continue to unpack this. Now the big quote from part two of that series,
10:50 again, this is before like the major controversy. This is speaking about Paul, quote, he immediately
10:56 let go of God's temporary and conditional covenant with Israel to embrace God's permanent
11:00 and unconditional covenant with the human race. New covenant values and imperative stand in sharp
11:05 contrast to the values and imperatives of the old covenant. Okay, so keep that in mind as well.
11:10 And then again, in part three, Stanley summarizes his thesis of the three part series.
11:14 And this actually could also, I guess, be the summary for the book that he released after the
11:18 sermon series called irresistible, reclaiming the new that Jesus unleashed for the world. So here's the
11:23 quote. Many of lost faith because of something about the Bible are in the Bible, the Old Testament
11:30 in particular. Once they could no longer accept all of the historicity of the Old Testament,
11:34 once they couldn't go along with all the miracles, once somebody poked a hole in the
11:38 Genesis creation myth, once all that went away, suddenly their house of cards came tumbling down
11:44 because they were taught that it's all true. It's all God's word. And if you find one part that
11:48 's not true, uh, oh, the whole thing comes tumbling down, not Christianity. The Bible did not create
11:54 Christianity. The resurrection of Jesus created and launched Christianity. Your whole house of
12:00 Old Testament cards can come tumbling down. The question is, did Jesus rise from the dead and the
12:05 eyewitnesses said he did? Okay. Now we need to go back to the quote that really defined the
12:10 controversy. But I'm going to read, you know, the entire quote from that sermon. Peter James and Paul
12:14 elected to unhitch the Christian faith from the Jewish scriptures and my friends, we must as well.
12:20 And I'll tell you why. It's actually the same reason they did because we must not make it
12:24 difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. They didn't. We shouldn't either. The faith of
12:29 the next generation may depend on our willingness and our ability to get this right. Okay. So that
12:35 caused a whole bunch of, you know, craziness. Uh, you know, that wasn't the first time that he said
12:39 anything like that. I think that same year during his Easter service, he said some similar things to
12:43 that. But also the summer of 2016. Okay. There was a series that he did called who needs God. And in
12:48 week three of that, it's called the Bible told me so. So I want to read a quote specifically from
12:52 that. And the reason why I'm not showing the clips is because I don't really have permission or
12:56 access to all of these clips. And I don't want them to be taken down later. So the clips I do
12:59 show today, I know I can use, but some of these I don't know. So here's the quote from that sermon
13:03 series. Many of you were brought up to believe this. Jesus loves me. This I know for the Bible
13:10 tells me so this is where our trouble began because the implication is, and this is important,
13:15 the implication is the Bible is the reason we believe. In other words, I can believe Jesus
13:20 loves me because it's in the Bible. I grew up in a church where basically the byline, the subtitle
13:25 of everything was if the Bible says it, that settles it. And so we need kids or we send off,
13:31 send kids off to college with a, if the Bible says it, that settles it. And all of a sudden they
13:35 realize, oh my goodness, that didn't settle it. The problem with that is if the Bible is the
13:40 foundation of our faith, as the Bible goes, so goes our faith. Christianity cannot survive if
13:46 somehow every single part of the Bible isn't absolutely true if the Bible is the foundation
13:51 of our faith. LinkedIn is pretty great at a lot of things, like helping you tap into the latest
13:56 trends and insights in your field. We cannot stop your coworker from tapping her pencil.
14:01 LinkedIn can help you find new jobs that align with your career goals. We cannot help you find
14:07 the source of that weird smell in the office fridge. Yeah. And while we can't stop your
14:12 coworkers from bringing their hobbies into the office, LinkedIn can help you bring your career
14:18 to the next level. LinkedIn is the network that works for you. Okay. So in light of all that,
14:24 the unhinged controversy absolutely exploded. He was accused of being a modern day,
14:29 Marcian, you know, Allah, Marcianism, which is essentially, you know, not thinking that the
14:32 Old Testament was authoritative for Christians. He was accused of being a Gnostic, so Gnosticism,
14:36 you know, being a heretical, anti-Christian, anti-Biblical worldview. He was accused of being
14:41 a relativist, you know, people warned that the unhinged action could eventually be performed on
14:46 any parts of scripture that you individually don't like. And in episode 23 of this podcast,
14:51 I actually defended Andy Stanley and I tried to qualify his statements for him,
14:55 even though he only continued to double down on his original sent original sentiment. So I was
15:00 defending a guy that wasn't technically defending himself. And then there was the debate with Jeff
15:06 Durbin of apology at church, obviously big time Calvinist reform guy on unbelievable with Justin
15:11 Briarley. Okay. So this is something that I did a big breakdown on episode 82 of this podcast.
15:15 It's called Andy Stanley versus Jeff Durbin. So you guys can check out episode number 82.
15:20 But Stanley's thesis in this debate was the Bible is not the foundation of Christianity.
15:25 The resurrection is it's not a difference in theology. It's a difference in approach.
15:29 Thus we need to come closer to the resurrection. So that's his thesis. But then Jeff Durbin's thesis
15:35 in this argument in this debate is the Bible is the foundation of Christianity. Our theology will
15:39 lead us to practice and methodology. Thus we need to come closer to the word of God. So when you
15:45 break it down and break down that debate and you can go back to my episode who most people thought
15:49 one, if you were a pragmatic business minded logic first person, you thought Stanley won.
15:56 But if you were a deep thinking theologically focused, you know, solo scripture person,
16:01 you thought Jeff Durbin won. And you know, in terms of who I thought one,
16:04 I thought that Jeff Durbin smashed Andy Stanley in this. He had a couple of even mic drop moments
16:09 and Andy Stanley was getting visibly upset and you could even hear it as voice he was getting upset.
16:13 But when Andy Stanley seems to get upset, it's almost this narcissistic like, I'm better than this
16:18 person. I'm smarter than you. Like, how are you not understanding this? But Jeff Durbin just very,
16:22 very calmly kept going back to the scripture, going back to the scripture, going back to the
16:25 scripture, not really depending on his own philosophical arguments. Okay. So from that time on, you know,
16:31 I wasn't really following any Stanley and it wasn't really necessarily because of all that,
16:34 but I was like, okay, this is very concerning. But I kind of moved on to some other people and
16:38 started, you know, doing my own podcast. And so, you know, I just kind of for the last several years,
16:42 certainly I haven't really paid any attention to Andy Stanley. But then all of a sudden, last week,
16:47 he goes viral and he's been basically the focus of my attention for the last week or so. So a clip
16:53 started making the rounds and it was just a couple of minutes from a talk that he gave in May of last
16:59 year. So May of 2022 at his church's drive conference. Okay. So this is the interesting thing about
17:05 this particular talk that he did, because again, this is just a too many clip and it's like, oh,
17:08 it's taking out a context. That entire sermon has been deleted from the conference app and the website,
17:17 which is really odd because every other sermon that Andy Stanley delivered and everybody else,
17:22 presumably, it's all still up on the website. But if you go to the app or the website and you
17:25 click on the link, this entire talk is gone for some reason. Okay. Now I'm going to put the full
17:31 11 minute clip about this entire thing in the show notes, but it's much of the same sentiment.
17:37 But here is the clip that went around the world and went viral. So here's the two minutes here.
17:41 Figure out how to get straight people as excited about serving and engaging as the gay men and
17:47 women. I know we would have a volunteer backlog. That's my experience in our churches. Well, I'm
17:55 a gay person. I'll just read it to you. A gay person. When I say gay and men and women, okay,
17:59 a gay person who still wants to attend church after the way the church has treated the gay
18:06 community. I'm telling you, they have more faith than I do. They have more faith than a lot of you.
18:11 A gay person who knows, you know what? I might not be accepted here, but I'm going to try it anyway.
18:18 Have you ever done that as a straight person? Where do you go that you're not sure you're going
18:24 to be accepted and you go over and over and over and over? Only you're in law's house. That's the
18:30 only place you go where you know you're not completely accepted, but you go over and over
18:36 and over and it's because you have to. But other than the in-laws, what environment do you continue
18:42 to step foot in knowing at any moment you may feel ostracized? No, please. I'm telling you,
18:48 the gay men and women who grew up in church and the gay men and women who've come to faith in Christ
18:52 as adults who want to participate in our church. Oh, my goodness. I know 1 Corinthians 6 and I know
18:59 Leviticus and I know Romans 1, it's so interesting to talk about all that stuff, but just oh my goodness,
19:05 a gay man or woman who wants to worship their heavenly father who did not answer the cry of their
19:14 heart when they were 12 and 13 and 14 and 15. God said no and they still love God.
19:24 We have some things to learn from a group of men and women who love Jesus that much and who
19:29 want to worship with us. And I know the verses. I know the clobber passages, right? We got to
19:36 figure this out. And you know what? I think you are. So again, this is a conference that people paid
19:41 money to go to and that too many clip is in the show notes. And then the full 11 minute clip that
19:45 I found is also in the show notes. So my reaction to that, you know, even relistening to it just now
19:50 gets gets me all fired up and I'll try to calm down so I can make my points here. It's egregiously
19:57 dismissive of the word of God. I mean, just go back to his quote, you know, I know 1 Corinthians 6
20:02 and I know Leviticus and I know Romans 1. I know the verses. I know the clobber passages,
20:07 the clobber passages. So he's obviously making the point like, oh, yeah, these are the scriptures
20:12 that people used to beat up on gay people. But is it beating up on them to point to their sin and
20:17 say, Hey, this could send you to hell. You probably shouldn't do that. You need to repent. You need
20:23 to depend on Jesus and really orient your life behind his dictates and moral order, clobber passages.
20:30 And then let's actually go through those passages because he mentioned them and didn't cite them. So
20:36 outside them for you, 1 Corinthians 6, he's talking about verses nine through 11. Or do you not know
20:40 that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually
20:45 immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulters, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy,
20:51 nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some
20:55 of you, but you were washed. You were sanctified. You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus
21:00 Christ and by the spirit of our God. And then in Leviticus, we're looking at 1822,
21:05 you shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination. And then again, in Leviticus
21:10 2013, if a man lies with a man as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination,
21:15 they shall surely be put to death. Their blood is upon them. And then he talks about Romans 1.
21:20 We're looking at, you know, verses 26, 27 and 32. For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable
21:25 passions for their women exchange natural relations for those that are contrary to nature.
21:30 And the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one
21:34 another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for
21:39 their error. Now, verse 32, though they know God's righteous or they know God's righteous decree
21:46 that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them, but give approval
21:52 to those who practice them. Remember that one. But I'll go and add a couple to this clobber
21:57 passage category. Let's go to the words of Jesus. Even though, again, there's no difference between
22:01 the red letters of the Bible and the black letters of the Bible as, you know, Vodie Pockham taught me
22:05 if you believe in the triune God, all the letters are red letters, because Jesus is part of the
22:10 Godhead. But let's go to Matthew 15, 19. These are the words of Jesus for out of the heart,
22:15 come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.
22:21 These are what defile a person. So you might think to yourself, well, he didn't mention
22:25 homosexuality there, but he said sexual immorality. Now he would have said it in, you know, ancient
22:30 Aramaic, it would have been recorded in Greek. And the Greek word that was used for sexual immorality
22:35 was poor Nia or poor Nia. Now, what the first century hearer or reader of that would know
22:42 is that Jesus is talking about all sexual immorality. So that would be homosexuality. That would be
22:48 sex outside of wedlock. That would be, you know, sex with animals. That would be sex with children.
22:52 All of that. All of those things would be in that same category. And then we got 1 Corinthians 618.
22:59 Free from sexual immorality, same word, poor Nia. Every other sin a person commits is outside the
23:05 body. But the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. The reason why I included this from
23:11 Paul is because I've talked to Christians that I know very, very well that are like, yeah, I don't
23:16 know why people make such a big deal out of, you know, homosexuality. It's, it's just sin. It's
23:20 just like lying. It's just like cheating on your taxes. But no, it's not. We see from God's word
23:27 in Scripture via this letter from Paul to the church in Corinth that this is a single sin
23:34 that is fundamentally different than every other sin. Because what, what that relates to this would
23:39 say is that, yeah, you know, all sins are, are, you know, they're basically the same, right? You
23:44 know, they're, they're, they're fundamentally the same and they're superficially different as a way
23:47 to say it. But they're superficially the same and fundamentally different as it pertains to sexual
23:52 immorality, which includes homosexuality. Okay. So what, what Andy Stanley is doing here is he's
23:59 essentially LGBTQ affirming. Now when people have said that on, you know, Twitter or wherever else
24:04 this week that's like, no, he never said that. And you know, just go back to the clip and you never
24:07 actually says that. But the public reaction has been very, very interesting because Bible-believing
24:13 Christians like me are absolutely appalled that he would say these things. But all the progressive
24:18 woke, you know, you go along to get along Christians like let's not make anybody mad. Let's be known
24:24 for what we're for, not what we're against Christians. They loved this clip. Seriously,
24:29 just type Andy Stanley into the search bar on Twitter and every person with, you know, pronouns
24:34 in their bio that also claims to be a Christian. They love it. They're using this as an example.
24:39 This is what everybody in evangelicalism and Christianity writ large should do. Okay. Now,
24:45 when this came up, I was like, all right, I haven't been paying attention to any Stanley for the
24:49 last several years. I'd kind of moved on to other people. But now I need to dig in. What is even
24:54 saying since all the unhitch controversy stuff? Okay. So as I was doing this research and thanks
25:00 to Ryan on our team that helped me do some of this research research as well, that is the same
25:03 Ryan from the forging table. But from his sermon series called Christian, in part five, that's
25:08 called when Gracie met truthy. Okay. So there's a seven minute video that I can't put here because
25:13 I don't have permission, but it will be in the show notes. You should listen to this. Okay.
25:17 Because in that sermon, he does like a seven minute story about a husband leaving his wife and child
25:24 or children to be with another man. Okay. But then through the description of this story, right,
25:31 the other man in this story was actually married to a woman as well. But the initial guy had divorced
25:37 his wife and child so that he can seek out a homosexual relationship with this man. But that
25:42 other man was still married to a woman. He wasn't divorced yet. Now the shocking thing about this
25:47 story that he told, you know, it wasn't just the convoluted affairs that were involved. That would
25:52 have been enough. It was two things that that really stood out to me now that I've watched it
25:56 through new eyes. He only seems saddened by the fact that the gay couple left one of his churches.
26:01 Okay, because they were volunteers and then, you know, they kind of had a discussion and then
26:05 they left because they didn't feel welcome again. Go go watch it. It's seven minutes, you know, go
26:09 watch it. But then the second thing is, as Andy Stanley never once decries the sin of homosexuality
26:16 as he's describing the story, never once, he decries the fact that one of the gay men wasn't
26:21 divorced yet, meaning he's an adulterer, but he never talks about homosexuality. Ever.
26:27 Unless like he's just describing these homosexual men, but he never talks about the sin
26:32 of homosexuality. Now, the funny thing is, is I was following Andy Stanley at this time. I remember
26:38 loving this Christian series. It was like six or seven, you know, episodes or whatever. Okay.
26:43 But I didn't catch the craziness of this story at the time that I watched it, which, you know,
26:47 just kind of goes, you know, a little bit more into kind of how I've evolved and how I've adjusted
26:53 and how I've become closer to the word and how I notice these things that, you know, however long
26:56 ago, whenever he did that, I just didn't notice. But also let's keep going down the list of things
27:00 that I, you know, found this week. He sent a tweet out March six of last year, I believe,
27:06 which has since been deleted, which said this, this is his words. Andy Stanley tweeted this.
27:10 The Christian faith doesn't rise and fall on the accuracy of 66 ancient documents. It rises and
27:16 falls on the identity of a single individual, Jesus of Nazareth. So being fairly dismissive
27:22 of the Bible, again, he deleted this and he didn't delete it for no reason. Then I found a quote
27:26 from a sermon of his and it said this, when you anchor the authority of your teaching to the Bible,
27:32 you reinforce an assumption that has the potential to weaken rather than establish your faith. I
27:38 actually have a screenshot of that, like someone sitting at his church and like the seventh row,
27:43 take a picture of this behind him. And it's so grainy like it's, it's definitely not photoshopped.
27:47 Again, let me read that quote again. When you anchor the authority of your teaching to the Bible,
27:52 you reinforce an assumption that has the potential to weaken rather than establish faith.
27:59 So he's, he's going right at the authority of scripture there. And then as I was looking through
28:04 this, I see this thread, a seething thread from pastor Ryan Visconti from Generation Church in
28:09 Arizona. He's actually a podcast alum. He came on here on episode 232 and 238. Now guys, the entire
28:15 thread is in the show notes. So I'm just going to go through the first part of it. So let me just
28:18 read this part of his thread. On September 19, 2019, I was invited to a private dinner with about 15
28:24 pastors at a local church in Gilbert, Arizona to participate in a Q and A with Andy Stanley
28:29 after he finished speaking at a conference. The subject of homosexuality came up and over the next
28:33 one and a half hours, Andy shared overtly heretical views that clearly contradict what the word of
28:39 God says. I was shocked to find myself arguing with Andy Stanley, along with the other pastors
28:45 despite our respect for him. Andy Stanley said homosexuality is quote, really a disability,
28:51 unquote, using the analogy that, quote, telling gay people that they have to stop being gay to
28:56 follow Christ is like taking a wheelchair away from a guy who can't walk, unquote. Andy Stanley
29:02 also said, quote, I don't do gay weddings, but I can't say I would never do a gay wedding.
29:07 If my granddaughter asked me someday, maybe I would, unquote, worst of all, Andy Stanley said this,
29:13 quote, we need to make room for gay men who choose to be married to each other in our churches,
29:19 because that's as close as they can get to a New Testament framework of marriage. Unquote,
29:25 Andy Stanley also said, quote, I believe in gay people. Some people are gay. They can't change,
29:31 unquote, which is directly contradicting 1 Corinthians 6 9 through 11. He said, quote,
29:37 I know I shouldn't let experience dictate my theology, but I have. Maybe I'm wrong. Unquote.
29:43 Yes, he is. So that's a thread again. The entire thread from him is down there.
29:48 And then literally this morning, okay, literally this morning, I was made aware
29:52 of this. And this is just going to slam home everything I'm about to go through here in a minute.
29:56 This is according to the center. Again, the link to the article will be in the show notes.
29:59 The the name of the article is Andy Stanley's church has open lesbian on staff leading LGBTQ
30:06 ministry. So I'm going to read directly from the article here. In the midst of all that has been
30:10 uncovering all that has been the uncovering of a much deeper issue at Stanley's North Point
30:15 church. Not only has Stanley taken a soft and unbiblical approach to sin, but it's now been
30:20 discovered that Stanley has an openly identifying lesbian on staff at his church who leads the
30:26 church's LGBTQ ministry. Earlier this month, Q Christian fellowship held a conference for
30:31 openly queer people who claimed to be Christians along with their parents and allies to affirm
30:37 their aberrant sexuality and tell them that God is indifferent to their sin. According to the
30:42 conference schedule, one of the speakers at the conference was a staff member from North Point
30:46 and North Point named Amy Blakely. On the conference schedule biography, Blakely claims to work on
30:51 North Point staff as part of the care staff and describes herself as gay and as a proud parent
30:57 of an adult child who I also identifies as gay below is her bio. Hello, my name is Amy. I identify
31:03 as gay by pronouns are she her and I'm a proud parent of three adult kids, one of whom also
31:08 identifies as gay. Over the past 10 years, I've had the privilege of meeting with hundreds of
31:12 parents of LGBTQ plus children throughout my or through my position on the care staff at North
31:17 Point Community Church. As more and more parents reached out to the church for support, I began
31:22 meeting with them in their homes. Parent Connect was birthed, one of the first church-based ministries
31:26 in the nation created specifically for Christian parents of LGBTQ plus kids. Thankfully, Parent
31:31 Connect paved the way for many other churches to begin ministries for parents of LGBTQ plus kids,
31:36 where the focus is on helping parents to love their LGBTQ plus kids well. Currently, I am a
31:43 full-time graduate student studying clinical mental health counseling. As a future counselor,
31:47 I hope to continue to support LGBTQ plus individuals and their families. I live in Atlanta, Georgia,
31:51 and enjoy not exercising drinking coffee, diet, Mountain Dew, and living an authentic life.
31:56 Good grief. How, how narcissist, just to end with that, I missed that the first time in living
32:00 an authentic life. What a tool. But when you when you dig a little bit further, you also found that
32:06 Blake's Lee is also involved with the Reformation Project, a completely apostate and totally queer
32:12 affirming quote unquote ministry founded by the infamous gay Christian apologist Matthew Vines.
32:17 Okay. So I saw that my head starts spinning and it's like, I shouldn't be shocked, but it's still
32:22 am shocked. And if that weren't enough, Protestia, which is a website and they have a Twitter account,
32:26 they uncovered this video, which they posted on their Twitter account in this clip that I'm about
32:31 to show for you. For those that are just listening, it's an interaction between Debbie Causi, who is
32:37 the director of North Point care ministries. The same thing that this Blake sleep person kind of
32:41 works with. She's the director of that at Stanley's church and Greg Johnson, who is a North Point
32:46 ministry leader and seemingly his life or his wife rather. So just listen to this interaction.
32:51 It's about two minutes. Parents want to know how can I find a safe counselor who can help my
32:58 child or who can help me who can help my family. Right. That's so I don't get to do as much counseling
33:07 as I used to because of the there's at least 11 ministries at North Point that are under care. And
33:14 so we do a lot of one time appointments where we're assessing, but we do refer people to safe
33:21 counselors when it comes to this subject. I think there's what is it called, Greg? The closet.
33:29 Yeah, closet, they are a great group. And they do it over. They do it virtually. So you don't have
33:40 to live in the Atlanta area. I do have a list of counselors in the Atlanta area that we will refer
33:46 to if the person is in the Atlanta area. And so, you know, feel free to email me at debbie.causy@northpoint.org
33:55 if you are in the Atlanta area and you are looking for a safe counselor. But yeah, I would probably
34:01 turn to the Christian closet if you're not. And they are known to be fairly safe when it comes to
34:10 this. And I am the founder of the Christian closet. What is the Christian closet? Probably a lot of
34:17 you hopefully have already heard of us. But we are a team of LGBTQ counselors and coaches. And we do
34:26 online therapy and coaching and spiritual direction. And I would say probably all of us are sort of
34:33 living our dream job when we get to meet with all of you. I know for me, being gay and Christian
34:40 was such a huge part of my own journey. And so we get to journey with folks online from all over
34:47 the world around themes of coming out and being the intersections of queer and Christian.
34:54 So I didn't set that clip up perfectly. The last part of that clip, because again,
35:00 they're talking about Christian closet, it actually goes to another zoom meeting where this person
35:04 from Christian closet and you can hear her talk about what it is. It's this gay affirming LGBTQ
35:09 plus affirming supposedly Christian organization. And it looked like there was like three or four
35:14 five other people in the video. And they are essentially being part of a training for all this.
35:19 So in light of everything I just went through, okay, we've got Andy Stanley who is completely
35:25 dismissive of God's word and is essentially 100% LGBTQ affirming, even though apparently he's too
35:33 cowardly to just come out and say that. But when you have people on staff that are being paid
35:38 presumably by your tithes to all you people that go to that church, right? When you tithe or donate
35:43 to that ministry, you're helping pay the salary of somebody that is trying to convince people
35:47 that that are gay or whatever that that's okay. That that's just the way that God made you and
35:52 he loves you anyway, right? You know, you don't need to change at all, right? You know, Jesus
35:56 or whatever, like you're just fine. So why all this is so dangerous? There's a lot of reasons why
36:01 all this is so dangerous and concerning. The first thing is that Andy Stanley leads one of the largest
36:06 churches in America. I think as of right now, it's the second largest church in America.
36:09 He has a lot of influence literally over tens of thousands of people that go to his church
36:14 and then the millions of people that pay attention to him. And Andy Stanley as well influences
36:19 tens of thousands of pastors, minimum worldwide. It's hard to get an exact number of the pastors
36:26 that are listening to Andy Stanley Sermons, but he's influencing all of them with his chosen
36:32 theology, right? And also his success has caused people to stop checking him.
36:38 And you guys know how this is. Like whenever you've been around somebody that's maybe really
36:42 successful in business or really successful athlete or maybe they're an influence or something like
36:46 that. And then they say something that is wrong, like completely wrong or they've lied about
36:50 something and you don't call them out because they're so successful. Because he's been so
36:55 successful for so long, that has caused people to really to stop like checking on him or checking
36:59 him when he says something crazy. And also why this is so dangerous and concerning. My last point
37:04 here is he seemingly has a growing distaste for the word of God. It's not like, you know, he started
37:10 thinking, yeah, you know, the Bible is probably not that accurate. You know, we don't need to,
37:13 you know, deal with these 66 books and make sure they're, they're all correct and all those different
37:17 things. Over time, his comments are becoming more and more dismissive of the word of God.
37:23 Again, one thing that I've tried to tell people that I'm trying to do is I don't, I don't say
37:27 the Bible says anymore. I say God says through his word. That's what I'm trying to change my
37:31 brain to be like, because it's not the Bible says it's God says, because that is his word, right?
37:36 And there's, there's ultimately this terrible formula at play here. It's, you know, attractive
37:41 personality, plus wildly gifted communicator, plus large audience, plus church success, plus
37:49 commercial success, plus no biblical accountability, plus you not reading your Bible, plus them not
37:55 teaching the Bible equals almost certain disaster. Okay. There's just this witches brew of nonsense
38:03 that is leading to a disastrous outcome for the earthly kingdom of God. Okay. But all this leads
38:11 to a big question here. Is it fair to call Andy Stanley a heretic? Because again, whenever I talked
38:18 about that, you know, an episode, what was a 23 and 82 or whatever, I stopped short of saying
38:23 that he was a heretic. But for those of you that maybe aren't even familiar with, with that label,
38:27 there's actually a definition from the American heritage dictionary of the English language.
38:30 It's this. This is what a heretic is specifically in theology, a professed believer who adopts and
38:36 persistently maintains religious opinions contrary to the accepted standards of his church. Okay. Now,
38:44 some people are like, Oh, you can't be here to take unless it's Catholic. No, no, no, this expands
38:47 to all of Christendom. Okay. Which leads to another question. Is Andy Stanley a heretic?
38:53 Or is he just saying heretical things? Okay. Now, the reason I bring that up is because I think
38:59 I've said on the show before I certainly maintain this opinion. But you know, when people talk about
39:03 racism, like are you a racist? If you say or do something that is racist. So, so as an example,
39:11 let's say you tell a racist joke, right? Where the punchline of the joke is categorizing people
39:17 based on their immutable characteristic of how much melanin they have in their skin. Okay,
39:20 that is a racist joke. Does that make you a racist? Because I would say no,
39:26 laughing at a racist joke or saying a racist joke again, I don't think that that's a edifying
39:31 thing. I don't think God would want you to do those things. Again, James, too, we should have no
39:35 partiality whatsoever. But I don't think that makes you a racist. I don't think if you laugh at a racist
39:40 joke that you should be branded for the rest of your life as a racist. Being a racist is a decision
39:46 that you've made in your heart to see people that don't look like you of any color and you can be
39:52 any color and looking at them and judging them harshly just based on their immutable characteristic
39:58 of the level of melanin in their skin. That's what racism is. So when a black person looks at an Asian
40:03 person and says, man, you know, this Asian or whatever, that's a racist thing. When they dismiss
40:08 somebody, when a white person does that with a Latino person or whatever connection of races that
40:12 you can make, that's what you're communicating is that in your heart, you believe that you are
40:17 better than them because of an immutable characteristic that you have that they don't. That's racism.
40:22 Okay. But in this instance, I do not think that you can separate the teachings and embracing of
40:29 heresy and the person doing the teaching because these things that Andy Stanley thinks that he has
40:36 formulated into thoughts that he has shared with the world through spoken word and written word,
40:41 that is what he believes. These are heretical, anti-biblical, A-biblical viewpoints. Okay. They come
40:49 from the pits of hell and he keeps maintaining those viewpoints and doubling down on them.
40:54 So to answer the question, is it fair to call Andy Stanley a heretic? Yes. And I will do so.
41:00 And I will continue to do so unless he changes more on that in a second. But there's also a big
41:04 question that you have to ask yourself here. Where can Andy Stanley go from here? So my guess
41:11 is further down the path of heresy because guys, there are no signs that he intends to repent
41:17 and turn around from the stuff that he's teaching and saying. Again, he's literally doubling down
41:22 every chance he gets. He does the sermon series, says we should unhitch the Old Testament from
41:26 the New Testament. This big, you know, craziness pops up. He does a bunch of interviews and then
41:30 he writes a book, best-selling book, irresistible that people read and they're like, Oh, yeah,
41:35 totally get it. Because again, he's pragmatic. And he's got to, he's very, very smart. He's
41:40 literally one of the most gifted communicators in all in Christendom. Christendom. That's why he's
41:44 so effective. And that's why this is so dangerous. Now, my prediction. Now, I hope this is wrong.
41:50 I literally don't want this to be true. I think that he will eventually, probably in the next few
41:56 years, come out explicitly as LGBTQ affirming. Because again, he's kind of been really cagey
42:01 about it, right? But I think he's going to explicitly come out and do a sermon or a sermon series
42:06 being full on affirming. I think that's just about guaranteed at this point. But my deeper
42:11 prediction is that eventually he'll deconstruct. So for those of you that aren't familiar with
42:18 that, that is where someone who is a prominent Christian, typically a prominent Christian,
42:21 they deconstruct their faith and then they lose it. He may go full deconstruction. Again,
42:27 I hope that he doesn't do that. But this is where this path leads. When he talks to be able to
42:31 have deconstructed their Christian faith, a lot of it started with LGBTQ plus stuff. Well, but I
42:37 love my gay friends. And then all of a sudden, they don't believe in God anymore. They don't
42:40 believe in the sufficiency of the blood of Jesus, right? Or abortion or some other typically left
42:45 wing viewpoint on a particular issue that we see in society. Okay. Now, before I wrap up on Andy
42:50 Stanley, I want you to stick with me. Okay. This is a sidebar and a side note. And this isn't me
42:55 just like throwing stones. I'm just making you guys aware because this is something that was just
42:59 like clinging around in my brain. So I've got to get it out there to you guys. Okay. Everyone
43:04 that listened to this show or that's going to watch this later, share it around, that likes or as a
43:08 fan of Craig Rochelle of life church needs to heed this warning I'm about to give you. Please do not
43:15 put your faith in Craig Rochelle or his church. And for that matter, and I've said this a lot before,
43:23 please listen to me. Don't put your faith in any senior pastor at any church. So if you're a Craig
43:30 Rochelle guy or you're a TD Jakes guy, or you're a John MacArthur guy, or you're a Matt Chandler guy,
43:36 or if you're a Joby Martin guy, or if you're a whoever guy, do not put your faith in people.
43:42 Because I didn't list those people because I think they're going to do something crazy.
43:47 But all of them are certainly capable of it because all of us are capable of doing saying
43:53 and acting out in horrifically destructive, sinful ways. So if you put your faith in a senior pastor
44:00 or a teaching pastor or a church or a ministry, look at Ravi Zacharias. RZIM doesn't exist anymore.
44:06 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, the entire thing folded because of him,
44:11 right? Because he was a sexual deviant. And so many people put their faith in RZIM and in Ravi
44:17 Zacharias. If you put your faith in anyone or anything other than Christ, you will be found
44:22 wanting at some point. But back to my point here. Specifically, I want to talk about Craig Rochelle
44:27 in life church. You probably heard this quote before. This is from an entrepreneur, author,
44:33 motivational speaker, guy named Jim Rohn. So he once said, you are the average of the five people
44:38 you spend the most time with. So essentially, the message is who you associate with says a lot
44:42 about you and who you are. So I want to take you through a list of some of the men that Craig Rochelle
44:48 has lent his pulpit to. Again, I attended Craig Rochelle's church for like 11 or 12 years.
44:53 And I saw all these people speak at his church. First, Bill Heibels of Willow Creek Community Church,
45:00 who I know, know for a fact was a personal mentor to Craig, or at least still is. He was
45:04 credibly accused of sexual assault. And he essentially was forced to resign from his job as senior
45:08 pastor at his church that he founded. Brian Houston, founder of Hillsong Church. He covered up child
45:14 sexual assault by his own father. Essentially, he was forced to resign from his job as senior
45:20 pastor for a church that he founded. And he could end up going to jail for what he did. He's currently,
45:24 you know, going through trial at the beginning part of this year. Then we've got Carl Lince,
45:28 Hillsong, New York City. He cheated on his wife with multiple women amongst other moral failings.
45:33 And he was fired as lead pastor of Hillsong NYC. Stephen Furtick, founder of Elevation Church.
45:38 Apparently, he's super close with Craig, or at least wasn't one time, but I think they're still
45:41 super tight. He preached multiple, he has preached multiple heretical things and could easily be
45:46 categorized as a false teacher. Andy Stanley, founder of North Point Community Church, as we've
45:51 discussed at length on this episode, guilty of preaching heretical things and could easily be
45:55 categorized as a false teacher. And here's the thing, the reason why I bring up all those guys that I
46:00 know of, and there's certainly more, but those are the ones I wanted to highlight. If it would shock
46:04 you to hear that Craig Rochelle is guilty of something heinous, or goes full woke heretical
46:11 pastor at some point in the future, or does something that that is a moral failing that would
46:17 basically say, you know, you could no longer have this job as senior pastor. If that would shock you,
46:22 you're a fool and a sheep. And again, this isn't me just throwing stones at Craig Rochelle just for
46:27 fun. I don't know him to have any moral failings as a person. And I'm certainly not saying that's
46:33 going to happen. There's nothing in me that would ever want such a thing to happen for him to have
46:38 some sort of moral failing or some sort of horribly egregious thing. But it wouldn't surprise me one
46:42 bit. I mean, look at the people he has shared his pulpit with is somehow Craig Rochelle,
46:51 fundamentally different from those other men. He might be. He certainly might be. But until we
46:58 knew all the depraved things that those other men did, we just thought he was just a normal,
47:02 great speaker, great guy, great church leader, great, you know, expositor of the well, not really
47:08 expositor, but you know, a great preacher of the word, or you know, great life lesson guy,
47:12 or you know, good guy in business. And look at this big church. Again, Craig Rochelle is very similar
47:18 in terms of his, you know, public Christian profile to all of those men that have now been
47:23 bounced out of ministry because of the heinous things that they did. So again, I'm not just throwing
47:27 stones at Craig Rochelle for no reason. I don't think he's going to do any of those things.
47:31 And I'm certainly praying that he never does anything crazy. But if it would surprise you and
47:35 shock you, man, you really need to get your head out of sand. But let's get back to Andy Stanley.
47:39 So what are we to do about Andy Stanley? The people listening to this podcast right now,
47:44 I'll give you a few reasons or a few things that you can do rather. Number one, we must judge him.
47:51 We must judge him fairly, but firmly. So I'm going to take you to 1 Corinthians 5, 12 through 13.
47:59 For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to
48:06 judge? God judges those outside purge the evil person from among you. So when you get this,
48:13 we shouldn't judge people crown near you're acting like a Pharisee and you're just throwing
48:16 stones for no reason, crowd. We are given this biblical dictate via God, via Paul writing to
48:22 the 1st century church in Corinth that we are to judge people that are inside the church.
48:30 Fairly, but firmly, we are to do that. So we must judge him as followers of Christ that are part of
48:38 God's macro church here. The second thing we're to do with Andy Stanley is we must call him out.
48:45 We must. That's why I'm doing the show. We're close to an hour in of me calling out Andy Stanley
48:50 publicly. Go back to Galatians two versus 11 through 14. You know, I'm not going to read it here,
48:55 but we did an entire the forging episode on Galatians two where we go into that. That's where Paul
49:00 rebuked Peter in public for everyone to see. Okay. He called him out because he was being
49:07 sinful and he was leading people down a destructive path. We must do the same. We also
49:13 must pray that Andy Stanley repents. We have to pray that he repents of this and repenting is not
49:20 saying, Oh God, I'm sorry. Will you forgive me? It's literally turning away from your sin 180 degrees
49:26 turning away from your sin. So let's read 2 Chronicles 7, 14. If my people who are called by my name
49:32 humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear
49:38 from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. But they need to pray,
49:46 seek his face and turn or repent from their wicked ways. Also acts 319, repent therefore
49:54 and turn back that your sins may be blotted out. Because guys, if he doesn't repent,
50:01 then we should hope that he has some sort of moral failing or something else that basically
50:07 says you're disqualified from vocational ministry. I know that's kind of weird. Like,
50:12 you know, I just got through saying with Craig, I hope that doesn't happen. But if Andy Stanley
50:15 keeps going down this path, we need to root for something that will get him out of ministry.
50:20 No, that doesn't mean he gets beat up or that he gets killed or no, I'm not advocating for violence
50:24 against Andy Stanley to repeat. I'm not advocating for violence against Andy Stanley,
50:28 but we should hope that he will no longer have the platform that he is used to become a destructive
50:34 force in Christendom. We should hope for that. Some sort of moral failing or some sort of whatever he
50:40 just decides to retire. We should hope for that. And the fourth thing in terms of Andy Stanley is
50:45 until or unless he does repent, I call on everyone that attends North Point Community Church,
50:52 which is, you know, the headship or the, you know, flagship church, I guess,
50:55 and any of their separate campuses. So that's Browns Bridge Church, Buckhead Church, Decatur
51:00 City Church, East Cobb Church, Gwynette Church, Hamilton Mill Church, or Woodstock City Church,
51:05 or any of their network churches that pipe in his sermons and or, you know, sits under his
51:10 leadership and guidance to leave those churches immediately and make sure you let the church know
51:16 why. So I posted something about Andy Stanley last week on Instagram and I get an email from a guy
51:21 that goes to one of these network churches. And he's like, man, you know, my wife and I, you know,
51:26 we made great friends here and this is like our community. This is our tribe. But you know,
51:30 our church just uses Andy Stanley sermons and we sit under his leadership and obviously he's saying
51:34 these crazy things and he just went viral this week. You know, what am I to do? Like, should I just
51:38 quietly leave or blah, blah. And my advice to him when I responded to him, I was like, no,
51:42 you should leave loudly. Let everyone in your small group know why you and your wife are leaving
51:48 the church and try to bring them with you. Now they may not really care and maybe they're not
51:51 really serious about their Christian walk. And maybe they're not really Christians. Maybe they
51:54 don't understand what heresy is. Maybe it's just like, oh, he's just, you know, giving, you know,
51:57 good life advice. Like what's the big deal? But at the end of the day, his responsibility is to him
52:02 and his wife and, you know, the catacizing of his entire family. And so I was like, you need to leave
52:06 that church and go to a church where there's an expository preacher that goes line by line through
52:11 the Bible and doesn't just add a bunch of life lesson stuff. Again, that's why I was attracted to
52:15 Andy Stanley back in the day and his teaching because it was so practical and so applicable to,
52:20 you know, excuse me, it was so applicable to kind of everything in my life that I was going through
52:25 at that time, right? But if you're going in one of those churches right now, if he's not going to
52:30 repent for this, you have to get out because it will not get better. You think he's just going to stop
52:35 with the LGBTQ plus affirming? You think he's just going to all of a sudden,
52:38 a fall in love with the Bible? Again, I certainly hope so. I pray that that happens. But you cannot
52:44 torpedo your family because Andy Stanley is trying to be, you know, as, you know, widely available
52:50 and popular with an audience of people that hate him, right? I'm talking about non-Christians and
52:54 secularists. They may wink and nod at the stuff that you're saying, but ultimately they are of a
52:58 different worldview than you. They hate you, but he doesn't really understand that.
53:01 And the last thing that we need to really think about and do in terms of the Sandy Stanley thing
53:06 is we must rest easy knowing that he will face judgment for how he has shepherded his flock. He
53:14 will. Hebrews 13 17, obey your leaders and submit to them for they are keeping watch over your souls
53:22 and those who will have to give an account. Let him do this with joy and not with groaning
53:27 for that would be of no advantage to you. Here's the key as those who will have to give an account.
53:32 When he goes before God, when he dies, he is going to have to give an account for how he has
53:40 shepherded his flock. Every pastor in these churches, they will have to give an account
53:47 for how they've shepherded their flock. So Andy Stanley will stand before God and have to try to
53:53 make his case for why he is teaching people the heretical things that he's teaching them.
53:58 So to conclude, as of right now, Andy Stanley is a heretic 100%. But he doesn't have to stay
54:07 that way. He can and should repent. And let's pray that he does so. All right, guys, before we let
54:13 you go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost out undaunted life or mission is equipping
54:16 men to push back darkness with content that for just spiritual mental and physical resilience.
54:20 So again, go to the origin website, check out the greatest keys on the planet, jeans, boots,
54:24 protein, energy drinks, all that stuff. Use the promo code undaunted to get 10% off your order.
54:28 And again, we've got the donation link there to go to undaunted dot life backslash donate.
54:32 We've got a link to the Stevenson knives website. But again, if you give $20, every $20 will put
54:37 you in the raffle over the next three weeks to get the floor to hunter Stevenson's knives again,
54:42 50% of that money will go to support what we're doing here with undaunted life. And the other
54:46 50% is going to go to save babies through the hope pregnancy center here in Oklahoma City area
54:50 in Edmund where I live. And then everything else I've got in the show notes, I'm not going to actually
54:54 list them all. But everything that I like sign posted in the talk of like, Oh, here's this link
54:58 and I'll put that in the show notes. All that will be right here. So you can check all that out.
55:16 On Facebook and check out our website for everything else, including how to donate to keep
55:19 more content like this coming your way. Just go to www dot undaunted dot life. And as always,
55:23 we want to thank the band August Burns read for allowing us to use their music for our content.
55:27 The musical in this podcast is our song cutting the tides, which is off their 10th anniversary
55:31 re recording of their album leveler. The links are in the description. I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
55:37 Remember, keep pushing back darkness, keep forging spiritual, mental and physical resilience.
55:43 Keep seeking the lion of Judah.
56:13 [BLANK_AUDIO]
Key quotes
3
Kyle Thompson
Is it fair to call Andy Stanley a heretic? Yes, and I will do so.
Kyle Thompson
We must judge him fairly, but firmly.
Kyle Thompson
If you put your faith in anyone or anything other than Christ, you will be found wanting at some point.
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