Dear Andy,
I have a lost friend who grew up in a Baptist church but later left the faith. He is in the demographic you are trying to reach. I know this because I have read your ridiculous book Deep and Wide. I am all too familiar with your wrong-headed and unbiblical mission to create “irresistible environments” and “churches that unchurched people love to attend.” This lost friend of mine sent me a text message on April 29th that read
“I went to Andy Stanley’s church today; he more or less defecated on the Old Testament.”
Other than that, he thought your big production was pretty cool. So, basically, for anyone reading who doesn’t know, here is what you do in a nutshell: you attract lost people to your “church” and dazzle them with fog machines, lasers, and on-stage camera men getting close-ups of the drummers and then defecate on the Bible. Being familiar with your “ministry,” I wasn’t surprised when my friend sent me his text message. I have been warning about you for years. Doing so was the only responsible option for anyone even vaguely familiar with your practice.
I certainly don’t claim to have middle knowledge but allow me to make this statement: If your dad wasn’t Charles Stanley, you wouldn’t be all that popular. Without his initial stage, your repulsive (repulsive to people who believe God’s word, not the pagans to whom you pander) brand of American consumer-centric religion wouldn’t have gotten off the ground in Alpharetta, Georgia. Without the nepotism exhibited by your father and First Baptist Atlanta to put you on staff there, where would you be? I grew up listening to your dad’s television preaching. His teaching was a proclamation that the Bible was authoritative. You’ve basically thrown out half of it with your latest treatment of the Old Testament. You disgust me. I don’t know if you disgust your father or not. If you do, he isn’t saying it. I am. I wish more people would. If popular Bible teachers had spoken out about you earlier, then precious people made in God’s image might not have sat in the seats at your church the other day and heard you, in your capacity as their pastor, belittle God’s holy word. I certainly see critics objecting to what you are saying now; in my opinion they are a day late and a dollar short. They should have been warning people to flee your “church” years ago. Your whole model is wrong and unbiblical.
Speaking of middle knowledge, let’s talk about William Lane Craig. When he, in his capacity as a Christian apologist, goes to a secular college campus for a debate and tries to get people to believe minimal things about the resurrection of Jesus, I get it. A lot of the things he says make me smack my forehead, but in the end I get why he’s not out there in secular academia trying to make a case about the virgin birth. He isn’t anyone’s pastor. You, as a pastor, downplay biblical claims and miracles in deference to secular skepticism. You treat church like its some kind of youth crusade. Those are bad enough in that they generate goats faster than a factory farm. Somehow, you’ve made a whole franchise of churches out of that. Again, apologists like Craig aren’t pastors. You are. Well, you sort of are. No other church planted your church and appointed you as a pastor. Like so many others, you just started your own church/business and made yourself a pastor. You are as incompetent and dangerous as you are self-appointed. I would rebuke you with the Bible at this point, but it’s not like you believe it’s true. I will leave that to rest of the onlookers who have been watching your theological train wreck of a career. Some people may object to this letter and say, “Seth didn’t use any scripture.” Well, I’ve already done that when addressing you. By the way, your dad is Charles Stanley, you already know what the Bible says. I’m not going to sit here and make another scriptural case about why you are so terrible. You’re like a serial killer who has been convicted for murdering fifty people. I’m not going to go all CSI trying to prove you’ve killed number fifty-one. I’m going to lament that you’ve not been locked in jail.
I hope everyone takes it in that you are basically the organizational progeny of Bill Hybels and his church growth movement. You’re Eddie Vedder to his Neal Young (no offense to Eddie Vedder and Neil young intended). Even without his recent sex scandal, to look back on Bill Hybels’ career is to look back on a disaster. Come to think of it, he endorsed your book Deep and Wide. Here is a partial list of the other individuals who endorsed it with him: Rick Warren, Steven Furtick (who claims Jesus is “sneaky”), Perry Noble (who was fired for being a drunk), Louie Giglio (your best friend who was also utterly failed by Charles Stanley as a pastor), and Charles Stanley (your dad, the divorced pastor). I can’t be the only one who notices that the people who endorse you are the worst of the absolute dregs of the seeker-sensitive goat church industry.
At this point, any man who keeps his family in your church is failing in his responsibility to shepherd his own household. I doubt you’ll quit but I know you’ll stand before judgement one day. I read in your book about how you claim North Point was God’s idea. The heck it was. It was yours and it was bad. You are going to have to answer for that. Repent…of the last 20 years. You are marked as one who causes division.
I anathematize you.
Sincerely,
Seth Dunn
PS: Anyone who is a former member of North Point Church or one of Andy Stanley’s other ungodly franchise “churches” may contact me on our contact page. If you love your neighbor, you can provide your first-hand North Point testimony as a warning to others. I haven’t physically been to North Point Church. That’s generally the first defense given by the drones who follow Andy Stanley when their leader is criticized, “You haven’t even been there, Seth!” To that I say: I’ve never been to North Korea either. Kim Jong Andy needs to go.
[Contributed by: Seth Dunn]
*Please note that the preceding is my personal opinion. It is not necessarily the opinion of any entity by which I am employed, any church at which I am a member, any church which I attend, or the educational institution at which I am enrolled. Any copyrighted material displayed or referenced is done under the doctrine of fair use
