At this point, let’s not deceive ourselves into thinking that Andy Stanley’s churches are populated by regenerate, bible-beliving Christians. In 2016, after Andy Stanley’s derisive comments about small churches stirred up controversy, I published an open letter at this website urging whatever believers were left at North Point ministries to leave. In 2017, I published a scathing review of Stanley’s book Deep and Wide: Creating Churches Unchurched People Love to Attend. You see, I figured out Andy Stanley was a wolf in shepherd’s clothing years ago. It’s not hard to see, he’s wearing a really poor disguise. That’s why I wasn’t at all shocked when a video of Andy Stanley bragging on homosexuals who wanted to volunteer at church made the rounds on Twitter.
I already knew Stanley’s churches had homosexual volunteers because I remember when Gracie met Truthy. I’ve heard horror stories about Stanley’s Woodstock City Church from my friend, an FCA missionary in Cherokee County, who evangelizes the teenagers who attend there. Yet even I didn’t know how far Andy Stanley had turned from a biblical ethic on sexuality until I saw a thread from a concerned pastor in Arizona, Ryan Visconti, that was shared yesterday:
On Sept. 19, 2019, I was invited to a private dinner with about 15 pastors at a local church in Gilbert, AZ to participate in a Q&A with @AndyStanley after he finished speaking at a conference. The subject of homosexuality came up and over the next 1.5 hours…
— Ryan Visconti (@ryanvisconti) January 26, 2023
According to Visconti’s eye-witness report (which has been corroborated by another eye witness), Stanley has been open to the possibility of performing a gay wedding since 2019.
@AndyStanley said “I don’t do gay weddings, but I can’t say I would never do a gay wedding….If my granddaughter asked me someday, maybe I would.”
— Ryan Visconti (@ryanvisconti) January 26, 2023
He even argued that churches should “make room” for “married” gay men since it was “as close as they can get to a New Testament framework of marriage.”
Worst of all, @AndyStanley said, “We need to make room for gay men who choose to be married to each other in our churches, because that’s as close as they can get to a New Testament framework of marriage.” 😳
— Ryan Visconti (@ryanvisconti) January 26, 2023
It’s no secret that Andy Stanley has “unhitched from the Old Testament” but just think about how far Andy Stanley has drifted from any biblical mooring. God made woman for man in the Genesis account. That men and women belong together in marriage is fundamental to a biblical anthropology. Andy Stanley sees committed sodomy as a sufficient substitution in the body of Christ for Christian marriage.
Unlike overtly liberal churches, Stanley’s church claims to accept the Bible as God’s inerrant word. That he claims to believe the Bible is precisely what makes him so dangerous. He pretends to believe. North Point Ministries should be viewed along the same lines as the Watchtower and the Latter Day Saints. Andy Stanley is a wicked man, leading a “church” full sinners straight to Hell.
I anathematize Andy Stanley. I anathematize those would accept him as their pastor. I anathematize those who still hold him up as a church leadership guru.
*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.
