Al Mohler Con­demns Andy Stan­ley On Homo­sex­u­al­i­ty While Giv­ing Oth­ers a Pass

Andy has respond­ed to Mohler’s arti­cle. Find more infor­ma­tion about that here

In a recent arti­cle by Al Mohler pub­lished in World, Dr. Mohler takes Andy Stan­ley to task for his “depar­ture from Bib­li­cal Chris­tian­i­ty.” What is the issue that is caus­ing a more main­stream Evan­gel­i­cal leader to assert that Andy Stan­ley, a man that has already denied crit­i­cal doc­trines, has depart­ed from Bib­li­cal Chris­tian­i­ty? The indis­putable evi­dence he’s accept­ed the idea that an indi­vid­ual can simul­ta­ne­ous­ly be a prac­tic­ing homo­sex­u­al and a fol­low­er of Christ. Mohler writes,

In the com­ing days, Andy Stan­ley is set to host the “Uncon­di­tion­al Con­fer­ence” at a cam­pus of North Point Com­mu­ni­ty Church in the metro Atlanta area, and the web­site for the con­fer­ence bills it as a “two-day pre­mier event” espe­cial­ly designed for par­ents of LGBTQ+ chil­dren and min­istry lead­ers. [The con­fer­ence was held Sep­tem­ber 28–29, 2023.] “You will be equipped, refreshed, and inspired as you hear from lead­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tors on top­ics that speak to your heart, soul, and mind,” it promis­es. One state­ment stands out in the descrip­tion: “No mat­ter what the­o­log­i­cal stance you hold, we invite you to lis­ten, reflect, and learn as we approach this top­ic from the qui­eter mid­dle space.”

Mohler con­tin­ues, stat­ing that while the event is billed by its spon­sors as pre­sent­ing “the qui­eter mid­dle space,” we must not allow our­selves to be mis­led:

“[T]his event is designed as a plat­form for nor­mal­iz­ing the LGBTQ+ rev­o­lu­tion while claim­ing” oth­er­wise. “In truth, there is no ‘mid­dle space’ on these issues, and it is no longer plau­si­ble to claim that such mid­dle space exists.”

Mohler is cor­rect in his assess­ment of the con­fer­ence and right to con­demn Andy, who seems to still claim to not affirm homo­sex­u­al­i­ty. Mohler points to such things as speak­ers, Justin Lee and Bri­an Niet­zel, both being in gay “mar­riages,” and both being “LGBTQ activists” Mohler describes anoth­er speak­er at the con­fer­ence, David Gushee, as “a promi­nent intel­lec­tu­al who has been hon­est about his own change of mind on the moral sta­tus of LGBTQ+ behav­iors and rela­tion­ships.” Mohler, very right­ful­ly, states that “[t]his is not ‘the qui­eter mid­dle space’.”

If you want more infor­ma­tion on the event being prob­lem­at­ic, then Mohler hon­est­ly does a good job artic­u­lat­ing that. The arti­cle is worth read­ing, and the facts of it are not at issue here. Mohler is right to cri­tique Stan­ley for drift­ing into the “qui­eter mid­dle space,” or may we frame it, the space where the “Bible whis­pers” instead of shouts.

Wrong When its Qui­et, Okay When its a Whis­per

J.D. Greear, megachurch pas­tor and for­mer pres­i­dent of the South­ern Bap­tist Con­ven­tion, has become infa­mous for stat­ing that the “Bible appears more to whis­per when it comes to sex­u­al sin, com­pared to its shouts about mate­ri­al­ism and reli­gious pride.”

Why is it prob­lem­at­ic that Mohler did not com­ment on J.D. Greear’s com­ments at the time? When they were made, Greear was the pres­i­dent of the South­ern Bap­tist Con­ven­tion, of which Mohler is a part of, and leader of their flag­ship sem­i­nary. I.E. this was an influ­en­tial leader in Mohler’s own back­yard, not the leader of a non­de­nom­i­na­tion­al church he is not con­nect­ed with. Yet it may be argued that Greear’s com­ments did not war­rant the same atten­tion as the open­ly affirm­ing nature of par­tic­i­pants at the “Uncon­di­tion­al Con­fer­ence.”

Greear is clear­ly on the same path as Andy, so much so that both seemed to have shared the same opin­ions back in 2015 when Greear stat­ed on April 26th that “the church ought to be the safest place on the plan­et for a teenag­er with same-sex attrac­tion to reveal that, or to ‘come out’.” While on April 17th, Andy stat­ed that church­es should be the “safest place on the plan­et for stu­dents to talk about any­thing, includ­ing same-sex attrac­tion.”

To fur­ther empha­size the com­pro­mised posi­tion of Greear we can point to two more exam­ples from the “Whis­pers” ser­mon:

“Stand up and be among the fiercest advo­cates for the preser­va­tion of the dig­ni­ty and the rights of LGBT peo­ple.”

What rights do LGBT peo­ple not have?

“Paul list homo­sex­u­al­i­ty sim­ply as one cor­rup­tion among many.”

Paul, in Romans 1, specif­i­cal­ly lists homo­sex­u­al­i­ty sep­a­rate from oth­er sins, and in the con­text of a soci­ety that has been ful­ly giv­en over to their lusts.

But Greear did not stop at homo­sex­u­al­i­ty in 2019, and stat­ed in a pod­cast that “I think Chris­tians ought to be char­i­ta­ble in how they approach [using pre­ferred pro­nouns]. I don’t think there’s a defin­i­tive, once-for-all-time, right and wrong answer.” He also clar­i­fied that he leans towards “gen­eros­i­ty” and would refer to some­one who vis­its his church by their pre­ferred pro­nouns. He also rec­om­mends “gay Chris­t­ian” activist Pre­ston Sprin­kle, who, though not as extreme, would not be out of place at the “Uncon­di­tion­al Con­fer­ence.”

Greear has tried to dis­tance him­self from these com­ments, though he did not see fit to take down the con­tent. Even if we treat him char­i­ta­bly now, why was Mohler unwill­ing to warn about the train that was prepar­ing to leave his own back­yard in 2019? The one that was a direct threat to the integri­ty of his own denom­i­na­tion? Clear­ly, Greear is, or at least was, one step from Andy.

If Greear is one Step From Andy, Then Mohler is one Step From Greear

Mohler has pre­vi­ous­ly been clear on homo­sex­u­al­i­ty, stat­ing in 2004 that “[h]omosexual acts are express­ly and uncon­di­tion­al­ly for­bid­den by God through His Word, and such acts are an abom­i­na­tion to the Lord by His own dec­la­ra­tion.” Yet by 2011 he was call­ing the church out for being “homo­pho­bic,” and that homo­sex­u­al­i­ty was “more than a choice.” This tra­jec­to­ry would con­tin­ue, and by 2014 Moher was going as far as “repent­ing” for deny­ing “sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion” at a Ethics and Reli­gious Lib­er­ty Com­mis­sion event that has since been delet­ed, though infor­ma­tion and clips are avail­able. The Bible nev­er comes close to affirm­ing some kind of genet­i­cal­ly fixed ori­en­ta­tion, and affirm­ing such a thing is more than a halfway house to accept­ing homo­sex­u­al­i­ty. Not only does he accept the idea of fixed ori­en­ta­tion, but Mohler said he repent­ed of the Bib­li­cal posi­tion.

It needs to be point­ed out that for as far as Mohler has drift­ed, he still believes the “ori­en­ta­tion” itself is sin­ful, and obvi­ous­ly can artic­u­late that accept­ing homo­sex­u­al­i­ty puts one out­side Bib­li­cal ortho­doxy, as he points out about Andy Stan­ley. Still, it is strange to see Mohler, a man board­ing a train, fine with a man flirt­ing with pulling out of the sta­tion, yet con­demn anoth­er man for pulling the train out of the sta­tion. It seems that Mohler does not under­stand what trains at a train sta­tion do… they even­tu­al­ly leave that sta­tion.