Uphold­ing What Scrip­ture Teach­es on Homo­sex­u­al­i­ty Is Lov­ing, Part 2

In part 1, we exam­ined six real­i­ties about homo­sex­u­al­i­ty the church needs to come to under­stand and accept if it is to

• • • address this issue effec­tive­ly,
    • gen­uine­ly meet peo­ple’s needs, and
    • remain faith­ful to God and His Word.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, against back­drop of the unbib­li­cal cul­tur­al nar­ra­tive on this issue, a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of lead­ers in the evan­gel­i­cal church are echo­ing what the cul­ture says, even as they claim to remain true to God’s Word. Andy Stan­ley is one such leader. On Thurs­day and Fri­day, Sep­tem­ber 28–29, 2023, Andy’s church, the Atlanta-area North Point Com­mu­ni­ty Church (NPCC), host­ed the Uncon­di­tion­al Con­fer­ence, a

two-day pre­mier event is for par­ents of LGBTQ+ chil­dren and for min­istry lead­ers look­ing to dis­cov­er ways to sup­port par­ents and LGBTQ+ chil­dren in their church­es. You will be equipped, refreshed, and inspired as you hear from lead­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tors on top­ics that speak to your heart, soul, and mind. We deeply desire this time will bring about heal­ing and restora­tion. 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.

There were some seri­ous prob­lems with the con­fer­ence, sev­er­al of which South­ern Bap­tist Sem­i­nary Pres­i­dent Al Mohler antic­i­pat­ed before it was held and high­light­ed in an arti­cle titled “The train is leav­ing the sta­tion: Andy Stanley’s depar­ture from Bib­li­cal Chris­tian­i­ty.” While Mohler’s arti­cle has mer­it, we at EWTC News were com­pelled to point out numer­ous incon­sis­ten­cies in Mohler’s own track record in address­ing homo­sex­u­al­i­ty, includ­ing incon­sis­ten­cies in his efforts to call to account oth­er lead­ers mak­ing mis­lead­ing state­ments on the mat­ter.

In this post, we need to call atten­tion to some egre­gious errors Pas­tor Stan­ley made in his ser­mon at North Point Church on Octo­ber 1, 2023. In it he defend­ed the Uncon­di­tion­al Con­fer­ence and the min­istry approach his church has tak­en for many years in rela­tion to help­ing teens and par­ents deal with homo­sex­u­al­i­ty and same-sex attrac­tion. Sig­nif­i­cant­ly, our dis­cus­sion will give us oppor­tu­ni­ties to note, not only some seri­ous errors Andy and oth­er well-known evan­gel­i­cal lead­ers have made and are mak­ing, but also a chance to under­stand how the church that is com­mit­ted to uphold­ing the truth of God’s Word might min­is­ter more faith­ful­ly and effec­tive­ly.

Fas­ten your seat belts! In the begin­ning, when this issue first came up a good num­ber of years ago, Andy asked for help in devel­op­ing a cur­ricu­lum for par­ents and their kids strug­gling with homo­sex­u­al­i­ty. Keep read­ing to find out whom he approached for help and insight. It should serve as a wake-up call to Chris­tians every­where!

First, Andy Stan­ley insists that the church must lis­ten to LGBTQ peo­ple. There is truth here, but Stan­ley acts as though the church has noth­ing to say to them, or that what it does have to say nev­er will be effec­tive. His mes­sage to the church essen­tial­ly is: “Lis­ten, under­stand, and learn. Don’t say any­thing.”

Sec­ond, Andy Stan­ley empha­sizes that “Jesus drew cir­cles” and states that Al Mohler’s “ver­sion of Chris­tian­i­ty,” unlike Jesus, “draws lines.” Andy nev­er acknowl­edges that Jesus also “drew lines” — and harsh ones, at that.

Third, amaz­ing­ly, Stan­ley turns to LGBTQ indi­vid­u­als for insight and help to teach and instruct the peo­ple in his church.

Fourth, Stan­ley ignores ex-gays — indi­vid­u­als who have left homo­sex­u­al­i­ty as a direct result of their com­mit­ment to Jesus Christ. They actu­al­ly are the most dis­crim­i­nat­ed-against minor­i­ty in Amer­i­ca. In ignor­ing them and instead turn­ing for help to homo­sex­u­als who claim to have main­tained their faith even as they con­tin­ued to hold on to their homo­sex­u­al­i­ty through the years, Stan­ley makes a clear state­ment essen­tial­ly deny­ing the trans­for­ma­tive pow­er of the gospel.

Fifth, the mega-church pas­tor ignores and in doing so, effec­tive­ly denies, the prin­ci­ple high­light­ed in 2 Corinthi­ans 5:17, that “if any­one is in Christ, he is a new cre­ation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” He also bypass­es the oppor­tu­ni­ty to explain that while this is a bedrock prin­ci­ple of the Chris­t­ian faith, it is not a hard-and-fast promise that all those who have strug­gled with same-sex attrac­tion (SSA) will see all their homo­sex­u­al temp­ta­tions imme­di­ate­ly or com­plete­ly dis­ap­pear. Nev­er­the­less, God does change peo­ple from the inside out; and through faith, reliance on the Holy Spir­it, account­abil­i­ty, dis­ci­pline, and com­pe­tent coun­sel­ing, for­mer homo­sex­u­als will see a decrease in homo­sex­u­al temp­ta­tions. Like so many oth­er things in the Chris­t­ian life, this is a process. It hap­pens, not overnight, but over time. Yet believ­ing in the pow­er of God to change peo­ple is essen­tial. Here is one such exam­ple.

Sixth, Stan­ley effec­tive­ly blames God for the plight and agony of those who con­tin­ue to strug­gle with unwant­ed SSA after they’ve have prayed dili­gent­ly and for a long time for God to take it away.

Why might God not answer these prayers affir­ma­tive­ly? Does­n’t He care? The answer, of course, is that He does care, and He cares to an infi­nite degree. He wants to help those expe­ri­enc­ing this agony — and the help they tru­ly need can be pro­vid­ed by the church. How­ev­er, Stan­ley’s appar­ent assump­tions, as well as his approach, pre­vent this from hap­pen­ing.

Next time we’ll dis­cuss this fur­ther — and our dis­cus­sion will help us, not only under­stand God bet­ter, but also the nature of same-sex attrac­tion.

Find Part 3 here

Stay tuned!