Pastor Andy Stanley Reaffirms Stand On LGBTQ
Pastor Andy Stanley Reaffirms Stand On LGBTQ: Despite coming under fire severally for his Pro-LGBTQ remarks, Pastor Andy Stanley has reaffirmed his stand on the issue once again. This time, the pastor urged the rest of the church to learn from him and his church.
The megachurch pastor Andy Stanley while defending his church’s hosting of a conference with LGBT-affirming speakers, he urged Christians and Churches to change their approach on the issue of homosexuality.
Last week, Stanley’s North Point Community Church in Alpharetta, Ga., hosted the Unconditional Conference. This event was billed as a conference “for parents of LGBTQ+ children and ministry leaders looking to discover ways to support parents and LGBTQ+ children in their churches.” The conference’s speakers included individuals who have argued Christianity has been wrong on the issue throughout its history. Among the speakers were two gay men.
Stanley criticized theologian Albert Mohler without using his name. The seminary president had written a column denouncing the conference as a departure from historic Christianity and had used an illustration, arguing the theological train for Stanley had left “the station.”
“I have never subscribed to his version of Biblical Christianity to begin with. So, I’m not leaving anything,” Stanley responded. “… In my opinion, it is my opinion, his version of biblical Christianity is the problem. … His version of biblical Christianity is why people are leaving Christianity. … [It’s] because they can’t find Jesus in the midst of all the other stuff and all the other theology.”
Stanley added, “That version of Christianity draws lines. And Jesus drew circles.”
The North Point pastor revealed that his church hosts a quarterly event for parents of LGBT-identifying children and teens.
“You shouldn’t be criticizing us. You should come and learn from us,” he said, addressing critics. “We’ve been doing this for years. Every evangelical, every conservative church needs to figure this out.”
The two gay men who spoke at the conference, he said, previously spoke at the quarterly event for parents of LGBT-identifying children and teens. Those two men are Brian Nietzel, the co-founder of Renovus, and Justin Lee, the executive director of Nuance Ministries.
“Their stories and their journeys of growing up in church and maintaining their faith in Christ and their commitment to follow Christ all through their high school and college and singles and all the way up to the time that they were married — their story is so powerful,” Stanley said. “… These two guys have an incredible way of helping parents understand what’s going on in the mind and the heart specifically, of their gay kids.”
Being gay, Stanley asserted, has no parallels.
“All of us have felt shame about things we’ve done. All of us have felt shame about things we haven’t done. But I bet you’ve never carried shame about who you are. That’s the difference,” he said.
The purpose of the conference, Stanley said, was to “equip parents to connect with their kids, and to reconnect with their kids and to stay connected with their kids so they would have influence and keep their kids connected to their faith.”
North Point, Stanley said, has many attendees who identify as LGBT. Some of them choose to live a chaste life. But “for many, that is not sustainable.”
“So, they choose a same-sex marriage — not because they’re convinced it is biblical,” Stanley said. “They read the same Bible we do. They chose to marry for the same reason many of us would — love, companionship, and family. And in the end, as was the case for all of us — this is the important thing I want you to hear me say — it’s their decision. Our decision is to decide how we respond to their decision. Our decision as a group of local churches is how are we going to respond to their decision.”
It is not surprising that Pastor Stanley’s remarks have once again drawn criticism from Christians and Church leaders all over the world with many regarding his teachings as ‘Anti-Christian”.