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North Point church pastor resignation controversy started On April 15, Stanley delivered a sermon that was debated on a few websites in the days that followed.
On May 1, when Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President R. Albert Mohler Jr. blogged about the sermon on his website, the sermon gained widespread attention.
There is little room for debate about the story’s meaning because of how expertly it was told and how the message was presented. Is North Point Community Church finally accepting homosexuals?
In his writings from Alpharetta, Georgia, Mohler talked about Stanley’s nondenominational church. He found it hard to believe, but that’s what the message seemed to suggest.
Stanley preached “When Gracie Met Truthy,” suggesting that Jesus’ grace and truth teachings conflict. It was the fifth and last sermon in a series on what it means to be “Christian.”
Andy Stanley, son of Charles Stanley and former North Point professor, provided a 10-minute story about a husband and wife to illustrate this dilemma.
Stanley said the marriage divorced six months after the wife discovered her husband was seeing another man.
After several months, the ex-husband returned to North Point with a date. Cohabitation enraged the ex-wife.
“This is my church,” she said. You can visit any Atlanta church, even mine. “I need… drama-free zone,” Stanley said.
But not at North Point. They went to Buckhead Church, another North Point campus church, where Stanley’s sermons were shown on a huge screen.
Stanley, who utilized stick figures in his sermon, said the woman told him the gay couple attended Buckhead Church.
She told him the lesbian couple attended Buckhead and worked on the church’s “guest services teams.”
“He’s still married, right?” Stanley mentioned the ex-spouse’s new girlfriend. She said divorce took longer than expected. It’s dragging.
Stanley called his ex-wife’s new husband
“I contacted my friend and said, ‘OK, I know things have been hard between us, but look—and I’m thrilled you’re in church, that’s a fantastic thing, and I’m glad you’re at one of our churches, that’s good—but your partner, he’s still married. It’s classic adultery. Your lover is married. So you can’t work in guest services, I said.
Mohler was troubled by Stanley’s implication that homosexuality is not a sin or a barrier to service.
The anecdote was argued by Mohler to imply that adultery, not homosexuality, was a sin. Infidelity was stressed by Stanley, but the fact that the two men were gay was omitted.
He seemed to normalize their relationship. The host team can include divorced couples. Their sexuality was not judged, only their adultery.
Baptist Press requested an interview or response from Stanley through his assistant, but Stanley asked that the illustration be taken in the context of the series.
In the same lecture, Stanley mentioned LGBT North Point and college attendees who had abandoned gay churches.
Gay members of gay-friendly churches told Stanley, “I feel like all they do is affirm my gayness.” Bibles aren’t taught. I sought Bible explanations.
It isn’t very safe, Andy. Sometimes you think the other shoe will drop. I question my acceptance. Other churches aren’t teaching me everything.
Mohler urges, elaborating.”Due to the volatility of this issue, ambiguity will be replaced by clarity sooner rather than later,” Mohler wrote. Is Andy Stanley against the church denouncing homosexuality?
We pray that since he loves sinners so much, he will tell them the complete truth—about our sins and God’s provision in Christ—and clarify the problems so graphically addressed in his message in a way that respects the Bible’s unambiguous teachings.
“Biblical faithfulness simply does not allow for the normalization of homosexuality,” Mohler continued. Everyone should hear the gospel and repent. Nobody—including ourselves—should accept Christ or the church on our terms.
Stanley’s ex-wife forgives him and invites him, his new partner, and their daughter to dinner.
The year prior, she started dating a father and went to North Point’s Christmas service with six others.
Several bloggers criticised Stanley’s post. Howell Scott, Bethel Baptist Church’s senior pastor, wrote in a blog post on April 26 that he had learned from Stanley but disagreed with the analogy.
“After watching this message, I am confused as to how Andy Stanley would respond to someone struggling with the sin of homosexuality,” Scott remarked.
“Stanley communicates well. I can’t help but think his analogy was meant to communicate a certain belief about how the church should apply grace and truth to homosexuality (although he made great efforts to avoid discussing homosexuality).
Christ is ‘grace and truth.’ Due to ambiguity, we can be merciful. Homosexuality is unavoidable.
Who is the lead pastor of North Point Church?
Andy Stanley, the pastor at Atlanta’s North Point Community Church, fits this description.
We’ve talked about Andy Stanley before and his campaign to get Christians to abandon the “sacred text, sacred man, sacred place” model that he believes Jesus abolished during his lifetime.
Now consider what Andy Stanley has to say:
The church is, or at least should be, nothing more than a group of individuals who follow the teachings of a man God brought to earth to reveal Himself and make His way apparent.
Even if you disagree, you should consider the possibility that there might be more to the story.
We hope Andy Stanley will finally hang up his pulpit shoes and settle down with his congregation.
Seeing a false teacher follow his conscience, renounce the pastorate, and do what he thinks is right is encouraging.
In his book, “The Longest Shortest Time,” Stanley writes, “By God’s grace, perhaps in our generation, we will be used to strip away everything that makes the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ unnecessarily resistible.”
Stanley, the buck stops with you. We look forward to you leaving your “sacred space” (North Point Community Church) and your role as a “sacred man” (pastor) who distorts our “sacred text” (the Bible).
That was the case when the North Point church pastor resigned, so keep connected with us for updates about that and many more.