Andy Stanley’s Half-Gospel

Christianity without repentance is no Christianity at all...

Andy Stanley, son of the late pastor Charles Stanley and founding pastor of North Point Community Church in Alpharetta, GA, is one of the most influential Christian figures in America.

Last weekend, North Point Community Church hosted the “Unconditional Conference” for “parents of LGBTQ+ children and for ministry leaders looking to discover ways to support parents and LGBTQ+ children in their churches.”

Look, if someone has a kid who says he or she is gay, I’m all for the church providing resources and support to help the family work through that, but the help offered needs to be derived from a biblical understanding of sexuality.

Stanley has been hinting at a more LGBTQ-affirming position for months. Anyone who’s paying attention could have seen this coming from a mile away. Stanley claims to hold to a biblical view of marriage and sexuality while swallowing whole the LGBTQ talking points that obscure the power of the gospel to help people change.

The problem with the Andy Stanley/North Point/Unconditional Conference approach to LGBTQ sins is treating them as a special, protected class of unrebukable sins.

Pastor Stanley speaks as though his way is more loving, but it isn’t. It isn’t loving to withhold from people the grace of repentance. Yet repentance is absent from Pastor Stanley’s message.

Repentance is good. It’s an essential feature of the gospel. Jesus’ first words in Mark are “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15). Christianity without repentance is no Christianity at all. A gospel without repentance is a hopeless half-gospel that leaves people in their sin.

Calling sinners to repent assumes the hope that they can change in the power of the gospel. This is good news.

Frankly, I grow tired of hearing people talk about LGBTQ sins as though God has no power to change these desires. Really? If peoples’ desires can’t be changed, then how is it that LGBTQ sins have increased exponentially in the last decade?

This survey from Gallup tells the story. Notice the green line at the top. That’s Gen Z, those people born since 1997. In 2017, the first year Gen Z was surveyed, 10.5% of them claimed some LGBT identification, the highest of any demographic group.

Was there some genetic mutation in 1997 that caused this to happen? Of course not. It’s a simple social contagion. The more culture celebrates these sins, the more desirable they seem.

This survey gives clear evidence that LGBTQ is not some inborn desire over which people have no control. Gen Z is simply bearing evidence that the non-stop pro-LGBTQ sales gimmick is working and Gen Z is buying what they’re selling.

We cultivate what we celebrate. Desires can change. Pastor Stanley’s Unconditional Conference celebrates a hopeless message that people can’t change because their sexual desires are just too strong to overcome.

He tells stories of people who tried to “pray the gay away” but nothing changed. God didn’t answer their prayers. Therefore, the church just needs to accept this fact and move on.

Who will be drawn to that kind of message? This message will be very popular for people who want to believe they can be Christian without repenting of their sin.

(I’m not talking about sinless perfection. I’m talking about a heart attitude of hatred for sin and a desire to fight it in the power of the Spirit.)

Omitting repentance from our preaching of the gospel implies that God has the power to save people but not the power to change them. At least not in this life.

There’s nothing new under the sun. The early church dealt with homosexuality, lesbianism, prostitution, adultery, and incest. The Bible isn’t silent about how to deal with these sins. LGBTQ desires can change in the power of the gospel.

As individuals, we call people to repent and utilize the various means of grace to help people reorient their desires around Christ and the truth of scripture.

As churches, we practice church discipline. This is a “tough love” approach that is necessary to impress on the individual the seriousness of sin and as a warning to others in the church to keep them from falling into sin. Paul said, “do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?” (1 Cor 5:6).

Unrepentance is leaven. It spreads through the church. Any sin that goes uncorrected (interpersonally or from the pulpit) is given space to grow like leaven.

If North Point doesn’t change course and begin correcting this sin, it will continue to grow. North Point is now on record as a church that will not call people to repentance regarding LGBTQ sin. Thus, the LGBTQ “leaven” will eventually leaven the whole “lump” of the church.

Give it five years. NP will get pulled further and further in this direction until they are fully gay-affirming. There’s nothing to stop it.

The only thing to stop it is church discipline. True churches practice church discipline. There’s no other way around it. If they don’t, then that sin will grow like leaven. “Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened” (1 Cor 5:7).

A few verses later, Paul says:

"But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. ‘Purge the evil person from among you’” (11-13).

Someone might say, “What about the other sins Paul mentions? Why don’t churches discipline people for greed?” According to this text, all of these sins are legitimate grounds for church discipline: sexual immorality, greed, idolatry, reviling, being a drunkard, and being a swindler.

Right after this, Paul turns the warning into a promise:

“Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor 6:18-20)

The fruit of church discipline is an optimistic hope that God can and will change people, including their sexual desires. Don’t buy the lie that sinful sexual desires are beyond the reach of God’s power to change.

The bottom line is this: don’t rob people of the grace of repentance. Call people to repent of any/all sins (including LGBTQ sins). Hold them accountable through the practice of church discipline. And stand amazed at what God will do as his Word is honored.

Michael Clary is a family man, church planter, and pastor. He is the author of “God’s Good Design”. Find his blog below: https://substack.com/@michaelclary