Exclusive: Andy Stanley Tells ‘Unconditional Conference’ Attendees He REFUSES to Say ‘Homosexuality is a Sin’

For part 1 of our exposé, dealing with our general sense of the conference click here. For part 2, where we review a session by panelists with trans children who argue for gender affirming care, click here. For part 3, where a speaker repeatedly teaches that we must be gay affirming, click here.

Andy Stanley joined Debbie Causey for the second main session of the Unconditional conference. Causey is a pastor and the long-time Care Director at North Point Community Church. She is a board member of Renovus, an LGBTQ activist group led by her and other gay-affirming leaders within North Point church, and she recently revealed that when parents from church come to her looking for resources for their struggling and confused LGBTQ children, she recommends they attend The Christian Closet, a counseling collective where literally all the counselors and therapists are on the LGBTQ spectrum and are gay-affirming. 

Rather than than give a long detailed article, this will be a brief overview of things overheard and said by Stanley. All the direct quotes are italicized.

Andy Stanley said he cried reading Debbie Causey’s book about her gay son.

He said she’s been his counselor for many years,

Stanley said he gets so much Twitter hate, which doesn’t bother him: “it doesn’t hurt my feelings, because I don’t know these people.” But he says he has a little file on his phone called ‘Andy Haters’ that he and his family read out loud and laugh at when they get together.

Stanley said he has a foster daughter that came out as gay in the ninth grade.

He had a long-time friend who loved Jesus and did not want to be gay, and so “the category was established many, many years ago that this isn’t either/ or.”

Stanley says he’s had many conversations with gay people and they were all raised in church. Says he’s grateful for his Southern Baptist heritage, but “the whole category, the whole topic is just a four word response: ‘homosexuality is a sin.” Stanley says that sort of response- ‘homosexuality is a sin’- works fine until your child comes out to you and “suddenly it’s irrelevant. And before long you realize this sentence doesn’t even make sense.”

“And I still get this constantly; ‘Andy, YES or NO?’ We had a Television network kick us off the air this year- just ‘YES or NO, is homosexuality a sin?’ I’m NOT going to answer that question!”

“We have to have new language that creates the potential for a sane, realistic dialogue” regarding homosexuality, because “until we can change the language we can’t have a conversation.“

Talking to parents at the conference who have gay children: “You had four words, homosexuality is a sin,” that’s your whole vocabulary. And then your child comes out, and you have no vocabulary to even have the conversation.” He says: “you have to throw that away- ‘homosexuality is a sin’ -because it’s irrelevant in that moment.”

References a study that says 96% of people who find themselves to be gay have prayed that God to take it away and make them straight, says those stats have a deep impact on him.

Stanley condemns evangelical and conservative churches for saying that people in the LGBTQ community are going to hell, arguing “you should do a word study on hell and realize only Jesus uses it. And he doesn’t mention any of this.”

“Our lives have naturally continued to intersect with gay kids and gay adults- the whole gamut.” Stanley says he feels “some kind of a strange way” that this is what he’s supposed to do.

In that context he reveals “I’ve never talked about this, but the challenge is I can’t make my personal thing the church thing.” He say that “there is a built in tension” and that Mohler’s article and the conference and some other things have “brought it to a head” and maybe they’re at a tipping point.

Says he’s “no martyr” and he’s not “trying to be a hero” but believes maybe he’s here “for such a time as this.“

That’s a lot to take in for now. We’ll continue the rest of his Q &A in our next article tomorrow.

Editor’s Note. We’ve been writing about North Point for a long time, documenting the theological drift of one of the largest megachurches in America, frequently with exclusive reporting. Some of the stories include:

North Point Church Is Sending Children to All-LGBTQ Therapists: We Profile One of The Counselors
Celebrating Transgenderism?! North Point Church Staffers Rejoice After Man Comes Out as Woman
North Point Pastor Recommends Struggling Christians Attend ‘Queer Parent Summit’
Report: North Point Church Personnel Knew ‘Lap Dance Leader’ Was Gay-Affirming+ Andy Stanley Responds

Exclusive! Andy Stanley’s Children Ministry Overrun and Led by Pro-LBGTQ+ Activists
North Point Pastor Praises Gay Man’s Affirming Org. ‘Lord, Let Him Create More Allies for the LGBTQ Community’
North Point Church Baptizes Openly Transgender ‘Man’, After Giving Blessing to Transition?

North Point Church Staffers Found ‘Liking’ Pride Parade Celebration
Surprise Surprise, Another North Point Church Leader is Gay-Affirming and Wildly Liberal
Dr. Michael Brown Says He’s Spent 8 Years Exchanging Texts and Emails with Andy Stanley, Who Has REFUSED to Condemn Homosexuality

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