Andy Stanley Says Christians Don’t Have To Believe In All The Bible’s Miracles

Andy Stanley is up to his old tricks again, arguing in a recent sermon that Christians don’t have to believe in all the miracles recorded in the bible, but only have to believe in two.

You’ll recall Stanley previously made waves for encouraging Christians to “unhitch” themselves from portions of Old Testament Scripture, denied the Genesis account, saying God only said it to ‘accommodate to our capacity,’ repeatedly told his congregants, ‘I’m not arguing that the bible is correct,’ told them it doesn’t matter if the bible is true, so long as it’s ‘mostly reliable,’ that they shouldn’t follow Jesus through the Old Testament but only through the gospels, and told his church the ‘foundation of our faith is not the whole bible.’

He also lamented that the ‘entire bible’ has become the church’s ‘authority,’ claimed the bible is not equally inspired or equally important, and even argued that demanding potential converts believe the bible is true and without error is an unnecessary obstacle to them coming to Christ. He also argued that Jesus’ birth and the events surrounding the nativity don’t really matter, thus casting doubt upon his supernatural birth by saying “If somebody can predict their own death and then their own resurrection, I’m not all that concerned about how they got into the world” and “Christianity doesn’t hinge on the truth or even the stories around the Birth of Jesus.”‘

All that doesn’t include the mountain of pro-LGBTQ rhetoric seen in these endnotes.

He explains:

“Do you have to believe in miracles to be a Christian? And in fact, that’s one of the questions I wanna answer today is, do you have to believe in miracles to be a Christian? And do you have to believe all those miracle stories in the Bible in order to be a Christian? I mean, is that absolutely necessary?

And so if you’re not a Christian or you used to be, or you’re reconsidering faith, or you’re considering faith for the first time, I wanna actually, it’s kind of a strange place to start a series, I wanna begin with this question. I wanna answer this one now: Do you have to believe in miracles to be a Christian?

And the answer is ‘yes,’ but you only have to believe in two miracles to be a Christian.

So I wanna talk about those two. And there’s a reason for that, and that’s gonna become clear over the course of the next few minutes. And the interesting thing about these two miracles that you have to believe in to be a Christian, is most of you and most people in the world actually already believe in one of them. And if you accept that, the second miracle that you have to believe to be a Christian, if you accept the second one, it opens the door to making the other miracles more acceptable.”

He continues, sharing that the first miracle you have to believe in is that God created the world, whether that be young earth creationism (which he doesn’t believe in) or a big bang that occurred 4.7 billion years ago. The second miracle is that you must believe Jesus rose from the dead.

“So the possibility and the reality of miracles is fundamental to Christianity. And to sum it up, let me just give you these two statements. The miracle of the universe or the birth of the universe, the miracle of the universe is the foundation of our faith in God. We believe that God is the uncaused causer. He’s the eternal God that he brought from nothing everything, including the laws of nature that allows us to have science, to make our world observable, to make things observable and repeatable.

It’s like, it’s amazing. It’s God unleashed the human mind and said it’s gonna roll out into the future just like the universe rolls out.

And the second statement, the miracle of the resurrection is the foundation of our faith in Jesus. So if you’re looking for, and I know you’re not, but if you’re looking for the irreducible minimum number of miracles you have to believe in order to be a Christian, if you’re considering Christianity and are like, ‘do I have to believe a guy put everybody on a boat? Really?’ You just start here.

The foundation, the miracle of the universe, foundation of faith in God, miracle of resurrection, foundation of our faith in Jesus. But once you accept this miracle, you will find many of those other miracles far more acceptable.”

Andy Stanley says believing all the miracles of the bible like the Virgin Birth or Jesus feeding the 5000 is optional for Christians, who only have to believe in two. pic.twitter.com/3hmTnGJKTf

— Protestia (@Protestia) October 16, 2024

“Far more acceptable…”

Of course, this means people do not have to believe in talking serpents or Noah’s ark, which he alluded to earlier, but also in miracles like Jesus being born of a virgin, feeding the 5000, his transfiguration, walking on water, Peter healing the sick, Paul raising the dead, or any number of miracles in the Old Testament performed by Moses, Elijah, and Elisha.

While Stanley would likely want believers to believe in (at least) most of those, it destroys the bible’s authority and credibility to suggest that they are optional, something he seemingly doesn’t mind doing.

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