North Point Community Church ‘impastor’ Andy Stanley continued his wretched job of smarmily assessing what’s wrong with Christendom and then explaining why he and his church are nailing it 24/7. This time, declaring that it is a sign of immaturity to publicly criticize anyone you’ve never met or had a conversation with, including politicians, public figures, and other Christians.
Stanley, who has mastered the art of clucking his tongue, shaking his head, and speaking in an exasperated tone like everyone should come to his conclusion, has been on our radar recently after saying it doesn’t matter if the bible is true, so long as it’s ‘mostly reliable’, saying that the “foundation of our faith is not the whole bible, and opening up his church service with a Led Zeppelin concert.
He appeared on Supreme Lending Southeast (SLS) and gave an interview, where he rebuked political extremists on both sides of the aisle and bemoaned the notion that someone can just fire off criticism or rebuke of the other side without talking with them first, despite any public statements they may have said about a matter. His method, he explains, is the mature thing to do:
When we lead with criticism, we’ve abandoned values and again, there’s no nuance and the conversation ends. And then the other thing I would say is this…and to be honest I’ve not asked you this off-camera so I hope you give me the right answer, but I think I know you well enough to know the answer.
Pat, who would you go on social media- Twitter, Instagram, Facebook- who would you go on any of those three platforms and criticize publicly by name that you’ve never met or had a conversation with?
(Pat: “No one.”)
No one. Every time I ask a thoughtful, mature person that question, they just pause and say, ‘No one’. Well, social media is full of people who don’t know the people they’re criticizing. And I mean… just stop one day and read the mentions of any famous person on Twitter.
So the people who criticize other people by name, people they’ve never met, and this sounds judgmental, I think that is evidence of extraordinary immaturity. Because whenever I ask people I respect “who would you criticize by name on social media that you’ve never met?” Everybody says, “No one, I would never do that.”
I wouldn’t either. So the hypocrisy in a lot of this, is that if you would not be willing to walk up to that person in public, and say to them to their face, what you said about them on social media, you’re the hypocrite, you’re the hypocrite. You may be right, and your worldview may be correct and your opinion and your political persuasion may be right. But if you wouldn’t have the courage to say it to their face, then why in the world would you expose such extraordinary immaturity by posting it on social media?”
Bonus Context: Stanley has said before that everyone is a little racist, claimed that ‘you have to offend white people’ or else they’ll never repent of racism, said from the pulpit “here’s an uncomfortable fact: white people fear black men” and went on a woke Critical Race Theory tirade by arguing “it’s not enough to be ‘not racist,’ you must be ‘anti-racist,” before telling them that they’re all racists in their hearts.
