Tag: unconditional conference

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Exclusive: Andy Stanley Tells ‘Unconditional Conference’ Attendees That Scriptures Against Homosexuality Were About ‘Serial Sexual Relationships’

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. For part 4, where Stanley tells the audience that he refuses to call homosexuality a sin, 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.

“Most of the negative feedback I get is from traditional evangelical Christians, because I don’t say things the right way, and they read between the lines, and that’s ok.”

Causey asks him what he thinks about parents who feel like they have to choose between their theology and their love for their kids, and Andy responds, “bad theology.” He elaborates: “if your theology limits who you can minister to, then you definitely don’t have the theology of Jesus.”

Debbie asks him why all these kids are leaving the church, and he says, “Because it’s hard for people’s theology to grow up.” He says when a church system “doesn’t allow people’s theology to grow up, “then words and phrases become the theology.”

Andy says that for most people, if their faith doesn’t evolve, “it’s not a big deal” because they’ll just live their life and they won’t have to deal with it, but for the 18-25 year olds, “it’s a binary, it’s ‘I’m either going to deny who I am and pretend, I’m out.'”

LGBTQ kids feel like they have to choose between themselves or their faith, and “you can only choose your faith over yourself for so long.” For this reason, they’ve spent the last decade “making broader conversations. So LGBTQ kids don’t think it’s either/ or” or that they have to choose between openly and proudly gay and being a faithful believer.

In the context of most LGBTQ people having pray for God to take away their homosexuality: “if the church doesn’t know what to do with people with an unanswered prayer, we’re just not much of a church.”

To people always criticizing gay people and being judgemental towards them: “One of these days, you’re gonna love an LGBTQ+ person. And in that moment, you’re gonna change, but you don’t have to wait until then.”

In the context of talking about unanswered prayers, Stanley clarifies a with Debbie Causey that homosexuality is not a disease or an illness that God needs to heal or cure. Stanley then says, “I know it’s tricky because you have 1 Corinthians 6, 1 Timothy 1, Romans 1.” He says that “the behaviors that Paul called out as sin then were sin then, and are sin now, because serial sexual relationships are bad for everybody involved.” He says “We take these verses very seriously. But again, this is different, and we have to make space and create a new vocabulary.”

Says that when you have and LGBTQ+ child, “all of those filters we’re constantly trying to take down so that we can just love our kids and not leverage our kids and use our kids and bounce our reputation off our kids” are “so heightened and so enraged and so inflamed.”

When it comes to parenting, “You never want to give up influence with your children unnecessarily.” Says those with gay children “are tempted daily to accidentally give up influence, ultimate influence with your kids. And the church has not been your partner.”

We’ll conclude with the final part of this report tomorrow, where Stanley criticizes Rosaria Butterfield, Becket Cook, and Christopher Yuan for their views and advice about homosexuality, among other things.

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

Tags debbie causey, unconditional conference, what was said

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Trans Kids and Chemical Castration: Embracing the Journey Conference. Session#2

Post author By Staff Writer
Post date October 4, 2023
19 Comments on Trans Kids and Chemical Castration: Embracing the Journey Conference. Session#2

For part 1 of our exposé, click here

The conference began with a worship song and a welcoming word by Greg and Lynn McDonald, who also played some videos introducing themselves and the event’s purpose. Notably, one video featured Hanne Larson, a ministry leader with Embracing the Journey who explained that she suspected her child was transgender at three years old. After the introductions, Debbie Causey took the stage for the first message.

Causey is the gay-affirming pastor and Director of North Point’s Care Network. She’s a board member of Renovus, the LGBTQ-affirming activist group formed by North Point pastors and leaders designed to normalize homosexuality within the church. She also recommends that struggling LGBTQ kids attend the Christian Closet for counseling, an organization whose schtick is that all their counselors and therapists are themselves LGBTQA in some way or another. Her session was titled ‘A Winter of the Soul,’ and she outlined some of the most painful times she’s experienced as a mother to a gay son, pulling from private memories and personal vignettes.

Breakout Session Two: The Transgender Journey: Parent Panel Discussion.

This session featured a panel of a half-dozen parents with transgender children sharing their experiences raising kids who believe they are the opposite sex. It was an emotional time that frequently saw the men and women in tears as they lent their wisdom, experiences, and beliefs, giving insight into everything they did right and wrong along their journey.

But these are not ordinary panelist parents. Instead, nearly all of them are members of Embracing the Journey’s coaching, counseling, and group leader teams. These men and women host and lead small groups for this craven ministry, with North Point Community Church helping to direct desperate parents to them. They’re also all gay-affirming, and everything about the answers reflected that.

During introductions, one panelist proudly proclaimed, “I am the father of a transgender daughter.” Another explained that his son initially came out as gay but has since morphed into a “non-binary trans human.” Another shared, “Five years ago (my daughter) came out as transgender masculine,” and a long-time staff member of North Point revealed that his son came out as transgender two years ago but has yet to transition or change his pronouns.

The panelists spoke about the fear, denial, and bargaining they experienced when their children first came out, along with the intense guilt and sense that theyt did something that caused it. One panelist described her response to having her child come out as transgender as “shock, followed by intense fear for my child’s safety and what is the future going to bring.”

The host turned their attention to the “unique challenges and considerations” transgender kids are facing, and one panelist divulged that the medical aspect of it is always at the forefront of their minds. She insisted that a child’s decision to take hormones is “very misunderstood” in the world right now:

For many of us and for our kids who take hormones to feel like themselves, this is medically necessary. This is life-saving. And so many in the culture treat it like it’s some flippant thing.”

She further insisted that people need to “come to grips” with the reality that “medical intervention is necessary for a person’s well-being and healing” and that gender-affirming care “is a treatment for gender dysphoria.” Then her voice began to quiver:

“This is life-changing; this is permanently altering someone’s body. (As a parent) the hardest piece is how do we know this is real? There’s not a test that can be taken. There isn’t a mark that can prove they’re transgender.”

She says she’s spent years watching her daughter get hairy legs due to the hormones and listening to her voice change, which has been hard but worth it because “I want my child alive, alive, alive, alive.”

One panelist, a medical doctor, shared that her daughter is on testosterone and had top surgery. She explained that “it’s critical for transgender people to have good counseling” because they have a “really high incidence of depression and anxiety and other psychiatric diagnoses,” including being on the autism spectrum. For this reason, she says it’s crucial that parents “optimize those factors in the process of figuring out what to do about hormones and surgery.”

A major session theme was how the parents could gain influence and build a stronger relationship. One panelist said that using their child’s new personal pronouns helped them gain a foothold in their life, while another said it was as simple as “really loving them for who they are” without trying to convert them with therapy or just preaching at them.

One panelist told the story of forcing her daughter in 8th grade to wear a dress to graduation even though she wanted to dress like a boy. Looking back, she said she deeply regrets making her daughter do it, but years later, she has been given a second chance. Now, when she goes shopping with her transgender son, she reveals how excited she is to run to the men’s sections and recommend outfits to her. She says, “Supporting my child is truly celebrating who my child is now and being grateful for this beautiful kid that I have.”

Lastly, as it pertains how having a transgender child has shaped them spiritually, one panelist shared that they initially wrestled with this situation, but after reading several gay-affirming books like Matthew Vine’s God and the Gay Christian, his theology developed and evolved, “I just feel like it’s opened up so much of God and the world to me.”

Tags embracing the journey, unconditional conference

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Andy Stanley Unpublished Sermon Addresses His Gay-Affirming Conference+ We Have The Audio

Post author By Staff Writer
Post date October 1, 2023
31 Comments on Andy Stanley Unpublished Sermon Addresses His Gay-Affirming Conference+ We Have The Audio

Update. Our first report on the conference is up here

Here is a partial excerpt from Andy Stanley’s sermon today addressing the controversy over his gay-affirming conference. It was not streamed or publicly shared, but we have access to it, and we’re posting it in full at the end.

Because we were present at the Embracing the Journey conference, we will be giving a full report starting on Monday, but we can reveal here that this sermon sits in stark and diametric contrast to what was said at the conference. Stanley is lying, and he is speaking out of both sides of his mouth, and we’re going to expose him.

He preaches:

What do we believe? What does our church believe? In churches our size you can find individuals who believe just about anything, everything, and nothing. The better question, perhaps is this question, what do we teach? What do we teach your children, your grandchildren? What do we teach about these issues? And it’s the same thing we have taught for 28 years, nothing has changed.

As it relates to sexuality, here’s what we teach. And hopefully you notice, I feel like if you’ve been coming for a while there, there should be no question about this, but I don’t mind just putting it out there. We teach what I refer to as a New Testament Sexual Ethic...so from middle school, to high school, to college, to singles to marrieds to single again, every age and stage of life this is when we teach, whether a student is straight or gay or questioning this is what we say: Hey, if you’re gonna follow Jesus while you’re figuring this out, if you’re going to follow Jesus as you struggle with your identity, or some of the things you’re feeling, if you’re going to follow Jesus, here’s what it looks like sexually to follow Jesus. And the reason your Heavenly Father’s called you to live this way, is because He loves you. Here it is. It’s just three statements.

They are:

Number one, Honor God was your body. Because the Holy Spirit lives in you and your body is how people know what you believe and where you stand and your behavior through your body is to exemplify the goodness of God and the grace of God and the love of God. So you always honor God with your body and you always honor other people’s bodies.

Number two, Don’t be mastered by anything, not by porn, not by sexual addiction. Don’t be mastered by another person. Don’t be mastered by your infatuation. Don’t be mastered by your lust. Don’t be mastered by anything. You have a master and he’s the king. And he loves you and he created you and he knows what’s best for you.

And number three, the old fashioned one, Don’t sexualize a relationship outside of marriage. “That is so old fashioned! No sex before we’re married? If you’re not married, I mean who even teaches that anymore?” Always have, always will….we’re not going to blink on this.

Here, he reiterates a utilitarian emphasis and framework for his beliefs:

And I’ve asked, you know, people in crowds this question, I’ve asked many people, dozens of people this question: hey, has sex outside of marriage made your life better or is it made it more complicated? Has sex outside of marriage made the person you had sex with, did it make their life better or did it make their life more complicated?

And honest people say “yeah, it’s creating some complications.” Well, then what do you expect your heavenly Father to say who loves you and loves the person whose life you may have a set back? What do you think their Heavenly Father’s gonna say about sexual activity when oftentimes our sex outside of marriage makes you a liar for life? Because you’re never going to tell the truth about your past. Because you’re too ashamed. What do you what did you expect?

He gets explicit here, but it’s not what it seems:

So this message is the same for everybody: sex is for married people. Regarding marriage, and this feels weird even say this, just make sure everybody knows where we are. We talk about marriage, or we talk about and teach about marriage the same way Jesus and the apostles did. Every instruction in the Bible regarding marriage references or assumes a husband and a wife, a man or a woman.

So biblical marriage, biblical marriage is between a man and a woman. We’ve never shied away from that we don’t change the words in order not to offend people.

He continues:

Now, here’s what may surprise all of us straight people. Gay attenders in our churches, they aren’t shocked that we talk that way. They aren’t shocked by that. They expect that. They grew up on that. They hoped for that. They pray for that. They pray that God would change them so they can experience that.

I sat in small groups of gay men, 35 an up to 65, and watched them weep because they don’t have a family. They couldn’t have a family. They prayed for that and God didn’t answer their prayer, and many are convinced that traditional marriage is not an option for them. So they commit to living chaste lives. And for many men and women who put their faith in Christ, they just decide, okay, I’m just going to buckle down, I’m just going to bear down, I’m just going to be by myself, I’m not going to have family, I’m going to be sexually pure. And many, many, many, many do that for long seasons of time. And some for some, it’s their whole life.

Then finally:

But for many, that is not sustainable. So they choose a same-sex marriage. Not because they’re convinced it’s biblical- they read the same Bible we do- they chose to marry for the same reason many of us do. Love, companionship, and family. And in the end, as was the case for all of us, this is the important thing I want you to hear me say; it’s their decision.

Our decision is to decide how we respond to their decision. Our decision as a group of local churches is how are we going to respond to their decision. And we decided 28 years ago, we draw circles we don’t draw lines, we draw big circles. If someone desires to follow Jesus, regardless of their starting point, regardless of their past, regardless of their current circumstances, our message has (been) “come and see and come sit with me.” And this is not new. This is who we are, as we’ve always been.

And this is why I love our church, and this is why I’m so extraordinarily proud of you. We aren’t condoning sin. We are restoring relationships. And we are literally saving lives.

As we said, get ready for our upcoming series on the conference.