Pastor Andy Stanley of Northpoint Church, no stranger to taking the occasional peckish potshot at those he disagrees with, ran up against the wall that is Phil Johnson of Grace Community Church after taking exception to the complementarian position.
Responding to claims by Virgil Walker, the Executive Director of Operations for G3 Ministries and co-host of the always-excellent ‘Just Thinking Podcast, that women pastors aren’t real pastors but rather mere feminists who ignore the scriptures, Stanley chimed in that Walker’s assertions were “rude and incorrect, leading Johnson to make the following astute observation:
If someone stands up every Sunday and tells stories and makes remarks that constantly attack the authority and sufficiency of Scripture, he’s not a pastor, either.
Fact check: true. What Phil is referring to here is a 2006 interview Stanley did with Leadership Journal, where the corporate Pastor made the following comments:
Leadership: What is distinctly spiritual about the kind of leadership you do?
Andy Stanley: There’s nothing distinctly spiritual. I think a big problem in the church has been the dichotomy between spirituality and leadership. One of the criticisms I get is “Your church is so corporate.” I read blogs all the time. Bloggers complain, “The pastor’s like a CEO.” And I say, “OK, you’re right. Now, why is that a bad model?
Leadership: Should we stop talking about pastors as “shepherds”?
Andy Stanley: Absolutely. That word needs to go away. Jesus talked about shepherds because there was one over there in a pasture he could point to. But to bring in that imagery today and say, “Pastor, you’re the shepherd of the flock,” no. I’ve never seen a flock. I’ve never spent five minutes with a shepherd. It was culturally relevant in the time of Jesus, but it’s not culturally relevant any more.
Nothing works in our culture with that model except this sense of the gentle, pastoral care. Obviously that is a facet of church ministry, but that’s not leadership.
In the aftermath, Stanley didn’t have much to say- sending out a couple more feeble tweets on peripheral issues, then he was done.
and
Sadly for Stanley, things have not gotten any better since that 2006 interview came out.
For a brief reminder of the various theological controversies surrounding Stanley, he made waves for encouraging Christians to essentially throw out the Old Testament, arguing that believers should “unhitch” themselves from portions of Old Testament scripture. He went on the warpath against doctrine in general, claiming that “unity is more important than theology.”
Stanley 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.”’
Stanley has been on a roll since the pandemic hit, telling members that the “foundation of our faith is not the whole bible,” that the Lord does not require them to meet for church, that George Floyd was “this generation’s Samson,” and told his congregation to “sleep late and skip church” during Father’s Day.
Stanley continues to be in our spotlight due to his theologically bankrupt behavior. Recently, he claimed, “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. This was a few months after he lamented the fact that churches were fighting the government to stay open and have their church services, saying he was embarrassed by it.
Oh, and most recently Andy Stanley said that It doesn’t matter if the Bible is true, so long as it’s ‘mostly reliable’
Women pastors are basically spiritual lesbians. They’re trans-pastors. Ie: not real pastors, but some garbled, cobbled together monstrosity, possessing approximations of biblical appendages and authority, but never the real thing. They can get their whole undiscerning congregation to call them pastors- to use their preferred spiritual pronouns, but in the eyes of God and men, no amount of seminary training can overcome the created order and the clear words of scripture on the matter, no matter how they look.
This is something Stanley would know, if he were a real pastor.
