Pastor Andy Stanley from North Point Community Church upset a lot of people from the faith community after he said Christians' troubles began when they started believing, "Jesus love me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so."
Stanley was accused of undermining the Bible and paving the way for unbelief, according to The Christian Post. Southern Baptist leader Dr. Al Mohler, for one, says Stanley's words are a cause for concern. "If Scripture cannot be trusted, then we are doomed," he says.
In his defence, Stanley wrote an article for Outreach magazine on Friday and affirmed that he does believe in "biblical inerrancy," which means that the Bible is without error or fault in all its teachings.
He said what he is simply doing is trying to convey the message of the Bible in a post-Christian society. A lot of millennials have already left the church, and he said he is trying to change their views.
"The dechurched who grew up in church exit because they find the version of Christianity they've grown up with unconvincing, uninspiring and irrelevant," Stanley said.
The pastor maintained that he was merely misunderstood. Even though Scripture does not offer Christians any guidelines on how to navigate a post-Christian world, Peter and Paul were seen using different languages just to speak to Jews or Gentiles, he said.
Stanley cited Acts 17, wherein Paul addressed the Athenians and urged them to stop their idolatry. Even though Paul did not mention Jesus by name, Stanley said he was simply considering his audience's point of view with the omission.
"To say Paul's approach to the Gentiles in Athens differed from his approach to the Jews in Pisidian Antioch would be the understatement of understatements," Stanley said. "But his central message was the same. God has done something in the world on behalf of all humankind."
Stanley said he is trying to do the same thing that Paul did. "So will you consider retooling in order to win some and save some? Are you willing to take a long, hard look at everything you're currently doing through the eyes of the post-Christian? Are you ready to be a student rather than a critic?" he asked. "We don't have time for tribes. We don't have time for the petty disagreements that only those inside our social media circles understand or care about."
Because Christians are losing ground nowadays, the most counterproductive thing they can do is to criticise and refuse to learn from one another. "If you believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, that's all I need to know. And in light of what's at stake, in light of who is at stake, perhaps that's all you need to know as well," he said.
