Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. - Matthew 4:4
The spiraling downward into the abyss for Andy Stanley has been frightening to behold and it just keeps getting worse. This spiral has been well documented as we have seen a consistent campaign by Andy to completely undermine scripture and confidence in the bible. It is a perfect storm of not caring what God says mixed with an unbridled arrogance brought on from learning under the rise of purpose driven church theology and seeker friendly theories of church growth. The result is one of the biggest heretics we have seen in this generation leading untold numbers down the broad path that only leads to destruction. This is not about his likability or sincerity as I could care less about them and God cares even less than that. This is about what he teaches, and it is damnable. Beloved listen. God's word is inerrant and infallible. Once we compromise one iota, then the world can dismiss the entire thing as being subjective. If you are in the business of splitting hairs to excuse this then you are part of the problem and blood will be on your hands, plain and simple.
Many years ago, we saw the warning signs when Stanley said that we should no longer use the term shepherds when referring to pastors because it was no longer culturally significant. I said at the time that only the world and the devil use cultural arguments to undermine scripture. God uses the shepherd analogy for a reason and Andy Stanley does not like it because he is not a shepherd. He is a hireling of the highest order. Shepherds tend to their flock not their book deals. Soon after this Andy was very distraught that the kids, he was sending off to college from his church were returning as atheists. His conclusion was that the world makes better arguments than the church and we need to abandon this "bible is inerrant" theology. Of course, this was moronic and revealed that he could not look in the mirror to realize that the kids he was sending off to college were probably never saved to begin with because they never heard the actual gospel at his church. Secularism stepped into that void and without the indwelt Holy Spirit there was nothing to refute what they were now being taught.
Instead, Stanley launched into horrific teaching after horrific teaching. He claimed that believers needed to "unhitch" themselves from the Old Testament despite Jesus confirming the Old Testament. He then taught that we needed to abandon the insistence that the bible was infallible in favor of secular based arguments defending the gospels. He said that it was impossible to defend the entire bible and dismissed the Genesis account of creation as wrong, asserting the earth was 14.5 million years old. He compared sharing the gospel with an Imam sharing the infallibility of Islam's scripture and suggested the result was the same for listeners. This of course completely removes the Holy Spirit from the equation, something Islam does not have. This is of course because under Warrenism, the preacher causes salvation instead of it being a supernatural act of God. Andy thinks HE is responsible for salvation. At its core, this is always the sin of Lucifer trying to claim the throne. The above link includes a short snippet from a recent sermon in which Stanley continues to eviscerate the word of God and marginalize it for the lost, so that he could foolishly count them as saved when they are not. Maybe this helps him sleep easier at night, but he will have so much to answer for when he stands before Christ and is held to account. Just from this snippet let's deal with four horrendous teachings:
"The bottom line in terms of what a person must believe about the bible in order to be a follower of Jesus is really this simple. You just have to believe that Matthew, Mark, Luke, OR John are reliable accounts of actual events, that's it." - Andy Stanley
Really. So, the theological position Andy is staking claim to is that we do not need the bible at all, just one gospel account. Note he did not say "and" but rather, "or." The key verse clearly states that we live by every word the has proceeded out of the mouth of God, not just one of 66 books. I guess the word is not really a lamp unto my feet, only a sliver of it. Job said he treasured the words of God's mouth and that they were more than his daily bread but not ole Andy Stanley! Luke says blessed are those who obey the word, not merely part of it. John declares the word, again the entire word, is truth! Why would we marginalize it like this! Note also that he never interjects faith into this equation! The decision to believe is based upon carnal logic and reasoning. Now, I have always been a fan of good apologetics but not as a replacement for scripture! I believe that the bible is the word of God based on faith! History only confirms my faith - not the other way around! Let me be very clear. If you believe you are a follower of Jesus because you believe that historians did a good job of recording the gospel accounts, or at least one of them, you are not following Jesus at all. You are following history. Based on that nonsense, if someone comes along with better historical theories, you may quickly abandon what you thought you "believed."
