North Point Church’s groundbreaking efforts to create churches across Georgia not designed for church people are being undermined by evangelicals who have prioritized politics over mission, Pastor Andy Stanley told his congregation Dec. 29.
In a nearly hour-long sermon that began with a review of the history of the Christian church from the first century forward, the megachurch pastor warned his flock about the threat of those leaders — including Southern Baptists — who are so obsessed with doctrinal purity and political positions that they are building walls to keep people from Jesus.
The progress North Point and other churches made in modeling a conservative yet welcoming theology “is being undermined and reversed like crazy right now,” he said. “With all the political nonsense in the last few years, it has picked up speed like crazy.”
“Church leaders are resurrecting old barriers that we spent years tearing down, and they’re adding new barriers.”
He cautioned: “Church leaders are resurrecting old barriers that we spent years tearing down, and they’re adding new barriers.”
Saddleback
And other conservative pastors and churches are being hurt by this narrow theology, he added, citing Rick Warren and Saddleback Church in Southern California as examples.
“I’m so theologically conservative, I’m even politically conservative,” Stanley explained. “But this whole thing has been fueled by conservative, fearful fundamentalists.”
Stanley, who is the son of legendary Atlanta pastor Charles Stanley, said Warren is one of two people who launched the seeker-friendly church movement in the late 1970s. The other, whom he did not mention, was Bill Hybels of Willow Creek Church in suburban Chicago.
Warren’s book The Purpose Driven Church was “about how to create a church that’s for outsiders, for unchurched people,” Stanley said. “I mean, he inspired so many of us, right, to help get the church back on mission. He is a modern church reformer.”
Yet the SBC “kicked him out because he had the nerve to ordain three female staff members who were functioning as pastors. He ordained them as pastors, which is actually a legal status. It gave them a tax benefit. They’re doing the work of all the other male pastors. He’s like, well, why in the world would we not make them pastors? They’re pastoring, and they weren’t going to go out and lead a church. They were working on his staff.
“You don’t get any more insider-focused than that.”
“He ordained three women, and they kicked him out of the church. You don’t get any more insider-focused than that.”
Wrong priorities
The problem, he said, is “evangelical leaders are prioritizing politics over mission. And the people in their churches are buying it, hook, line and sinker, and globbing on all their political views.”
The Atlanta pastor admitted he has political views too but has chosen to prioritize reaching people with the gospel over advancing his political agenda.
Other pastors, however, “have elevated politics. … They’ve taken Old Testament or Old Covenant terminology, Old Covenant stories, blended it with their politics, and globbed it onto the message and the person of Jesus, and it’s just sick, and they’re prioritizing politics over mission.”
“Political affiliation has become the litmus test for orthodoxy.”
As a result, “political affiliation has become the litmus test for orthodoxy,” he lamented.
Demonizing Democrats
That message now boils down to this mantra, he advised: “You can’t be a Christian and be a Democrat.”
“You can’t possibly be a true Christian if you’re a Democrat, which is absolutely absurd. But what’s even more absurd is as conservative Christians, Republicans, demonize Democrats, all Democrats, and you can’t possibly be a Christian, as they demonize Democrats, they basically go against one of Jesus’ primary teachings. Instead of loving their enemies, all these lost Democrats, they demonize them. They make Democrats the enemy. And what did Jesus tell us to do with our enemies? Anybody remember?”
To his congregation he offered this firm admonition: “Let me just say to those of you who are conservative politically like me, if you do that, stop it. You can disagree, but you don’t write somebody off as bad and evil.”
Politicized pastors “have turned the mission field into a battlefield, and they’re warriors. But they’re not warriors for the kingdom of Christ. And here’s how you know. This is the litmus test. … If you need an enemy, if you need an enemy in order to further your agenda, rest assured, it is not the agenda of our king, period.”
“If you need an enemy in order to further your agenda, rest assured, it is not the agenda of our king, period.”
Rather than being guided by the love of Jesus, these modern religious leaders have “rallied around who they hate in common,” Stanley said.
He quickly added that these pastors and lay leaders usually deny they hate Democrats.
“I’m like, whoa, whoa, whoa. You treat them like they’re less than people. You have demonized them. You have written them off. That’s what hate is. They rally around who they hate in common, but more importantly, they rally around what they fear in common.”
Some of these politicized pastors are Stanley’s friends, he said. “I still consider them friends. They say terrible things about me on social media.”
When that happens, he calls those friends and invites them to talk: “Come on, let’s talk. I mean, you felt fine getting up and just, you know, demonizing me. So let’s just talk.”
Andy Stanley preaching
Good Samaritan
These politicized religious leaders have “become like the priest and the Levite in the parable of the Good Samaritan,” Stanley said. “Remember the Good Samaritan? The priest comes by, sees the guy laying there, walks by. Samaritan sees the guy laying there and walks by.”
That is not the way of Jesus, the pastor declared. “How dare we walk by anyone and demonize them and so demean them that makes it gives me an excuse not to have to have anything to do with them. This group desperately wants to win, but they’ve already lost because they’ve lost the kingdom plot line. And that breaks my heart.”
The result is that “the church is known more for what and who we’re against than what and who we’re for.”
“This group desperately wants to win, but they’ve already lost because they’ve lost the kingdom plot line.”
“Together, we have resisted that trend, and we’re gonna continue to resist that trend because we believe and operate under this banner that all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Jesus. He didn’t call himself a king for nothing, and he’s not been declared a king for nothing. He’s the king. He’s the ultimate authority, and consequently, we are committed.
Jesus “loves the Republicans and the Democrats. He loves brown, Black and white. We are all precious in his sight, and we must be precious in each other’s sight as well.”
He concluded: “Shame on a person who names the name of Jesus that does anything less than that.”
Despite all this, Stanley said he is not discouraged because Jesus promised, “I will build my church, and the gates of hades will not overcome it. The church wins, and when the church wins, everybody wins. There are no losers.”
This is not the younger Stanley’s first time to tangle publicly with leaders in his own denomination, the SBC, or other conservative megachurch pastors. Ever since founding North Point in 1995, he has defied traditional labels.
In 2022, he told Georgia state legislators if they love their political parties more than their state, they should leave public service and do something else.
In 2023, he drew the ire of Al Mohler and other SBC TheoBros for allowing his church to be the site for a sold-out conference to help parents of LGBTQ kids learn to love their children while maintaining their Christian faith.
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