October 28, 2024 • 43 mins
A podcast to help believers renew their minds and reform their hearts.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome to The Thinking Tree, a podcast to help believers renew their minds and reform
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their hearts.
I'm Adam Sanchez.
And I'm Jeff No.
And today we are discussing LGBTQ plus policies and the church.
All right, Jeff, you're giving me a look because that was a mouthful.
I'm just glad you got the plus in there.
I know.
(00:24):
And isn't that the rough part?
There is no end.
It is just continuing.
And so this is the rub.
We have clarity on what God's word says about what is a man and what is a woman and what
is biblical sexuality.
And yet there is such confusion over how to apply it.
Oh my goodness.
That's the difficulty in our day.
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And so here's the question that we want to address today.
How should Christians think about LGBTQ plus policies, whether for the church or state?
But we're really zeroing in on the church.
We need to discuss how the church is responding to these things and we need to understand
it well and biblically.
Yeah.
And it's interesting.
I know a lot of our listeners have probably grown up, gone to school, been a part of the
(01:09):
bubble and may not even realize how widespread LGBTQ, I'm not going to say plus, how widespread
that's become in the church as a whole.
So we may shock them just a bit today because they may be thinking this is an issue.
We know what we believe about this.
It's not an issue in our church.
It's not an issue in our circles that we're in, churches that we'd either share a platform
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with or do conferences with.
But here's some stats to that end, Jeff.
So 2003, the Episcopal Church establishes its first openly gay bishop.
2003, 21 years ago.
Yep.
2003.
In 2012, they approved transgender ordination.
That same church.
The United Church of Christ, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Presbyterian Church
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of USA, so PCUSA, United Methodist Church, the American Baptist Churches of the United
States, Disciples of Christ.
All of them ignore biblical principles of sexuality and gender.
All of those are supposed churches.
All of those are in communities across the United States promoting LGBTQ plus thinking
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in their pulpits.
In their pulpits.
In their church.
In their fringe.
All of it.
Right.
All of it.
Right.
And that's the difficulty.
Like you mentioned, you would think this is a clear issue, but it is not.
And these supposed churches will even go about protesting for policies and for supposed rights,
trans rights and whatnot, to promote what they think is right, even though their view
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is so distorted by the world.
They're oftentimes very politically active.
Yeah.
And a lot of these churches, especially you look at United Methodist Church, I mean, it's
really, it's an activist church.
That's what they live for.
You're not going to get actual teaching or worship there.
It's an activist church.
It's just very normal in a lot of these denominations.
(03:07):
Yeah.
These denominations do not exist to preach Christ and Him crucified.
They exist to preach, I would say oftentimes a pseudo prosperity gospel that focus on people
living their best life now, enjoying what they want, when they want, how they want,
and not promoting dying to self, not promoting really living for the Savior, but living because
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the Savior died and saying, now I get to do whatever I want.
And really distorting Romans 6, you know, what shall we say then?
That grace may abound, sin all the more.
And so they actually do that.
They sin all the more that grace may amount.
They may not say that, but that is a function of what's happening.
Now within that, those are all churches that we would say, hey, we have nothing to do with
them.
However, there's another portion of supposed Christians that take a stance or take an approach
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that maybe some of the people in our circles at times have waffled on, have maybe affirmed
at different times or not clearly defined the distinctions of what they're promoting.
I know you have some thoughts on this, so I'm just going to mention some of the phrases
and then if you want to dig into to explain some of these things.
The side B, Christians, that's a thing.
(04:18):
I know you're going to explain what that is.
And the re-voice conference, I think there's more sides even than you wanted to mention
than just A or B.
Right.
Yeah.
And some of these, that's funny, some of the people that, they would say that they are
adjacent to the evangelical church.
They do not claim to be necessarily denominational.
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They're sometimes non-denominational.
They're adjacent to the evangelicals and they will say, well, look, we're just trying to,
we're trying to find our own space among evangelical churches.
They're pushing the agenda here.
And this idea of side B Christians, I don't know how many out there listening have heard
of that.
I'll come back to side A because there's actually both.
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But side B is a position taken by some very aggressive authors recently who have talked
about, well, okay, well, we agree homosexual orientation is, we would say, is a very, very
it's not a sin.
It's, it's acting upon it only that's a sin.
In other words, I can feel it.
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I can want it.
I can have an inclination of that.
And they would call it orientation.
But acting on it is the sin.
The sex is morally wrong, but they will okay romantic relationships.
Which is a very slippery slope.
And then say, but we're celibate.
So in other words, they would say we can maintain our sexual identity and say, and because they
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will say, well, God made us this way.
By the way, which goes back to creationism versus traducianism, which you talked about
plug for one of your sermons, Psalm 139, part one.
Right.
Exactly.
So they would say, well, look, we're made that way.
So, so it's God honoring, but if we were to act upon our, our, our homosexual desires,
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that would be sin.
So we can be celibate.
We can also celibate who we are and we can engage in same sex marriage for companionship
only.
So they're trying to walk this really weird line to say we're, we're fine with who we
are because God made us this way, but we do recognize that we shouldn't engage in homosexual
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sex.
Which is a interesting line to, to arrive to.
Right it is.
So basically saying we want to enjoy as much as we can, but we're going to draw the line
here.
Right.
And then by doing that, they can say, well, see, we should be welcomed into evangelical
spaces.
Right.
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See, see that's, and that's really the game, right?
It's the sort of water that down and slip in.
So then side A is, is what we would call the affirming view, right?
God intentionally created gay people with same sex attraction.
Therefore same sex relationships are blessed by God.
That's the side A part.
Which is where the Episcopal church has taken its stance.
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Right.
Right.
And they would take all the Bible passages that prohibit homosexuality and they would
say, well, that doesn't actually apply to modern day gay relationships because the biblical
authors were talking about ancient practices that were non-consensual.
And what we want to promote is loving monogamous homosexual marriage.
Yeah.
They try to redefine what God's word means.
So all this stuff in the Bible, those were, those are ancient sexual practices.
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What we do today is different.
God blesses these relationships.
And so you should affirm us.
So those are the things.
So side A is the completely open affirming view.
Side B is this funny line that they're trying to walk.
And then there's an interesting one called side Y.
And there's never enough letters, right?
That's right.
We've got to have another letter.
So they would say, we find our identity in Christ and therefore shouldn't identify ourselves
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by our sexual orientation.
So they would reject the term gay Christian, which is good.
They do not see maintaining a gay identity as God honoring.
Celebsy is a must, but also they don't strive to become heterosexual.
So in other words, they're saying, we're not going to identify ourselves as gay Christians,
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but we know it's not right, but we also, we're against conversion.
We're against the idea that God should change us in any way.
So in other words, there's no repentance for it.
And they would, I'm pretty sure they would say, since we're made this way, we can't change.
And that language comes up an awful lot as well.
This just can't be changed.
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This is how we're hardwired forever and transformation is not possible.
So they would just say, look, we're not striving to change who we are.
So you've got two interesting little avenues that they've created for themselves in order
to try to say, look, we're just like you and we belong in the same space together.
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And to that end, I think those two positions B and Y, their focus is not the Episcopal
church.
Right.
Their focus is not the Lutheran church in America or the PCUSA or the United Methodist
church.
Their focus are conservative, Bible believing, reformed churches.
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They want to be in your church, right?
Yes.
And affirmed.
And we have to talk about this.
Correct.
Because we need to be aware of who and what organizations or churches are promoting such
views.
It's not because we're just trying to name names to defame people, but also speaking
to the danger when we don't draw clear lines.
Right.
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Or maybe we don't wholeheartedly affirm something, but we're adjacent or it's tangential to us.
We're at a conference where they're at and those kinds of things.
And we have to define clear lines not because we're fearful of what others think, but because
we're trying to promote what is true and right and good.
And there is that striving that we should have.
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So with Side B Christians and the Revoice Conference is kind of what came out of that
one, a series of conferences where they're trying to re-voice or give a voice to Christians,
professing Christians who say that they are made this way, defined this way, but will
stop short of homosexual acts.
They've been supported by some notable names.
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Yeah, that's the thing.
Some big names, even SBC names.
One of those is Karen Swallow Pryor.
That's right.
She supported Side B Christians in several books to that end.
And that's why they call her the Notorious KSP, because the notorious RBG, Ruth Bader
Ginsburg of the Supreme Court fame, was notable for her politics, not just her rulings, but
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her politics in promoting not just female rights, which is not a bad thing, but transgender
rights, homosexual rights, things like that.
There's a book that was written by one of the leaders of that movement of Side B Christians
named Gregory Coles.
And he was mentioned by one of the guys that we respect, one of the evangelical Christian
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leaders that we respect, an expositor of the word named D.A. Carson.
And though D.A. did not go on to continue to promote or condone this gentleman, at one
point he did speak very positively of this leader and said that his book should be approached
with humility and that Christians should approach it to learn.
But the way that he gave that pseudo endorsement, I don't want to call it a full endorsement,
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but pseudo endorsement wasn't helpful.
Right, because they're going to seize that and say, oh, see, a conservative complementarian
thinks that this is a good thing.
Now, since then, D.A.'s been clear about what homosexuality is.
But even in that promotion, that was an unwise moment.
And I think that was a cautionary tale even for other leaders, some other ones that are
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maybe less shocking.
Tim Keller actually, before his death, kind of endorsed a book by Greg Johnson, another
one of the Sideway Christian leaders who was an openly gay man.
And Tim Keller supported that work and that Christian, similarly to what D.A. said, but
maybe a little more full-throated, that Christian should learn from such a person in that situation
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with that view.
Right.
And that creates a distinction too.
I think there is a difference between maybe learning about Christians wrestling with these
things versus learning from.
I even think that's a difference.
Absolutely.
You know, if we say, hey, read Rosaria Butterfield's The Gospel Comes with a House Key to understand
some of what she was thinking and wrestling through, that, I don't think there's an issue
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there.
And maybe, to give credit to D.A., maybe that's what he meant, is maybe you can learn from
him.
But there's a difference between saying that versus like KSP supporting and saying, no,
you can actually learn how to support your brothers and sisters, is what she'll say,
in this capacity because this is their struggle and you need to understand their struggle.
Right.
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That's different.
In other words, lay the biblical authority on the shelf for a moment so you can understand
these folks.
And we don't do that.
I'm sorry.
Right.
We want to love this person, but we want to use what those things on the shelf, biblical
principles, that's how we want to love them.
That's really the lens, right, that we should view.
We talk about that often.
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The gospel and God's word is the lens that we view the world.
We can't see the world rightly unless we have God's word and His truth.
So I mean, there's more Christian dynamics that are affected by this.
World Vision, famously years ago, started hiring gay Christians, and I've spoken about
them when we spoke about our missions dynamic last year.
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This is a great pain because around the world, I know of believers who have not been working
in various communities because they were forced by World Vision to work alongside gay missionary
Christians.
Right.
And it's terrible because World Vision came and put that upon these third world contexts
where things like this are completely unacceptable.
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Absolutely.
Even governmentally unacceptable, and yet they were forcing this upon believers in those
contexts, very, very painful.
Schools, famous schools like Baylor, Azusa Pacific, Wheaton, Calvin University, they
all offer some kind of accommodation for LGBTQ positions, whether that's groups that they
have for those on campus or whether they approve those romances or hire staff that hold those
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positions.
All of those are guilty of that.
Well, claiming to be Christian.
Claiming to be a Christian.
That's the thing.
If you want to do what you want to do, then go do it.
Just take that Christian label off your name.
Right?
They're saying they're doing it in the name of Christ and telling others that they're
wrong.
That's the thing.
Right.
They're saying, hey, we can even have a different approach to this, which to be fair, we wouldn't
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say either.
We wouldn't say that, hey, we can have a different approach to it, but there's a huge difference
between saying like a Yale University fully supporting something like this, even though
it started as a seminary.
Right.
There's a difference between that dynamic versus Azusa Pacific that still gives out
Bible degrees.
Yeah.
Right.
Wheaton that still gives out Bible degrees, when really they're promoting far more politics.
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Right.
And that's the emphasis that we're trying to show here is that these things are infiltrating.
They claim to be part of the evangelical world too.
That's the thing.
They're not saying we're part of the Methodist Church, because then you could sort of understand
it.
Okay, the Methodists are long gone, but they're claiming to be evangelical, which means of
the gospel.
Yeah.
And yet then they're doing these things that are clearly against the gospel.
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So it's a terrible hypocrisy.
It is.
I'll bring it home to something more practical.
In recent years, the idea of pronoun usage has become such a lightning rod in various
ways.
I think it's maybe died down a little bit from the height of where it was, but when
it was at its height, there was a point that it was being considered for hate speech if
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you weren't using somebody's preferred pronoun.
Right.
There were people that were trying to put that forward as a law in various jurisdictions.
J.D. Greer, who was the SBC president at one point, he once advocated to use a person's
preferred pronouns.
He said it was a Romans 14 weaker brother issue, that you were supposed to use it and
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really was pushing and compelling people.
This was not a personal conviction only, but it was compelling people to have this position
to see others as a weaker brother.
Now since then, he's backed off of that a little bit, and he said, hey, I may have not
understood that entirely well, and so he softened to that initial, but he hasn't denounced it.
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No, he got a lot of heat for it.
He got a lot of heat for it.
And then he responded, which is what most guys who have online presidents, look, you
say something because you think you're going to get followers, you get pushback, then you
got to apologize, then you got to call your PR guy and issue a statement, and you know
how it goes, and it's crazy.
This is the world of, and we talked about this at Christians Immediate, this is the
world of having a platform, having some kind of fame where people, or you think people
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want to listen to you, maybe they don't, maybe you're just the train wreck that has happened
to be on YouTube or something.
But with that, what comes with these famous, these famous supposed Christian leaders, there's
a lot of danger about whether they're bringing biblical clarity or not.
And that's where I think it's helpful that we're naming names not for the sake of defaming,
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but pointing out, hey, some of these names keep coming up.
Yeah, and they want to be public figures.
They're not hiding.
They're not hiding at all.
They're finding some kind of, whether it's their livelihood is based off of that, and
they're selling books or other things, or they just enjoy being the center of attention.
But some of these names keep coming up.
Some of them, they're just once in a while.
They pop up and you're like, ooh, okay, that's not great.
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Others of them, they keep showing up.
And those are the ones we really should be careful on, because some of these individuals
really are promoting worldly views, not biblical views.
And here's one of them.
I'm just gonna mention one very prominent leader, because he made the list, I think,
of 25 most influential Christians in the 21st century, which is insane.
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So sad.
But his name, he's a son of a famous evangelical leader, but Andy Stanley.
Andy Stanley, son of Charles Stanley, he's a prominent Christian leader.
At one point, had the largest church in the US, I mean, it vacillates, but around 30,000
members.
This guy, Andy, may not have been a bad guy early on.
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Maybe early on, he was just a little squishy.
He wasn't like his dad.
His dad was much more conservative.
But this guy, Andy, I think there were some concerns early on, but in the recent years,
there have been really serious concerns.
Really grievous concerns over his views, and one such view involves this dynamic with LGBTQ
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policies.
There's a difference between, you kind of mentioned this earlier, there's a difference
between noting an affirmation versus considering how do we engage with people who are struggling.
Now we're gonna get to more of those practical encouragements in just a moment, but I wanna
point out for the listener, there's a massive difference between those who promote saying,
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hey, welcome everyone into the fold and affirm their lifestyle versus saying we can help
people no matter what stage or dynamic of life that they're in, no matter what sin even
they're caught in, we can help them go God's way.
Those two things are not the same.
They're massively different.
Andy promotes something different.
Yeah, and we know this is a slippery slope, because I remember hearing this 10 years ago
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about Andy Stanley's church.
At that time, it was, hey, look, if you're gay, we're not gonna bother you, so just wink,
just we're glad you're coming and you're hearing a worship service.
And then pretty soon it was like, hey, we're feeling really comfortable at this church.
They speak very highly of our community and it just trickles down, right?
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It always does.
And eventually it's, yeah, we have openly gay couple members, members in our church.
Members and maybe even church leaders at one point.
Correct, and they're not celibate.
But hey, at least they're monogamous, Adam.
So the slope just gets muddier and slipperier as it goes.
By the way, Andy Stanley is the same guy who has advocated completely unhitching from the
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Old Testament.
If you guys have heard that, we should just unhitch from it completely because he doesn't
like the Old Testament.
And he's what, I mean, there's a whole bunch of things that he's recently talked about.
The idea that if he would talk about a church like ours and say that we've made the Bible
an idol, we need to stop.
We need to stop looking so much at the Bible.
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I mean, stuff like that.
So the guy has been off the rails for a while, but it just gets crazier.
And he really, and speaking of those rails, he has no one to hold him to those.
And that's one of the things that the book points out, which was that probably for me
was the most tragic thing to hear.
The book is a situation where he promotes his view.
He promotes his view that not only do they allow gay couples in the church, but he doesn't
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even think they should pursue celibacy.
I mean, he said that at this gathering of pastors, and he was pushing Christian leaders,
these men, to not see an issue like this as political.
To say, no, no, no, the truth of scripture regarding these things isn't what you think
it is, that whole unhitching idea from the Old Testament.
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And really, he was pursuing a political agenda.
Maybe he doesn't want to call it that.
That's exactly what it was, a political agenda.
But the tragic part was everyone in that scenario that the author described, because somebody
came forward finally and talked about it, no one checked him.
No one really pushed back.
And the guy who even put together the event, one of his disciples years prior, really was
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defending him.
Like, hey, he's giving us his time, he's giving us his unscripted thoughts here, so be gracious
with him.
But he really defended this man's completely unbiblical view and shielded him from any
critique, shielded him from any, you know, the checks and balances, the iron sharpening
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iron that should be happening.
You know, if I come to you one day and I try to promote a view like this, I pray that you
would just rebuke me and say, Adam, what are you thinking?
And that's the way it should be.
There should be, as we're working through things, and we've had this sometimes with
church members in the past where they promoted some really wild views.
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And some have received a rebuke well and turned away, and some have not.
Some have only delved deeper into their lostness, which is tragic.
But the fact that he had no one to call him out, oh, that was heartbreaking.
And from the SideB folks, boy, they excited to grab a hold of somebody like Andy Stanley,
who has this massive church and this huge platform and to say, look, we've got a partner.
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So again, they're trying to squeeze, this is what the listeners need to understand.
This movement seeks to squeeze into Bible believing churches and to do it in a way that
is winsome.
Here we come back to the winsome thing again, right?
So now I'm not saying it's going to happen at Oak Hill.
We're a smaller church.
We have eyes on everything.
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We're guarding our sheep like we should as shepherds.
But in a lot of these big churches that even we have in our Valley, these folks are there.
They're already there.
Now they may not be making a lot of noise yet, but they're there.
And so it scares me a little bit that we have elders out there that don't know their flocks.
Right, right.
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That don't know their flock and potentially even people in leadership who have a very
different view of biblical sexuality, I would say.
Now a baseline encouragement I'll give here is when we're talking about whether it's homosexuality
or transgenderism, we need to not treat this differently from other sin.
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I think that's one nuance when we hear even about side B Christians, side A obviously,
but side B, side Y, side X, Z, W, whatever comes next.
But any other side, we need to not treat what the Bible declares as sin any differently
than sin.
So we don't make policies, for example, I was thinking about this, we don't make policies
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for stealing under certain situations, for murder in certain situations, for adultery
in certain situations.
Now the law may have a view on some of those things.
I think about Les Miserables when I think about stealing.
When I think about murder, I think about Cana Monte Cristo.
There's these stories that are interesting to think about within these things, but at
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the end of the day, when we see something as sinful and wrong, we need to call it sinful
and wrong and then deal with it appropriately.
So when it comes to LGBTQ plus dynamics and policies and practices, we shouldn't make
things allowable and come right up to try to figure out where, well, where's the line
on what's allowable within this?
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It is sin.
Right.
And by the way, one of the accusations that's often thrown at conservative churches like
ours from the side B side, does that make sense?
Yeah, side A side, is they will say, oh, see, you're hyper focused on this one issue, but
do you rebuke all sin?
And they may have to have a point with that.
They're like, do you have divorced people in your church?
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And what about greed and what about gluttony and all that?
And they make a good point.
So that's what you're saying.
We treat it all the same.
Sin is sin.
Everything, yes.
And so we want to address anything that we see that's unhealthy for us because it displeases
God.
If we are looking the other way on certain things and then hyper focusing on this one
issue, then we're not good church leaders.
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Yeah.
And to be fair, there may be some churches in very conservative areas of the US, maybe
even in the South, and I'm not trying to blame them, but we've seen some of the dynamics
with like unbiblical places like Westboro Baptist, right?
Where there is such a hyper focus on some of these issues, they're not real churches,
but they make a bad name for Christians because it makes it seem like all Christians care
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about is this one issue.
And to that end, like you just noted, no, as Bible believing Christians, we care about
all sin and helping believers to not walk in sin but to walk in the light.
And we do that in every area of life, not just one area of life.
I mean, we were talking recently about partiality and not having partiality with others.
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I mean, Americans, that is a huge issue.
We show a lot of partiality and that's not always to rich and to poor dynamics.
Sometimes it's to my ethnic dynamic.
Sometimes it's to the people I'm more comfortable with that share my interests.
We show a lot of partiality.
I don't think Paul would have a lot of kind things to say about the American church in
general.
(27:02):
You're getting a letter.
Yeah, you're getting a text.
You're going to get something.
Okay, so with all of that, let's talk about how we can encourage our listeners to consider
these things, whether biblical premise, maybe we start there, but even how we can encourage
them to respond to these things in the church.
And then that's obviously going to affect society at large as well.
(27:22):
Yeah, I mean, the obvious, if you want to go back to the sides and all this stuff, look,
here's the biblical position.
Sexual sin should not be cultivated or entertained.
And that's all forms of sexual thought and action.
Not to say that those things we might have, we live in a fallen world, we're fallen human
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beings.
We might have desires and affections that have been messed up, but we don't just say,
well, it's okay.
That's fine.
That's okay.
Just don't act on them.
No, we seek to actively put those things to death.
We battle against those.
We strive to renew the mind.
And if we need counseling help with that, then we come out and we say, hey, I'm wrestling
with this.
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Can you help me?
But we don't just go, well, you know what?
Hey, as long as you don't go out there and do this, you're fine.
No, we want to continue to renew the mind.
That's part of the Christian walk.
And is it going to be done completely and perfectly this side of heaven?
No, but we don't give up the fight.
We don't just go, well, hey, this is how I am and God loves me anyway.
And so I don't have to try to put sin to death.
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So I mean, I'm sure our listeners know that, but we want to make sure that we're in that
battle.
Because we talk about, that's really what defines this, right?
Are you in the battle?
Are you just giving into this?
You're just like, ah, this is who I am.
No, that's Christ loves you too much to leave you in that spot.
You got to be in the battle.
You know, to that end, you mentioned this side of glory.
(28:47):
I think that's an important component.
You've done a series, listeners, if you want to hear on eschatological things, on Unshakable,
the other podcast.
But I think your persons, a believer's eschatological thinking impacts this dynamic.
Earlier you mentioned the side Y, side B, supposed Christians say, God made me this
(29:08):
way.
This is just who I am and I can't be changed, cannot be changed.
Well, if your eschatological position says that one day you will be made new, fully,
and finally free from sin, then yes, you can change.
And yes, you will change.
You absolutely will.
You will not be bound by this.
(29:28):
So it's an immature and incomplete theology that says you cannot change and become more
like Christ, even this side of glory.
And to say that it can only happen in the age to come also minimizes the saving and
sanctifying work of Jesus.
To say that He's only saved you so far and then when you die then He'll work on the
(29:50):
rest of you, but until then don't really worry about it.
Versus, what I see constantly throughout God's Word is that we are to strive for holiness
because God is holy.
Be holy because He is holy.
So when we consider our end times thinking, right, that's eschatological views, our end
times thinking, if we one day are gonna be free from sin, then yes, that means today.
(30:11):
Today let's strive as believers and to strive as believers as you noted to understand what's
going on in our heart, to turn away from sin, to turn towards God.
Sometimes we need help to do that in hard and stubborn sins, but God has a way forward
and it's not a secret hidden way.
If fishermen could do it in the first century who were not public theologians, who were
not seminary students, who were not, the list can go on.
(30:35):
If they could walk God's way then.
Without Lagos Bible sophomore.
Without any, you know, maybe they knew the original language is a little bit better.
Beyond that, they could go God's way because God is not trying to trick us.
Yeah.
And the Bible actually gives us, I know you wanted to talk about the passage in 1 Corinthians
6, gives us testimony that people have been transformed even from this particular sin
(31:01):
we're talking about.
Yeah.
Right?
Amen.
In 1 Corinthians 6, there's a, it's what we call a vice list, right?
There's all these things that are mentioned.
Two things in this vice list, fornicators, that is, okay, so listen now, heterosexual
adultery or heterosexual sex outside of marriage and homosexuality.
(31:22):
So Paul covers, so for those, again, one of the accusations that comes against a church
like ours is you only care about homosexual sin, but you don't care about heterosexual
sin.
Yes, we do.
Yeah.
Paul did.
He said, well, heterosexuals and homosexuals, and then verse 11, 1 Corinthians 6 says what?
Such were some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in
(31:47):
the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
So that's Paul's testimony that, hey, I know these Corinthians and they were, some of them
were engaged in a homosexual lifestyle.
They're not now.
They've been transformed.
They've been washed.
It's beautiful.
So that's why we don't give up this side of heaven either, right?
Because the power of the Spirit can do that work.
(32:08):
And God's way is amazing.
I mean, that testimony is such were some of you is an incredible testimony that many,
if not all of the believers, period, when you're saved, you look back and say, wow,
I was this way before Jesus and now look, look who I am because of him.
And that's a beautiful testimony of what God does.
He remakes.
(32:29):
He makes all things new and he's making us new as well.
And that's happening today.
That doesn't just happen in the eternal kingdom.
In the eternal kingdom, it's final.
It's final and full, but today he's doing it.
He's willing and work, willing and working for his good pleasure in us.
Right.
So some, so a young man or young woman comes to us and says, Hey, I have this, this inclination.
(32:53):
I have this struggle, the sexual struggle in my heart, which has happened at Oak Hill.
And so what do we say to that person?
We don't say get out.
Right.
We don't say that's okay.
No, we don't.
Well, be who you are.
We say, man, praise God that you are laying your heart open before him and before your
(33:15):
elders.
Let us walk with you through this.
Yeah.
It's not rocket science.
That, that is, that is the, the biblical balance of grace and truth.
Amen.
Amen.
And yet it's so hard.
It's so difficult.
Right.
And you mentioned a couple of key words here because affirmation is the word of the day.
Right.
(33:36):
Affirmation is constantly used inappropriately.
There can be a good sense of affirmation when you affirm somebody doing the right thing,
God's way.
I mean, that is an amen moment and we should, we should grow in that ability to encourage
others, but affirmation when they're not going God's way, affirmation when they're living
in a unbiblical lifestyle is not the same as accepting them as they are.
(34:00):
Right.
And you know, you look at Jesus as an example, spending time with sinners is not the same
as encouraging them to sin.
Correct.
Just spending time with them.
That gets, that gets so badly manipulated.
All the time.
People gaslight Christians on that one.
Well, Jesus spent time with sinners and?
Yeah.
You're going to, if you live in this world, you're going to spend a lot of time with sinners,
(34:21):
but spending time with them is not the same thing as encouraging them to sin.
And Jesus never encouraged people to sin.
Right.
So spending time with them or accepting them as they are, meaning that you cannot, we cannot
change them.
Right.
God can change them.
We cannot change them.
That's not the same as affirming their lifestyle as good and holy.
(34:42):
Correct.
Those two things are not the same and we need to be clear about that.
That's what they demand.
See, that's the thing.
They demand that you affirm me in who I am right now and we can say, we love you, but
no, we're not going to affirm where you're at.
And again, it's not just this sin.
Anybody that comes to us and says, I have an anger problem.
Oh, you're okay though.
(35:03):
I affirm that anger in you.
We would never say that.
Right?
So again, we treat, we treat sin as sin.
Yeah.
And this is the rub with churches then that are promoting worldliness in those ministries,
even though we mentioned whether there's schools or ministry movements, things like that, when
they promote worldliness as godliness, there's a great danger and Christians get confused.
(35:26):
Christians get really confused as to, well, what does it mean to love like Jesus?
What does it mean to walk with sinners and sufferers and to be faithful with them?
So as Christians, we need to advocate not just for the policies that encourage godliness.
We also need to be very faithful amongst ourselves to promote right thinking.
(35:48):
And that really, and this is where I'm going to focus on for just a second, that really
comes down to parents.
That comes down to parents more than anyone else.
That doesn't mean other people don't matter in this opinion or this approach.
It does matter.
Every believer should have a right view, but especially parents, because I've used, I've
heard this excuse too many times.
(36:09):
In the book brought this up, of Christian parents who have children who turn, children
who turn towards an unrighteous lifestyle in this vein, homosexuality, transgenderism.
And then the Christian parent says, well, what am I supposed to do?
How am I going to love them?
How am I going to care for them?
I don't want to lose my son or daughter or they or them simply because God's word tells
(36:33):
me that this is sin.
How do I keep them?
And they make this third way.
They make this side B. They make this side Y. They make all these things and they affirm
them because they were not clear in their own thinking to begin with.
So parents, it starts really with us to know what is true and loving, that we would speak
(36:53):
the whole truth about God's word to our own hearts, to one another, and then to our children
in the next generation.
And that goes all the way from creation, but especially from sin to salvation.
We need to be clear about what is sin and what it means to be saved.
And we need to constantly wash that over our children.
(37:14):
We just did a baby dedication recently, Deuteronomy six principles.
We talk about these things when we rise up, when we lay down, when we're walking about,
whether we're in the city, whether we're in our homes, that we're constantly speaking
of the right things.
It's not just transgenderism and LGBTQ dynamics.
It's everything, everything that we need to speak truth on, but especially this one.
(37:37):
Yeah I've heard tragic stories, multiple stories where even pastors who have said, I understood
homosexuality, transgenderism to be sins.
I've read it in the Bible.
I've preached messages on it, but then my son came out as gay or my daughter came out
as trans.
And now I'm looking at it completely fresh and new.
(37:59):
And you're like, what?
Completely based on their own experience, their own emotion there.
And I understand the emotion.
It's my child I love, but you don't know the principle doesn't change.
You keep, you doesn't mean you cut them off or stop loving them.
You call them to account based on based on what the definition of sin is and you love
them and walk with them through this with a hope of repentance and transformation.
(38:23):
But boy, you, you see guys move to affirmation in a, in a night because their child came
out as gay.
So, so be, be rooted yourself.
Like you said, be rooted yourself in the principle of what, what does God's word say and do not
be moved.
Yeah.
I think parents need to take that seriously.
Yeah.
And that all of us need that reminder because we have a watching world that is also looking
(38:46):
for direction.
They don't have a compass.
Right.
We, we know the right way because of God's word, but if we're can acting confused on
that compass, then the world's also confused.
That's right.
They don't know what's right or wrong and better to have them hate us for going the
right way.
But then love us for going the wrong one.
Amen.
I mean, that's part of the winsome danger.
It is right.
Exactly.
(39:06):
Being loved for going the wrong way.
And you're drawing people in for the wrong reasons.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Which is such a shame.
So we need to speak true to our own hearts.
We need to be respectful with others that we disagree with.
They're going to be Christians and potentially even Christian leaders at times who may promote
completely unbiblical thinking on this matter.
You know, pastors like you just mentioned who may be rethinking, you know, what, what,
(39:30):
what God's word says when God's word didn't change, right?
That's the good news.
Didn't change over any situation.
But I read a book and the book convinced me like, seriously?
Yeah.
It's, it can be frustrating to hear these stories, but again, it's, it's, it's all rooted
in emotion, obviously.
It is.
Yeah.
It's not rooted in truth.
And it does come down to what we're worshiping, you know, in those moments, obviously they're
(39:52):
worshiping their child and not Jesus.
Right.
Correct.
At the end of the day, in that moment, right?
That's what's going on.
And so everything goes back to...
Be respectful.
The people are going to disagree.
Be respectful.
Have good conversations, but don't budge from truth.
Yeah.
And here's my final encouragement.
I don't know if you have any others, but my last one is when you're talking to somebody
(40:12):
that you know is deceived in some way, whether it's this issue of LGBTQ plus policies or
really anything that they're deceived on, pray for them.
That's my number one encouragement.
When your heart is disposed to interceding for them to know truth, to walk with God,
to repent, to go His way, when your heart is set there and not in accusation land, not
(40:36):
in, you know, how could they?
I just, you know, this is just crazy.
When your heart is there, you're not trying to push them towards Christ.
Right.
So my final exhortation to the listener is when you're talking with people that you know
are deceived on any issue and not going God's way, orient your heart to pray for them.
Pray for them and ask God's best for them and that God might use you even in some capacity
(41:01):
to bring them about to a good way.
That's the best start there.
And if you're not starting there, then are you really caring for them?
That would be my question.
Are you really caring for them?
And isn't that our desire?
Our desire is not just to win the war on LGBTQ policies.
Those things, they're gonna come and go and probably they're gonna come heavier than they
ever have before and we're gonna get more of those that we're gonna have to wrestle
(41:23):
with.
That's reality.
As the world continues to deteriorate, that's not gonna change.
But can we go person by person to see them know what is true, to know what are lies from
the pit of hell and to convince them according to God's varied grace that Jesus is the Messiah,
He is the Christ and He came to save sinners from themselves even.
(41:45):
Like that's the good message that we wanna encourage.
So pray, pray for those who are deceived.
Yeah, and I just remind you that when you're talking to people that are wrestling with
this issue or church leaders that are compromised on it, yeah, listen well, lead with empathy,
love them, make sure that they understand that you love them as you discuss truth.
(42:07):
But we talk about that a lot.
Lead with empathy.
Okay, talk to me.
Ask good questions.
Draw out their hearts a little bit.
Okay, this is what's going on.
And then you can bring truth to bear.
Once you built that platform of relationship and the fact that I'm not a threat to you,
I actually care for you.
I care for your soul.
Now I wanna bring truth to bear.
And I would probably take these folks to the, let's go back to eschatology.
(42:30):
There is coming a day when you will stand before the Lord.
So what you're advocating right now and what you might be influencing others to accept
or affirm, you'll give an answer for it someday.
So just keep that in mind that Jesus knows every thought and every word and everything
we do and there'll be an answer.
Which is a scary thought, but also can be tremendously comforting when we recognize
(42:54):
that unless Jesus saves, no one can stand.
So, well, friends, thanks for taking on this tough subject.
I know the season has been a lot of hard and heavy hitters, but we do pray that the conversation
has helped you to renew your minds and reform your hearts.
We'll catch you next time on The Thinking Tree.
Welcome to The Thinking Tree, a podcast to help believers renew their minds and reform
(00:03):
their hearts.
I'm Adam Sanchez.
And I'm Jeff No.
And today we are discussing LGBTQ plus policies and the church.
All right, Jeff, you're giving me a look because that was a mouthful.
I'm just glad you got the plus in there.
I know.
(00:24):
And isn't that the rough part?
There is no end.
It is just continuing.
And so this is the rub.
We have clarity on what God's word says about what is a man and what is a woman and what
is biblical sexuality.
And yet there is such confusion over how to apply it.
Oh my goodness.
That's the difficulty in our day.
(00:46):
And so here's the question that we want to address today.
How should Christians think about LGBTQ plus policies, whether for the church or state?
But we're really zeroing in on the church.
We need to discuss how the church is responding to these things and we need to understand
it well and biblically.
Yeah.
And it's interesting.
I know a lot of our listeners have probably grown up, gone to school, been a part of the
(01:09):
bubble and may not even realize how widespread LGBTQ, I'm not going to say plus, how widespread
that's become in the church as a whole.
So we may shock them just a bit today because they may be thinking this is an issue.
We know what we believe about this.
It's not an issue in our church.
It's not an issue in our circles that we're in, churches that we'd either share a platform
(01:33):
with or do conferences with.
But here's some stats to that end, Jeff.
So 2003, the Episcopal Church establishes its first openly gay bishop.
2003, 21 years ago.
Yep.
2003.
In 2012, they approved transgender ordination.
That same church.
The United Church of Christ, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Presbyterian Church
(01:57):
of USA, so PCUSA, United Methodist Church, the American Baptist Churches of the United
States, Disciples of Christ.
All of them ignore biblical principles of sexuality and gender.
All of those are supposed churches.
All of those are in communities across the United States promoting LGBTQ plus thinking
(02:20):
in their pulpits.
In their pulpits.
In their church.
In their fringe.
All of it.
Right.
All of it.
Right.
And that's the difficulty.
Like you mentioned, you would think this is a clear issue, but it is not.
And these supposed churches will even go about protesting for policies and for supposed rights,
trans rights and whatnot, to promote what they think is right, even though their view
(02:45):
is so distorted by the world.
They're oftentimes very politically active.
Yeah.
And a lot of these churches, especially you look at United Methodist Church, I mean, it's
really, it's an activist church.
That's what they live for.
You're not going to get actual teaching or worship there.
It's an activist church.
It's just very normal in a lot of these denominations.
(03:07):
Yeah.
These denominations do not exist to preach Christ and Him crucified.
They exist to preach, I would say oftentimes a pseudo prosperity gospel that focus on people
living their best life now, enjoying what they want, when they want, how they want,
and not promoting dying to self, not promoting really living for the Savior, but living because
(03:28):
the Savior died and saying, now I get to do whatever I want.
And really distorting Romans 6, you know, what shall we say then?
That grace may abound, sin all the more.
And so they actually do that.
They sin all the more that grace may amount.
They may not say that, but that is a function of what's happening.
Now within that, those are all churches that we would say, hey, we have nothing to do with
them.
However, there's another portion of supposed Christians that take a stance or take an approach
(03:56):
that maybe some of the people in our circles at times have waffled on, have maybe affirmed
at different times or not clearly defined the distinctions of what they're promoting.
I know you have some thoughts on this, so I'm just going to mention some of the phrases
and then if you want to dig into to explain some of these things.
The side B, Christians, that's a thing.
(04:18):
I know you're going to explain what that is.
And the re-voice conference, I think there's more sides even than you wanted to mention
than just A or B.
Right.
Yeah.
And some of these, that's funny, some of the people that, they would say that they are
adjacent to the evangelical church.
They do not claim to be necessarily denominational.
(04:39):
They're sometimes non-denominational.
They're adjacent to the evangelicals and they will say, well, look, we're just trying to,
we're trying to find our own space among evangelical churches.
They're pushing the agenda here.
And this idea of side B Christians, I don't know how many out there listening have heard
of that.
I'll come back to side A because there's actually both.
(05:00):
But side B is a position taken by some very aggressive authors recently who have talked
about, well, okay, well, we agree homosexual orientation is, we would say, is a very, very
it's not a sin.
It's, it's acting upon it only that's a sin.
In other words, I can feel it.
(05:22):
I can want it.
I can have an inclination of that.
And they would call it orientation.
But acting on it is the sin.
The sex is morally wrong, but they will okay romantic relationships.
Which is a very slippery slope.
And then say, but we're celibate.
So in other words, they would say we can maintain our sexual identity and say, and because they
(05:45):
will say, well, God made us this way.
By the way, which goes back to creationism versus traducianism, which you talked about
plug for one of your sermons, Psalm 139, part one.
Right.
Exactly.
So they would say, well, look, we're made that way.
So, so it's God honoring, but if we were to act upon our, our, our homosexual desires,
(06:06):
that would be sin.
So we can be celibate.
We can also celibate who we are and we can engage in same sex marriage for companionship
only.
So they're trying to walk this really weird line to say we're, we're fine with who we
are because God made us this way, but we do recognize that we shouldn't engage in homosexual
(06:26):
sex.
Which is a interesting line to, to arrive to.
Right it is.
So basically saying we want to enjoy as much as we can, but we're going to draw the line
here.
Right.
And then by doing that, they can say, well, see, we should be welcomed into evangelical
spaces.
Right.
(06:46):
See, see that's, and that's really the game, right?
It's the sort of water that down and slip in.
So then side A is, is what we would call the affirming view, right?
God intentionally created gay people with same sex attraction.
Therefore same sex relationships are blessed by God.
That's the side A part.
Which is where the Episcopal church has taken its stance.
(07:08):
Right.
Right.
And they would take all the Bible passages that prohibit homosexuality and they would
say, well, that doesn't actually apply to modern day gay relationships because the biblical
authors were talking about ancient practices that were non-consensual.
And what we want to promote is loving monogamous homosexual marriage.
Yeah.
They try to redefine what God's word means.
So all this stuff in the Bible, those were, those are ancient sexual practices.
(07:32):
What we do today is different.
God blesses these relationships.
And so you should affirm us.
So those are the things.
So side A is the completely open affirming view.
Side B is this funny line that they're trying to walk.
And then there's an interesting one called side Y.
And there's never enough letters, right?
That's right.
We've got to have another letter.
So they would say, we find our identity in Christ and therefore shouldn't identify ourselves
(07:57):
by our sexual orientation.
So they would reject the term gay Christian, which is good.
They do not see maintaining a gay identity as God honoring.
Celebsy is a must, but also they don't strive to become heterosexual.
So in other words, they're saying, we're not going to identify ourselves as gay Christians,
(08:20):
but we know it's not right, but we also, we're against conversion.
We're against the idea that God should change us in any way.
So in other words, there's no repentance for it.
And they would, I'm pretty sure they would say, since we're made this way, we can't change.
And that language comes up an awful lot as well.
This just can't be changed.
(08:40):
This is how we're hardwired forever and transformation is not possible.
So they would just say, look, we're not striving to change who we are.
So you've got two interesting little avenues that they've created for themselves in order
to try to say, look, we're just like you and we belong in the same space together.
(09:01):
And to that end, I think those two positions B and Y, their focus is not the Episcopal
church.
Right.
Their focus is not the Lutheran church in America or the PCUSA or the United Methodist
church.
Their focus are conservative, Bible believing, reformed churches.
(09:21):
They want to be in your church, right?
Yes.
And affirmed.
And we have to talk about this.
Correct.
Because we need to be aware of who and what organizations or churches are promoting such
views.
It's not because we're just trying to name names to defame people, but also speaking
to the danger when we don't draw clear lines.
Right.
(09:42):
Or maybe we don't wholeheartedly affirm something, but we're adjacent or it's tangential to us.
We're at a conference where they're at and those kinds of things.
And we have to define clear lines not because we're fearful of what others think, but because
we're trying to promote what is true and right and good.
And there is that striving that we should have.
(10:04):
So with Side B Christians and the Revoice Conference is kind of what came out of that
one, a series of conferences where they're trying to re-voice or give a voice to Christians,
professing Christians who say that they are made this way, defined this way, but will
stop short of homosexual acts.
They've been supported by some notable names.
(10:24):
Yeah, that's the thing.
Some big names, even SBC names.
One of those is Karen Swallow Pryor.
That's right.
She supported Side B Christians in several books to that end.
And that's why they call her the Notorious KSP, because the notorious RBG, Ruth Bader
Ginsburg of the Supreme Court fame, was notable for her politics, not just her rulings, but
(10:50):
her politics in promoting not just female rights, which is not a bad thing, but transgender
rights, homosexual rights, things like that.
There's a book that was written by one of the leaders of that movement of Side B Christians
named Gregory Coles.
And he was mentioned by one of the guys that we respect, one of the evangelical Christian
(11:13):
leaders that we respect, an expositor of the word named D.A. Carson.
And though D.A. did not go on to continue to promote or condone this gentleman, at one
point he did speak very positively of this leader and said that his book should be approached
with humility and that Christians should approach it to learn.
But the way that he gave that pseudo endorsement, I don't want to call it a full endorsement,
(11:39):
but pseudo endorsement wasn't helpful.
Right, because they're going to seize that and say, oh, see, a conservative complementarian
thinks that this is a good thing.
Now, since then, D.A.'s been clear about what homosexuality is.
But even in that promotion, that was an unwise moment.
And I think that was a cautionary tale even for other leaders, some other ones that are
(12:01):
maybe less shocking.
Tim Keller actually, before his death, kind of endorsed a book by Greg Johnson, another
one of the Sideway Christian leaders who was an openly gay man.
And Tim Keller supported that work and that Christian, similarly to what D.A. said, but
maybe a little more full-throated, that Christian should learn from such a person in that situation
(12:27):
with that view.
Right.
And that creates a distinction too.
I think there is a difference between maybe learning about Christians wrestling with these
things versus learning from.
I even think that's a difference.
Absolutely.
You know, if we say, hey, read Rosaria Butterfield's The Gospel Comes with a House Key to understand
some of what she was thinking and wrestling through, that, I don't think there's an issue
(12:51):
there.
And maybe, to give credit to D.A., maybe that's what he meant, is maybe you can learn from
him.
But there's a difference between saying that versus like KSP supporting and saying, no,
you can actually learn how to support your brothers and sisters, is what she'll say,
in this capacity because this is their struggle and you need to understand their struggle.
Right.
(13:11):
That's different.
In other words, lay the biblical authority on the shelf for a moment so you can understand
these folks.
And we don't do that.
I'm sorry.
Right.
We want to love this person, but we want to use what those things on the shelf, biblical
principles, that's how we want to love them.
That's really the lens, right, that we should view.
We talk about that often.
(13:32):
The gospel and God's word is the lens that we view the world.
We can't see the world rightly unless we have God's word and His truth.
So I mean, there's more Christian dynamics that are affected by this.
World Vision, famously years ago, started hiring gay Christians, and I've spoken about
them when we spoke about our missions dynamic last year.
(13:52):
This is a great pain because around the world, I know of believers who have not been working
in various communities because they were forced by World Vision to work alongside gay missionary
Christians.
Right.
And it's terrible because World Vision came and put that upon these third world contexts
where things like this are completely unacceptable.
(14:14):
Absolutely.
Even governmentally unacceptable, and yet they were forcing this upon believers in those
contexts, very, very painful.
Schools, famous schools like Baylor, Azusa Pacific, Wheaton, Calvin University, they
all offer some kind of accommodation for LGBTQ positions, whether that's groups that they
have for those on campus or whether they approve those romances or hire staff that hold those
(14:39):
positions.
All of those are guilty of that.
Well, claiming to be Christian.
Claiming to be a Christian.
That's the thing.
If you want to do what you want to do, then go do it.
Just take that Christian label off your name.
Right?
They're saying they're doing it in the name of Christ and telling others that they're
wrong.
That's the thing.
Right.
They're saying, hey, we can even have a different approach to this, which to be fair, we wouldn't
(15:01):
say either.
We wouldn't say that, hey, we can have a different approach to it, but there's a huge difference
between saying like a Yale University fully supporting something like this, even though
it started as a seminary.
Right.
There's a difference between that dynamic versus Azusa Pacific that still gives out
Bible degrees.
Yeah.
Right.
Wheaton that still gives out Bible degrees, when really they're promoting far more politics.
(15:22):
Right.
And that's the emphasis that we're trying to show here is that these things are infiltrating.
They claim to be part of the evangelical world too.
That's the thing.
They're not saying we're part of the Methodist Church, because then you could sort of understand
it.
Okay, the Methodists are long gone, but they're claiming to be evangelical, which means of
the gospel.
Yeah.
And yet then they're doing these things that are clearly against the gospel.
(15:46):
So it's a terrible hypocrisy.
It is.
I'll bring it home to something more practical.
In recent years, the idea of pronoun usage has become such a lightning rod in various
ways.
I think it's maybe died down a little bit from the height of where it was, but when
it was at its height, there was a point that it was being considered for hate speech if
(16:08):
you weren't using somebody's preferred pronoun.
Right.
There were people that were trying to put that forward as a law in various jurisdictions.
J.D. Greer, who was the SBC president at one point, he once advocated to use a person's
preferred pronouns.
He said it was a Romans 14 weaker brother issue, that you were supposed to use it and
(16:31):
really was pushing and compelling people.
This was not a personal conviction only, but it was compelling people to have this position
to see others as a weaker brother.
Now since then, he's backed off of that a little bit, and he said, hey, I may have not
understood that entirely well, and so he softened to that initial, but he hasn't denounced it.
(16:51):
No, he got a lot of heat for it.
He got a lot of heat for it.
And then he responded, which is what most guys who have online presidents, look, you
say something because you think you're going to get followers, you get pushback, then you
got to apologize, then you got to call your PR guy and issue a statement, and you know
how it goes, and it's crazy.
This is the world of, and we talked about this at Christians Immediate, this is the
world of having a platform, having some kind of fame where people, or you think people
(17:18):
want to listen to you, maybe they don't, maybe you're just the train wreck that has happened
to be on YouTube or something.
But with that, what comes with these famous, these famous supposed Christian leaders, there's
a lot of danger about whether they're bringing biblical clarity or not.
And that's where I think it's helpful that we're naming names not for the sake of defaming,
(17:39):
but pointing out, hey, some of these names keep coming up.
Yeah, and they want to be public figures.
They're not hiding.
They're not hiding at all.
They're finding some kind of, whether it's their livelihood is based off of that, and
they're selling books or other things, or they just enjoy being the center of attention.
But some of these names keep coming up.
Some of them, they're just once in a while.
They pop up and you're like, ooh, okay, that's not great.
(18:01):
Others of them, they keep showing up.
And those are the ones we really should be careful on, because some of these individuals
really are promoting worldly views, not biblical views.
And here's one of them.
I'm just gonna mention one very prominent leader, because he made the list, I think,
of 25 most influential Christians in the 21st century, which is insane.
(18:22):
So sad.
But his name, he's a son of a famous evangelical leader, but Andy Stanley.
Andy Stanley, son of Charles Stanley, he's a prominent Christian leader.
At one point, had the largest church in the US, I mean, it vacillates, but around 30,000
members.
This guy, Andy, may not have been a bad guy early on.
(18:45):
Maybe early on, he was just a little squishy.
He wasn't like his dad.
His dad was much more conservative.
But this guy, Andy, I think there were some concerns early on, but in the recent years,
there have been really serious concerns.
Really grievous concerns over his views, and one such view involves this dynamic with LGBTQ
(19:07):
policies.
There's a difference between, you kind of mentioned this earlier, there's a difference
between noting an affirmation versus considering how do we engage with people who are struggling.
Now we're gonna get to more of those practical encouragements in just a moment, but I wanna
point out for the listener, there's a massive difference between those who promote saying,
(19:28):
hey, welcome everyone into the fold and affirm their lifestyle versus saying we can help
people no matter what stage or dynamic of life that they're in, no matter what sin even
they're caught in, we can help them go God's way.
Those two things are not the same.
They're massively different.
Andy promotes something different.
Yeah, and we know this is a slippery slope, because I remember hearing this 10 years ago
(19:49):
about Andy Stanley's church.
At that time, it was, hey, look, if you're gay, we're not gonna bother you, so just wink,
just we're glad you're coming and you're hearing a worship service.
And then pretty soon it was like, hey, we're feeling really comfortable at this church.
They speak very highly of our community and it just trickles down, right?
(20:12):
It always does.
And eventually it's, yeah, we have openly gay couple members, members in our church.
Members and maybe even church leaders at one point.
Correct, and they're not celibate.
But hey, at least they're monogamous, Adam.
So the slope just gets muddier and slipperier as it goes.
By the way, Andy Stanley is the same guy who has advocated completely unhitching from the
(20:35):
Old Testament.
If you guys have heard that, we should just unhitch from it completely because he doesn't
like the Old Testament.
And he's what, I mean, there's a whole bunch of things that he's recently talked about.
The idea that if he would talk about a church like ours and say that we've made the Bible
an idol, we need to stop.
We need to stop looking so much at the Bible.
(20:57):
I mean, stuff like that.
So the guy has been off the rails for a while, but it just gets crazier.
And he really, and speaking of those rails, he has no one to hold him to those.
And that's one of the things that the book points out, which was that probably for me
was the most tragic thing to hear.
The book is a situation where he promotes his view.
He promotes his view that not only do they allow gay couples in the church, but he doesn't
(21:19):
even think they should pursue celibacy.
I mean, he said that at this gathering of pastors, and he was pushing Christian leaders,
these men, to not see an issue like this as political.
To say, no, no, no, the truth of scripture regarding these things isn't what you think
it is, that whole unhitching idea from the Old Testament.
(21:39):
And really, he was pursuing a political agenda.
Maybe he doesn't want to call it that.
That's exactly what it was, a political agenda.
But the tragic part was everyone in that scenario that the author described, because somebody
came forward finally and talked about it, no one checked him.
No one really pushed back.
And the guy who even put together the event, one of his disciples years prior, really was
(22:03):
defending him.
Like, hey, he's giving us his time, he's giving us his unscripted thoughts here, so be gracious
with him.
But he really defended this man's completely unbiblical view and shielded him from any
critique, shielded him from any, you know, the checks and balances, the iron sharpening
(22:23):
iron that should be happening.
You know, if I come to you one day and I try to promote a view like this, I pray that you
would just rebuke me and say, Adam, what are you thinking?
And that's the way it should be.
There should be, as we're working through things, and we've had this sometimes with
church members in the past where they promoted some really wild views.
(22:44):
And some have received a rebuke well and turned away, and some have not.
Some have only delved deeper into their lostness, which is tragic.
But the fact that he had no one to call him out, oh, that was heartbreaking.
And from the SideB folks, boy, they excited to grab a hold of somebody like Andy Stanley,
who has this massive church and this huge platform and to say, look, we've got a partner.
(23:08):
So again, they're trying to squeeze, this is what the listeners need to understand.
This movement seeks to squeeze into Bible believing churches and to do it in a way that
is winsome.
Here we come back to the winsome thing again, right?
So now I'm not saying it's going to happen at Oak Hill.
We're a smaller church.
We have eyes on everything.
(23:29):
We're guarding our sheep like we should as shepherds.
But in a lot of these big churches that even we have in our Valley, these folks are there.
They're already there.
Now they may not be making a lot of noise yet, but they're there.
And so it scares me a little bit that we have elders out there that don't know their flocks.
Right, right.
(23:49):
That don't know their flock and potentially even people in leadership who have a very
different view of biblical sexuality, I would say.
Now a baseline encouragement I'll give here is when we're talking about whether it's homosexuality
or transgenderism, we need to not treat this differently from other sin.
(24:10):
I think that's one nuance when we hear even about side B Christians, side A obviously,
but side B, side Y, side X, Z, W, whatever comes next.
But any other side, we need to not treat what the Bible declares as sin any differently
than sin.
So we don't make policies, for example, I was thinking about this, we don't make policies
(24:34):
for stealing under certain situations, for murder in certain situations, for adultery
in certain situations.
Now the law may have a view on some of those things.
I think about Les Miserables when I think about stealing.
When I think about murder, I think about Cana Monte Cristo.
There's these stories that are interesting to think about within these things, but at
(24:56):
the end of the day, when we see something as sinful and wrong, we need to call it sinful
and wrong and then deal with it appropriately.
So when it comes to LGBTQ plus dynamics and policies and practices, we shouldn't make
things allowable and come right up to try to figure out where, well, where's the line
on what's allowable within this?
(25:16):
It is sin.
Right.
And by the way, one of the accusations that's often thrown at conservative churches like
ours from the side B side, does that make sense?
Yeah, side A side, is they will say, oh, see, you're hyper focused on this one issue, but
do you rebuke all sin?
And they may have to have a point with that.
They're like, do you have divorced people in your church?
(25:36):
And what about greed and what about gluttony and all that?
And they make a good point.
So that's what you're saying.
We treat it all the same.
Sin is sin.
Everything, yes.
And so we want to address anything that we see that's unhealthy for us because it displeases
God.
If we are looking the other way on certain things and then hyper focusing on this one
issue, then we're not good church leaders.
(25:58):
Yeah.
And to be fair, there may be some churches in very conservative areas of the US, maybe
even in the South, and I'm not trying to blame them, but we've seen some of the dynamics
with like unbiblical places like Westboro Baptist, right?
Where there is such a hyper focus on some of these issues, they're not real churches,
but they make a bad name for Christians because it makes it seem like all Christians care
(26:21):
about is this one issue.
And to that end, like you just noted, no, as Bible believing Christians, we care about
all sin and helping believers to not walk in sin but to walk in the light.
And we do that in every area of life, not just one area of life.
I mean, we were talking recently about partiality and not having partiality with others.
(26:41):
I mean, Americans, that is a huge issue.
We show a lot of partiality and that's not always to rich and to poor dynamics.
Sometimes it's to my ethnic dynamic.
Sometimes it's to the people I'm more comfortable with that share my interests.
We show a lot of partiality.
I don't think Paul would have a lot of kind things to say about the American church in
general.
(27:02):
You're getting a letter.
Yeah, you're getting a text.
You're going to get something.
Okay, so with all of that, let's talk about how we can encourage our listeners to consider
these things, whether biblical premise, maybe we start there, but even how we can encourage
them to respond to these things in the church.
And then that's obviously going to affect society at large as well.
(27:22):
Yeah, I mean, the obvious, if you want to go back to the sides and all this stuff, look,
here's the biblical position.
Sexual sin should not be cultivated or entertained.
And that's all forms of sexual thought and action.
Not to say that those things we might have, we live in a fallen world, we're fallen human
(27:43):
beings.
We might have desires and affections that have been messed up, but we don't just say,
well, it's okay.
That's fine.
That's okay.
Just don't act on them.
No, we seek to actively put those things to death.
We battle against those.
We strive to renew the mind.
And if we need counseling help with that, then we come out and we say, hey, I'm wrestling
with this.
(28:03):
Can you help me?
But we don't just go, well, you know what?
Hey, as long as you don't go out there and do this, you're fine.
No, we want to continue to renew the mind.
That's part of the Christian walk.
And is it going to be done completely and perfectly this side of heaven?
No, but we don't give up the fight.
We don't just go, well, hey, this is how I am and God loves me anyway.
And so I don't have to try to put sin to death.
(28:27):
So I mean, I'm sure our listeners know that, but we want to make sure that we're in that
battle.
Because we talk about, that's really what defines this, right?
Are you in the battle?
Are you just giving into this?
You're just like, ah, this is who I am.
No, that's Christ loves you too much to leave you in that spot.
You got to be in the battle.
You know, to that end, you mentioned this side of glory.
(28:47):
I think that's an important component.
You've done a series, listeners, if you want to hear on eschatological things, on Unshakable,
the other podcast.
But I think your persons, a believer's eschatological thinking impacts this dynamic.
Earlier you mentioned the side Y, side B, supposed Christians say, God made me this
(29:08):
way.
This is just who I am and I can't be changed, cannot be changed.
Well, if your eschatological position says that one day you will be made new, fully,
and finally free from sin, then yes, you can change.
And yes, you will change.
You absolutely will.
You will not be bound by this.
(29:28):
So it's an immature and incomplete theology that says you cannot change and become more
like Christ, even this side of glory.
And to say that it can only happen in the age to come also minimizes the saving and
sanctifying work of Jesus.
To say that He's only saved you so far and then when you die then He'll work on the
(29:50):
rest of you, but until then don't really worry about it.
Versus, what I see constantly throughout God's Word is that we are to strive for holiness
because God is holy.
Be holy because He is holy.
So when we consider our end times thinking, right, that's eschatological views, our end
times thinking, if we one day are gonna be free from sin, then yes, that means today.
(30:11):
Today let's strive as believers and to strive as believers as you noted to understand what's
going on in our heart, to turn away from sin, to turn towards God.
Sometimes we need help to do that in hard and stubborn sins, but God has a way forward
and it's not a secret hidden way.
If fishermen could do it in the first century who were not public theologians, who were
not seminary students, who were not, the list can go on.
(30:35):
If they could walk God's way then.
Without Lagos Bible sophomore.
Without any, you know, maybe they knew the original language is a little bit better.
Beyond that, they could go God's way because God is not trying to trick us.
Yeah.
And the Bible actually gives us, I know you wanted to talk about the passage in 1 Corinthians
6, gives us testimony that people have been transformed even from this particular sin
(31:01):
we're talking about.
Yeah.
Right?
Amen.
In 1 Corinthians 6, there's a, it's what we call a vice list, right?
There's all these things that are mentioned.
Two things in this vice list, fornicators, that is, okay, so listen now, heterosexual
adultery or heterosexual sex outside of marriage and homosexuality.
(31:22):
So Paul covers, so for those, again, one of the accusations that comes against a church
like ours is you only care about homosexual sin, but you don't care about heterosexual
sin.
Yes, we do.
Yeah.
Paul did.
He said, well, heterosexuals and homosexuals, and then verse 11, 1 Corinthians 6 says what?
Such were some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in
(31:47):
the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
So that's Paul's testimony that, hey, I know these Corinthians and they were, some of them
were engaged in a homosexual lifestyle.
They're not now.
They've been transformed.
They've been washed.
It's beautiful.
So that's why we don't give up this side of heaven either, right?
Because the power of the Spirit can do that work.
(32:08):
And God's way is amazing.
I mean, that testimony is such were some of you is an incredible testimony that many,
if not all of the believers, period, when you're saved, you look back and say, wow,
I was this way before Jesus and now look, look who I am because of him.
And that's a beautiful testimony of what God does.
He remakes.
(32:29):
He makes all things new and he's making us new as well.
And that's happening today.
That doesn't just happen in the eternal kingdom.
In the eternal kingdom, it's final.
It's final and full, but today he's doing it.
He's willing and work, willing and working for his good pleasure in us.
Right.
So some, so a young man or young woman comes to us and says, Hey, I have this, this inclination.
(32:53):
I have this struggle, the sexual struggle in my heart, which has happened at Oak Hill.
And so what do we say to that person?
We don't say get out.
Right.
We don't say that's okay.
No, we don't.
Well, be who you are.
We say, man, praise God that you are laying your heart open before him and before your
(33:15):
elders.
Let us walk with you through this.
Yeah.
It's not rocket science.
That, that is, that is the, the biblical balance of grace and truth.
Amen.
Amen.
And yet it's so hard.
It's so difficult.
Right.
And you mentioned a couple of key words here because affirmation is the word of the day.
Right.
(33:36):
Affirmation is constantly used inappropriately.
There can be a good sense of affirmation when you affirm somebody doing the right thing,
God's way.
I mean, that is an amen moment and we should, we should grow in that ability to encourage
others, but affirmation when they're not going God's way, affirmation when they're living
in a unbiblical lifestyle is not the same as accepting them as they are.
(34:00):
Right.
And you know, you look at Jesus as an example, spending time with sinners is not the same
as encouraging them to sin.
Correct.
Just spending time with them.
That gets, that gets so badly manipulated.
All the time.
People gaslight Christians on that one.
Well, Jesus spent time with sinners and?
Yeah.
You're going to, if you live in this world, you're going to spend a lot of time with sinners,
(34:21):
but spending time with them is not the same thing as encouraging them to sin.
And Jesus never encouraged people to sin.
Right.
So spending time with them or accepting them as they are, meaning that you cannot, we cannot
change them.
Right.
God can change them.
We cannot change them.
That's not the same as affirming their lifestyle as good and holy.
(34:42):
Correct.
Those two things are not the same and we need to be clear about that.
That's what they demand.
See, that's the thing.
They demand that you affirm me in who I am right now and we can say, we love you, but
no, we're not going to affirm where you're at.
And again, it's not just this sin.
Anybody that comes to us and says, I have an anger problem.
Oh, you're okay though.
(35:03):
I affirm that anger in you.
We would never say that.
Right?
So again, we treat, we treat sin as sin.
Yeah.
And this is the rub with churches then that are promoting worldliness in those ministries,
even though we mentioned whether there's schools or ministry movements, things like that, when
they promote worldliness as godliness, there's a great danger and Christians get confused.
(35:26):
Christians get really confused as to, well, what does it mean to love like Jesus?
What does it mean to walk with sinners and sufferers and to be faithful with them?
So as Christians, we need to advocate not just for the policies that encourage godliness.
We also need to be very faithful amongst ourselves to promote right thinking.
(35:48):
And that really, and this is where I'm going to focus on for just a second, that really
comes down to parents.
That comes down to parents more than anyone else.
That doesn't mean other people don't matter in this opinion or this approach.
It does matter.
Every believer should have a right view, but especially parents, because I've used, I've
heard this excuse too many times.
(36:09):
In the book brought this up, of Christian parents who have children who turn, children
who turn towards an unrighteous lifestyle in this vein, homosexuality, transgenderism.
And then the Christian parent says, well, what am I supposed to do?
How am I going to love them?
How am I going to care for them?
I don't want to lose my son or daughter or they or them simply because God's word tells
(36:33):
me that this is sin.
How do I keep them?
And they make this third way.
They make this side B. They make this side Y. They make all these things and they affirm
them because they were not clear in their own thinking to begin with.
So parents, it starts really with us to know what is true and loving, that we would speak
(36:53):
the whole truth about God's word to our own hearts, to one another, and then to our children
in the next generation.
And that goes all the way from creation, but especially from sin to salvation.
We need to be clear about what is sin and what it means to be saved.
And we need to constantly wash that over our children.
(37:14):
We just did a baby dedication recently, Deuteronomy six principles.
We talk about these things when we rise up, when we lay down, when we're walking about,
whether we're in the city, whether we're in our homes, that we're constantly speaking
of the right things.
It's not just transgenderism and LGBTQ dynamics.
It's everything, everything that we need to speak truth on, but especially this one.
(37:37):
Yeah I've heard tragic stories, multiple stories where even pastors who have said, I understood
homosexuality, transgenderism to be sins.
I've read it in the Bible.
I've preached messages on it, but then my son came out as gay or my daughter came out
as trans.
And now I'm looking at it completely fresh and new.
(37:59):
And you're like, what?
Completely based on their own experience, their own emotion there.
And I understand the emotion.
It's my child I love, but you don't know the principle doesn't change.
You keep, you doesn't mean you cut them off or stop loving them.
You call them to account based on based on what the definition of sin is and you love
them and walk with them through this with a hope of repentance and transformation.
(38:23):
But boy, you, you see guys move to affirmation in a, in a night because their child came
out as gay.
So, so be, be rooted yourself.
Like you said, be rooted yourself in the principle of what, what does God's word say and do not
be moved.
Yeah.
I think parents need to take that seriously.
Yeah.
And that all of us need that reminder because we have a watching world that is also looking
(38:46):
for direction.
They don't have a compass.
Right.
We, we know the right way because of God's word, but if we're can acting confused on
that compass, then the world's also confused.
That's right.
They don't know what's right or wrong and better to have them hate us for going the
right way.
But then love us for going the wrong one.
Amen.
I mean, that's part of the winsome danger.
It is right.
Exactly.
(39:06):
Being loved for going the wrong way.
And you're drawing people in for the wrong reasons.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Which is such a shame.
So we need to speak true to our own hearts.
We need to be respectful with others that we disagree with.
They're going to be Christians and potentially even Christian leaders at times who may promote
completely unbiblical thinking on this matter.
You know, pastors like you just mentioned who may be rethinking, you know, what, what,
(39:30):
what God's word says when God's word didn't change, right?
That's the good news.
Didn't change over any situation.
But I read a book and the book convinced me like, seriously?
Yeah.
It's, it can be frustrating to hear these stories, but again, it's, it's, it's all rooted
in emotion, obviously.
It is.
Yeah.
It's not rooted in truth.
And it does come down to what we're worshiping, you know, in those moments, obviously they're
(39:52):
worshiping their child and not Jesus.
Right.
Correct.
At the end of the day, in that moment, right?
That's what's going on.
And so everything goes back to...
Be respectful.
The people are going to disagree.
Be respectful.
Have good conversations, but don't budge from truth.
Yeah.
And here's my final encouragement.
I don't know if you have any others, but my last one is when you're talking to somebody
(40:12):
that you know is deceived in some way, whether it's this issue of LGBTQ plus policies or
really anything that they're deceived on, pray for them.
That's my number one encouragement.
When your heart is disposed to interceding for them to know truth, to walk with God,
to repent, to go His way, when your heart is set there and not in accusation land, not
(40:36):
in, you know, how could they?
I just, you know, this is just crazy.
When your heart is there, you're not trying to push them towards Christ.
Right.
So my final exhortation to the listener is when you're talking with people that you know
are deceived on any issue and not going God's way, orient your heart to pray for them.
Pray for them and ask God's best for them and that God might use you even in some capacity
(41:01):
to bring them about to a good way.
That's the best start there.
And if you're not starting there, then are you really caring for them?
That would be my question.
Are you really caring for them?
And isn't that our desire?
Our desire is not just to win the war on LGBTQ policies.
Those things, they're gonna come and go and probably they're gonna come heavier than they
ever have before and we're gonna get more of those that we're gonna have to wrestle
(41:23):
with.
That's reality.
As the world continues to deteriorate, that's not gonna change.
But can we go person by person to see them know what is true, to know what are lies from
the pit of hell and to convince them according to God's varied grace that Jesus is the Messiah,
He is the Christ and He came to save sinners from themselves even.
(41:45):
Like that's the good message that we wanna encourage.
So pray, pray for those who are deceived.
Yeah, and I just remind you that when you're talking to people that are wrestling with
this issue or church leaders that are compromised on it, yeah, listen well, lead with empathy,
love them, make sure that they understand that you love them as you discuss truth.
(42:07):
But we talk about that a lot.
Lead with empathy.
Okay, talk to me.
Ask good questions.
Draw out their hearts a little bit.
Okay, this is what's going on.
And then you can bring truth to bear.
Once you built that platform of relationship and the fact that I'm not a threat to you,
I actually care for you.
I care for your soul.
Now I wanna bring truth to bear.
And I would probably take these folks to the, let's go back to eschatology.
(42:30):
There is coming a day when you will stand before the Lord.
So what you're advocating right now and what you might be influencing others to accept
or affirm, you'll give an answer for it someday.
So just keep that in mind that Jesus knows every thought and every word and everything
we do and there'll be an answer.
Which is a scary thought, but also can be tremendously comforting when we recognize
(42:54):
that unless Jesus saves, no one can stand.
So, well, friends, thanks for taking on this tough subject.
I know the season has been a lot of hard and heavy hitters, but we do pray that the conversation
has helped you to renew your minds and reform your hearts.
We'll catch you next time on The Thinking Tree.
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