SBC Conference: “Get The Spotlight Off The Bible” (Courtesy of Russell Moore & Andy Stanley)

According to Bud Ahlheim, megachurch pastor Andy Stanley would like to take the spotlight off Scripture. He makes that clear in an interview with the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission president Russell Moore.  Here’s what the popular pastor said:

I would ask preachers and pastors and student pastors in their communications to get the spotlight off the Bible and back on the resurrection.

And Dr. Moore didn’t indicate that he had a problem with the comment.  Ahlheim informs us that:

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. (2 Tim 3:16) Photo courtesy Living Simply By Abundance

The SBC’s continued pursuit of its prevalent flavor of theology – American Christianity –   driven as it is by a seeker-sensitive model of church growth, finds its ERLC conference with one day under its belt.   The two-day conference, August 25 & 26, was coincidentally (probably not) given the theme, Onward, also the title of Russell Moore’s recent book.

The Ethics And Religious Liberty Commission conference includes a multitude of speakers, celebrity Christians, mega pastors, and even a poet. For the SBC, where doctrinal allegiance and Biblical authority are increasingly becoming mere theological terms reserved for the training halls of seminaries, it’s no surprise Scripture might be downplayed at a denominational conference.  But for it to be outright denigrated might be an ignoble first, even for the SBC.

The unfettered zeal to “engage the culture” can be interpreted, perhaps, as the convention’s superficial mantra to hide an underlying bureaucratic panic. The virulent hemorrhaging of members needs an emergency response team. Swing open the doors! Invite in the goats! Engage!  Entertain! Retain! Onward!   We don’t need no stinkin’ doctrine!

So, day one of the conference allowed us to capture this little nugget of outright denial of Biblical authority. You may not have heard it so blatantly exclaimed from a Southern Baptist pulpit, but if you’re perceptive enough, you can discern it as underlying truth that drives the methodology of many SBC churches. It’s the “it’s all about you gospel” … and you don’t need much Bible for that … cuz it ain’t in the Bible!

In playing the wildly favorite “What If You Were Pope” game with Andy Stanley, Russell Moore, President of the ERLC, posits the following question to the mega-church superstar pastor.

“If you were, for real, the evangelical pope and you really had the authority to say ‘this is how it’s gonna be within American evangelical Christianity,’ what would you do?”  Russell Moore

Moore skips right over all those Biblical commands for pastors, things like Paul’s admonition to Timothy to “Preach the word.”  (2 Timothy 4:2) He jumps right over Christ’s triply-issued instruction to Peter, “Feed my sheep.”  (John 21:15-17)

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7 Responses to SBC Conference: “Get The Spotlight Off The Bible” (Courtesy of Russell Moore & Andy Stanley)

  1. Sharon Peterson August 29, 2016 at 5:47 pm #

    Andy Stanley is also obviously forgetting the part that says ” not one dot or tittle shall pass from my word. ” Matthew 5:18.

    It really saddens me how all these ministers are so blind to not see what’s happening. And sadder too for the people who will unknowingly lose their souls.

    Hosea 4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge because thou has rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee….”

    Rev. 18: “Come out of her my people that ye be not partakers of her sin…..”

    The Bible says it plainly.

  2. Manny1962 August 29, 2016 at 6:56 pm #

    That’s why it’s so important to read and study scripture daily, to be in prayer daily, the antidote to the world is scripture. Something these so called pastors have forgotten or more likely they never knew. It is sad. But Jesus warned us this was going to happen. Many Christians are having a very hard time grappling with the fact that bible-believing Christianity is almost gone, what we have now is a small remnant called the bride and Churchianity, I guess we’ve been told so many times to forget about eschatology that when the day has finally arrived we can’t believe it, we are shocked and can’t “believe” it’s really here.

  3. Manny1962 August 31, 2016 at 9:21 am #

    Andy Stanley denies scripture as infallible:

    http://pulpitandpen.org/2016/08/30/superstar-mega-church-son-of-a-hopefully-ashamed-preacher-man-andy-stanley-scripture-cant-be-defended/

    This man is a very slick wolf, many follow him out of sheer ignorance of the word of God. This article just left me reeling. How can folks not see through this? I guess it must be a delusion or willful ignorance.

    • Greg August 31, 2016 at 1:23 pm #

      This article is misleading in so many ways. Listen to the actual message. Andy was not saying he believes the Bible is filled with myths, etc. He was discussing the reality that you will face situations in our post-Christian culture where “because the Bible says so” is meaningless. Our faith rests first and foremost on a resurrected Christ. Andy believes in the inspiration of Scripture. Ironically the article describing Andy’s errant views is actually what is in error.

  4. Tommy Warren August 31, 2016 at 12:22 pm #

    As a “Southern Baptist” lay teacher, I will NEVER take the focus off of the Bible, because there wouldn’t be ANY salvation apart from the teaching in Scripture to teach us THE WAY! I am growing more and more concerned with the recent turn of events within SBC ranks. Now is the time for people to stand in this ever-widening gap and teach the WORD, “Be instant in season and out of season.”

  5. Manny1962 September 5, 2016 at 10:14 am #

    Mr.Stanley has been at this for a while:

    https://www.thebereancall.org/content/october-2005-extra

    “The entire display is given credence by a large advertisement for Andy Stanley’s new four-part, small group video series called You’ve Got Style , marketed under Stanley’s “northpoint” church resource imprint—a product of Multnomah Publishers. Readers are invited to take an online “worship style” quiz, which connects the “familychristian” website to Stanley’s own “sacredpaths” survey. The 45-question personality inventory is designed to reveal “how you draw near to God.” Several questions make no distinction between Catholic and Christian—for example: “I enjoy attending a ‘high church’ service with incense and…[the] Eucharist.” The promotional copy describes Stanley’s teaching as “inspired by Gary Thomas’s book, Sacred Pathways. Due to the massive marketing forces at work, and the widespread influence of Stanley (whose church near Atlanta, Georgia, hosts over 10,000 adults in three Sunday a.m. services), further inquiry into the origin of “nine sacred paths” —and how they oppose the one “narrow way” and “strait gate”is necessary.”

  6. Manny1962 September 5, 2016 at 10:21 am #

    This is what Gary Thomas who influenced Mr.Stanley has to say:

    “Sacred Pathways author Gary Thomas recounts how “Carl Jung developed four profiles to describe human nature…” (p. 21). “Knowing our personal temperaments, whether we are sanguine or melancholy, for instance, will tell us how we relate to others or how we can choose a suitable spouse or vocation. But it doesn’t necessarily tell us how we relate to God” (p. 17). [Past issues of TBC have long established the occult connection in seeking to classify people by personality types and temperaments.] Thomas continues building a case for his nine worship styles: “Using biblical figures, historic church movements, and various personality temperaments, we can identify nine spiritual temperaments—what I call sacred pathways.” Thomas is somewhat vague as to the exact origin of his ideas, but research reveals a close connection to the nine psycho-spiritual “types” of the mystical, esoteric Enneagram”

    You be the judges, given that Churchianity is running headlong into Rome’s lap, and how enough truth is mixed with a grain of yeast gives the illusion of Christian belief. Andy Stanley is compromised, I don’t care if he says he believes in sola scripture and sola fide, his teachings need to be rebuked and shunned. What he’s doing is not Christian, it’s an amalgam of Romanism, Mysticism and biblical key words that confuse those not grounded in scripture,