“When Jesus stood up, he said to her, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ ‘No one, Lord,’ she answered. ‘Neither do I condemn you,’ said Jesus. ‘Go, and from now on do not sin anymore.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

The apostle John probably did not write those words. You would be hard-pressed to find a translation that doesn’t include them in at least a footnote in his Gospel, but they were probably written sometime after he died by someone else. Still, this particular story from Jesus’ life probably really did happen. The conclusion of the story here is powerful, and in one moment captures both sides of a tension that our church culture struggles to balance. Some folks fall pretty firmly on one side and Jesus’ refusal to condemn to death this sinful woman; some on the other, when Jesus commanded her not to sin anymore. In the last couple of weeks, our culture has been treated to a bit of a high level debate mostly between two of the highest profile Christian leaders in the country, Albert Mohler and Andy Stanley. I’ve had a chance to read or listen to their reactions and responses to a conference Andy’s church recently hosted that aimed to give support to Christian parents of kids who have come out as somewhere along the LGBTQ spectrum. To say it created a bit of a stir in the Christian world would be a bit of an understatement. As someone who has a fair bit of respect for both men, here are a few of my thoughts.

Perhaps first and foremost let me say this. Contrary to what Mohler and several other critics have alleged, I remain stubbornly unconvinced that Andy Stanley has left behind biblical, orthodox Christianity. Furthermore, Mohler’s decision to use his large platform to not only draw attention to the Unconditional Conference that happened at North Point Community Church but to essential label Stanley a heretic was unhelpful. I say that while at the same time being very comfortable acknowledging that I listen to Mohler’s news analysis podcast, The Briefing, each day, and find myself in agreement with what he says most of the time. Now, Stanley’s church is large enough and culturally significant enough, not to mention Stanley’s own incredibly high profile as a preacher and teacher and author, that there was going to be a firestorm over this whole issue whether or not Mohler weighed in on it. That being said, Mohler’s additions to the conversation weren’t helpful.

Part of the challenge here is that Andy Stanley and North Point Community Church and Albert Mohler, his podcast, and the Southern Baptist Seminary which he presides over as President are aimed at different audiences. While Mohler no doubt has a passion for missions and evangelism, the truth is, the material he puts out is aimed primarily at the overwhelmingly Christian audience who consumes it. With Stanley and his church, while there are lots and lots of Christians who consume what they produce, their intended target audience is people who are not yet followers of Jesus. Because of this, while they use the same source as their foundation, and while there is really not as much space between their respective theological positions as either would like you to believe, they don’t speak the same language.

Perhaps the best observation I’ve heard of why Stanley keeps irritating so many Christian leaders over the last several years comes from my Minister of Students. Using the word “right” to refer to the Christian world generally, and “left” to refer to the non-Christian world, he noted that people like Mohler think from the right and speak to the right. They spend most of their time speaking to people who already think like them and say things those people are inclined to agree with before they even start speaking. This doesn’t mean they don’t ever speak to unbelievers, much less that they don’t care about them. But when they speak to them, they are speaking from the right. Their first concern is generally to make sure they are understood by the right even if that comes at the expense of the left’s understanding them well.

Stanley, on the other hand, thinks from the right but speaks to the left. His greatest concern is that his message is understandable by and acceptable to people who are to the left of him theologically, politically, culturally, and so on. Over the years, he has grown more and more comfortable speaking that language to the point that he says things that people on the right don’t understand. The words may be the same, but their dictionaries are not. When they react, then, they are reacting from the right. But because Stanley was speaking to the left, those reactions generally don’t phase him. As long as his target audience can understand him (and are drawn closer to Jesus because of him), he’s content.

Well, few issues today are as likely to blow up into something much larger than they were ever intended to be than those related to the LGBTQ debate. It is a bright burning cultural firestorm everywhere it is raised. And, as the culture as a whole becomes more and more not merely tolerant of the whole thing, but openly celebratory of it, followers of Jesus who are committed to the Scriptures find themselves on an increasingly smaller and disliked island. The church has a long and generally negative history with LGBTQ issues. We have tended to be pretty judgmental and even hateful toward folks on that side of the line. This is most often because of cultural prejudices against it rather than scriptural ones, but we have always made sure to wave our Bible banners in the process such that as a general rule, the LGBTQ community doesn’t like or trust the church and its people. They generally represent a community that is closed off to biblical, historically orthodox Christianity. Modern cultural trends have tended to strengthen those walls rather than tearing them down. Stanley’s church has been quietly trying to change that. This conference made those efforts a bit louder.

As for the conference itself, I’m honestly torn. I tend to take Stanley at his word. I’ve been listening to his messages and those of the other teachers at North Point for more than a decade. In that time, I have yet to hear something that troubled me to a sufficient degree that I began to question their commitment to orthodoxy. They have more than earned the benefit of the doubt from me. Because of that, when Stanley got up this past Sunday morning and explained from his point of view what was going on with the conference and why they opened their doors to its being held there, I’m inclined to accept his explanation at face value. If you want to watch the whole thing, here’s a link. When he made clear that his own commitment to the teachings of guys like Jesus and Paul hasn’t wavered a bit, I’m willing to believe him. Indeed, if Mohler is right in his charge, then Stanley got up on stage Sunday and lied through his teeth for 45 minutes. Perhaps there are some folks who hold to that position on his message. I’m not one of them.

That being said, one of the comments Stanley made in the sermon that has become a lightning rod itself was that for some people, in spite of their best intentions and efforts, maintaining a lifetime commitment to biblical celibacy in the face their ongoing same-sex attraction is “not sustainable.” The immediate charge this statement received was that it was proof Stanley was walking away from the biblical sexual ethic he had literally just been affirming in the moments before he said that. It was a quiet endorsement of homosexual sexual activity and homosexual marriage that spoke volumes to those who were just looking for a justification for their choice to lean into or simply outright embrace a sinful lifestyle.

I’m not so sure. Remember the observation that Stanley thinks right but speaks left. While there are many, many folks who will (and have) seen that as an endorsement of a behavior or an identity depending on your position on the matter, having been listening to Stanley for a long time, I suspect that this was simply an acknowledgement of reality. For some gay Christians, they tried to walk the path of celibacy for as long as they could, but they failed. That’s not a good thing. And, if everything Stanley said just before making the “not sustainable” comment is true, he doesn’t think it’s a good thing either. But it is a thing. And the church has to figure out how to minister the Gospel effectively to those folks without driving them away from it at the start by leading with judgment and condemnation. That’s not easy to do. Stanley is trying to figure it out. He is perhaps fumbling the ball a bit in the minds of his critics from the right, but he’s not trying to please or appease them. He wasn’t communicating for them or to them. He was communicating for an entirely different audience that mostly consisted of his own church.

The other major point of criticism has been the fact that the conference featured two speakers who are gay men and are both married…to each other. For his critics, the decision to have them there at all is an obvious indicator that he and his church are endorsing their lifestyle choice or identity (again, depending on your perspective on the issue). Again, I’m not so sure. Was it wise to invite them given how it was going to be perceived? Perhaps not. But again, the audience most prone to be offended by the decision was not the audience for whom the conference was held. Pleasing them wasn’t the goal in the first place.

When I was in youth group in high school, our youth minister had a series of leaders from various other faith traditions come and speak to the group so that we could better understand their traditions. The goal of this was to help us learn to appreciate the fact that different people believe different things, but that this doesn’t mean we have to hate them or perceive them as our enemies. There was a Mormon leader, a Jewish Rabbi, and a Muslim Iman that I remember. There may have been a Catholic priest in the mix too, but I’m not as sure on that one. Did his hosting those speakers imply an endorsement of their theological worldviews? Not in the slightest. He wanted us committed to the truth of the Gospel, but he also wanted us to learn how to engage helpfully with folks who didn’t believe like we did.

Could it be that in a conference designed to give hope and help to Christian parents of LGBTQ kids for rebuilding and maintaining a positive, Gospel-informed relationship with their children who are uninterested or so far unable to leave behind their sexual preferences, bringing in these two men who claim Christianity and who could give them this hope and an assurance that maintaining this kind of a positive relationship is possible was about giving perspective and not endorsing every word they spoke? Stanley himself in his message acknowledged that he doesn’t agree with their position on marriage and sexuality. But their presence wasn’t about addressing what the Scriptures have to say about LGBTQ issues. It was – according to Stanley – about saying to struggling parents (and if you haven’t experienced this particular journey as a parent, you don’t have any idea what it is like): you can still have a positive, faith-rooted relationship with your children and here’s how.

Now, again, did their presence imply some things about Stanley and his thinking on this issue that may not be true? It sure seems like it to me. Did this make the whole conference a total bust? From at least one conservative commentator who actually attended the conference, no. He said many of the sessions were incredibly helpful to parents in this position. Does all of this make Stanley a heretic now? As before, I remain stubbornly unconvinced. Could he have handled some of these things differently? Perhaps. Does he need to make an effort to be more clear on what the Scriptures teach on these matters? Perhaps. But then he’s not doing any of these things for the audience that is producing most of his critics. If his intended audience hears what is true and comes to the Gospel because of it, I say, “Keep on, Brother. Keep on.”