Pastor Andy Stanley is in the headlines once again for a sermon he recently preached at his church. He began a new series with the question, “Do you have to believe in miracles to be a Christian?” His answer? Yes, but only two foundational miracles—“the miracle of the universe” and “the miracle of the resurrection.”
He argues that those two miracles are all you need to believe to be a Christian but that believing them “opens the door to making the other miracles more acceptable.” Clearly, he’s trying to market Christianity to seekers and doubters by lowering the threshold for belief. He’s basically saying “Don’t worry about the Bible. You don’t need to believe it: just believe that God is the ‘uncaused Cause’ who made the universe and that Jesus rose from the dead, and bingo, you’re in! And maybe you’ll come to believe other parts of the Bible later.”
This is a seeker-sensitive, “palatable Christianity” strategy, but will it make robust disciples of Christ who will live radically different from the people around them, think biblically, passionately share Christ with others, endure persecution and hardship joyfully, suffer well, hate their sin and seek to put it to death, and daily recount the Word of God to their children? I think you know the answer! But this is nothing new for Andy Stanley.
Jesus frequently saw his crowds dwindle because he preached hard messages to them. He didn’t present the bare minimum (if those two miracles are indeed even the minimum) and then hope people could accept that and then gradually learn to accept other teachings too.
We don’t observe anyone in Scripture using Stanley’s “bare bones” method for evangelism because it’s not biblical. We’re never told to water down the gospel and Christianity to try to make it an easier pill to swallow. In fact, we’re told that Christianity will be, by its very nature, a hard pill to swallow because it looks weak and foolish to the world! There will be few on the narrow road. […]
— Read More: harbingersdaily.com
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