role of Bible Archives - Canon Fodder

I recently received Andy Stanley’s latest book, Irresistible: Reclaiming the New that Jesus Unleashed for the World (Zondervan, 2018). My review of the book will soon be available on The Gospel Coalition website.

For now, I thought it would be helpful to highlight the promotional statements on the cover. By the looks of them, Stanley’s message in this book will be very similar to his controversial sermons over the last couple of years (see my prior interactions with Stanley, here and here).

Here are some of the statements:

Once upon a time there was a version of our faith that was practically . . . irresistible. But that was then. Today we preach, teach, write, and communicate as if nothing has changed. As if “The Bible says it,” still settles it. It’s time to hit pause on much of what we’re doing and consider the faith modeled by our first-century brothers and sisters who had no official Bible, no status, and humanly speaking, little chance of survival.

Here we see again one of Stanley’s consistent messages, namely that a Bible-centered faith is not the solution but the problem. They didn’t have a Bible in the early church (we are told) and they did just fine without it! [Read more…]

One of the most profound challenges for Christians as we live in an ever-more-hostile world is how to properly defend the faith against the incessant attacks against it. And these attacks have taken their toll. We have seen far too many casualties over the years as people leave the church because they had doubts or questions that were never answered.

It is precisely this issue that is behind Andy Stanley’s recent sermon, “The Bible Told Me So” (preached Aug 28, 2016). Stanley, son of well-known Atlanta pastor, Charles Stanley, is the senior pastor of Northpoint Community Church in Alpharetta, GA.

Stanley’s concern in this sermon is for those who have experienced what he calls “deconversions”—people who went to church as a child but have drifted away from the faith as they have reached adulthood. They drifted away because they went to a church that refused to answer their difficult questions and insisted that they were “just supposed to have faith.”

There is little doubt that Stanley has put his finger on a critical issue for the church today, and he should be commended for it. We need to find a compelling way to address the questions and doubts people have about their faith without ducking the hard questions.

But while Stanley has correctly diagnosed the disease, serious questions remain about whether he has offered an adequate cure. Indeed, in many ways, his suggested cure becomes problematic enough that one begins to wonder whether it just might be more troubling than the disease itself.

So what is the cure that Stanley has offered? In brief, Christians need to stop basing their faith on the Bible. [Read more…]