Andy Stanly has made a number of dubious claims about the Christian faith and in particular, the Scriptures. Famously stating that Christianity needs to “unhitch” from the Old Testament, he told his audience that the Ten Commandments don’t apply to Christians. He’s flopped on homosexuality — telling the mother of an openly gay and practicing girl that her daughter was saved. He promotes the idea that even if you don’t believe in Jesus, you can have a better life by following his teachings. And rampages against the Scriptures telling people that they don’t need to feel like they should defend the Scriptures because they aren’t really that important and it isn’t what Christianity rests on.

Andy Stanley, who is famous for his sermon “unhitching” Christianity from the Bible, continues to trash Scripture by recently claiming that the Scriptures are nothing but a collection of ancient declarations put together by “superstitious men.” Well, now he appears to be putting his beliefs into practice by rebuking publicly anyone who would claim differently.

Now, he’s taking that to an even darker place and saying that Jesus only shows up in the gospels, effectively denying the Trinity and the deity of Christ.

And again, this goes to the point of the book. And the reason I call it “Not in it to Win it’ (is) because regardless of your faith or a person’s faith, when you follow Jesus through the Gospels, not through the Bible, but Jesus shows up in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and then the apostle Paul writes about Jesus, when you follow Jesus through the Gospels, one thing was extraordinarily clear, whether you agree or not; he did not come to support or to facilitate or to further a worldview, or any kind of movement politically or religiously. Jesus came to establish something brand-stand-alone-new.

And throughout His earthly ministry, there were people on both sides. In fact, three different sides that were constantly trying to bait him into their worldview and to support their ideas. And Jesus refused to be co-opted because he came to establish something new.

And essentially, he was coming to introduce an ‘upside-down’ worldview, an ‘others-first’ worldview. You know, ‘submit-to-one-another’ worldview, a ‘what’s-best-for-people-is-what’s-best’ worldview.

So consequently, I call this, he came to introduce the kingdom of God. Well, we live in a culture, and every generation has grown up in a culture where it’s ‘kingdoms of this world.’ And in the kingdoms of this world, I’m in it to win it for me, regardless of what it costs you.

So the moment that church leaders or the church adopts that posture, or that tone, or that approach to anything, I’m convinced they have abandoned the agenda of Jesus. And this is why many in your audience, I would guess, who don’t want to have anything to do with the church, don’t really want to have anything to do with Christians, still have a high estimation of Jesus.

Because, and this is what’s so strange Pat, the folks in your audience, my friends, people, you know, that I’m around constantly, you know, in the ball field, you know, just socially. They may not subscribe to Christianity, and they may not call themselves Jesus followers, but they know enough about the teaching of Jesus to know when Jesus followers aren’t following. So they appropriately call us out, and in this book, I’m calling us out as well.