Virgin Birth debate interrupts regular ‘War on Christmas’ program

Classic “has God said?” stuff.

Consider the source

There is no point being kind - what Stanley said here is incredibly stupid.

….for Stanley to keep up the facade of claiming to be in line with the first fundamental and Sola Scriptura with that one, methinks. Not just incredibly stupid; people in the churches he leads are going to have to do some serious thinking about whether their pastor is even a Christian.

… to wonder if maybe I shouldn’t have included Andy Stanley in my article that went viral titled “The 5 Most Dangerous Wolves Preying on Christians,” he says something else to validate his inclusion. This is incredibly sad. And incredibly troubling to think of the number of people who swallow his increasingly not-so-subtle brand of error. FYI - one of his satellite churches in Atlanta opened their service with a performance of “Purple Rain” the Sunday after Prince died. I spent over an hour on the phone with the “pastor”/manager of that particular branch of The Church of Stanley. During that hour, I went from feeling conflicted about writing the article (different article than the one referenced above) to having to talk with my pastor after the interview to make sure that my response in the article wasn’t too harsh. Andy Stanley’s whole outfit is focused on pleasing men.

Stanley is a clever fool. Whitty and daft

https://twitter.com/BJUPresident/status/812464287927201792

In light of this Christmas celebration it is stunningly sad to read Andy Stanley’s statement on the virgin birth

Here is a statement from J. I. Packer,

The really staggering Christian claim is that Jesus of Nazareth was God made man—that the second person of the Godhead became the “second man” (1 Cor. 15:47), determining human destiny, the second representative head of the race, and that He took humanity without loss of deity, so that Jesus of Nazareth was as truly and fully divine as He was human… . It is here, in the thing that happened at the first Christmas, that the profoundest and most unfathomable depths of the Christian revelation lie. “The Word was made flesh” (John 1:14); God became man; the divine Son became a Jew; the Almighty appeared on earth as a helpless human baby, unable to do more than lie and stare and wriggle and make noises, needing to be fed and changed and taught to talk like any other child.[1]

[1] J. I. Packer, Knowing God (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1973), p. 46.

Great statement from Packer. How sad that while he understands the significance of the incarnation, Stanley seems to think that the virgin birth and incarnation are expendable truths.