Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything. If one accepts circumcision, then he is obligated to keep the entire law. This is the state of having fallen away from grace (towards works!). This is being severed from Christ. This is one of the main reasons I call the HRM heresy: it is the exact same heresy as Paul was fighting in the letter to Galatians. 

The law of God is at the heart of the HRM and the debates surrounding it. The traditional understanding of God’s law is that there are three parts of the law and three uses of the law. Reformed understanding would also include three main principles for understanding the Ten Commandments (though I will not go through those principles in this post). As far as I can tell, the HRM rejects all or most of these distinctions.
The three parts of the law are the moral, civil, and ceremonial. The moral law is the Ten Commandments. The civil laws are those laws given to Israel as a political entity for the Old Testament time. They were given to Israel for the time when they were in the land (Deuteronomy 5-6, note the recurring phrase “in the land”). They taught the Israelites about holiness, being distinct from the rest of the world. they included laws such as not sowing the land with two different kinds of seeds, or weaving cloth with two different kinds of thread. The dietary laws are also usually reckoned to be in this category. The ceremonial law is the sacrificial system, the worship laws, the feasts and festivals. Of course, there has always been some debate about whether a particular law belongs in one or the other of these three basic categories. However, the vast majority of the church has held to this distinction for most of its history.
The HRM believes the church invented this distinction without any biblical basis whatsoever. The HRM erases category distinctions between sets of laws, thus (at least potentially) putting the law of two different kinds of threads on the same footing as “Do not murder.”
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Stanley brushes aside what the Bible says about homosexuality as “clobber” verses, as if those texts somehow harm gay sinners. He even suggests that a change of theology is in order if churches can’t welcome gay people into their midst.

I just finished listening to Pastor Andy Stanley’s Sunday morning sermon to North Point Community Church. I have to say that it is one of the most subversively anti-Christian messages that I have ever heard. Stanley says at the outset that he is preaching the message as a response to Albert Mohler’s column in World magazine titled, “The Train Is Leaving the Station.” In that article, Mohler criticizes a North Point-hosted conference that features gay-affirming speakers.
Stanley never explicitly names Mohler in his message, but he does say at the outset that he does not hold to the same version of Christianity that Mohler holds to. The rest of Stanley’s message certainly bears that out. Indeed, the entire message is an apologia of sorts for North Point’s decision to host gay-affirming speakers and for North Point’s teaching on sexuality. Stanley writes,
“[Mohler] is actually accusing me of departing from his version of biblical Christianity. So I want to go on record and say, I have never subscribed to his version of biblical Christianity to begin with, so I’m not leaving anything. And if he were here he would say, ‘Well, Andy, I’ve never subscribed to your version of biblical Christianity.’ And that’s okay. We can agree to disagree, but this is so extraordinarily misleading. In my opinion, just my opinion, his version of biblical Christianity is the problem. His version, this version of biblical Christianity is why people are leaving Christianity unnecessarily. It’s the version that causes people to resist the Christian faith because they can’t find Jesus in the midst of all the other stuff and all the other theology and all the other complexity that gets blobbed on to the message.
Bottom line, that version of Christianity draws lines. And Jesus drew circles. He drew circles so large and included so many people in his circle that it consistently made religious leaders nervous.”
Stanley frames the message as if this imbroglio is merely a misunderstanding and that critics like Mohler just don’t get it. Stanley says that North Point didn’t host a bible or theology conference. Rather, it was a “pastoral” conference designed to restore the relationships of parents to their gay children. He further contends that North Point has not changed its teaching on sexuality. He says that North Point continues to teach that biblical marriage is the union of one man and one woman, and that sex outside of marriage is not God’s best. Sounds pretty Christian, right?
Well, not really. Actually, not at all. Stanley immediately follows that affirmation by saying that some gay Christians find this teaching too hard to follow. He says gay people at North Point know what the Bible says about marriage, but they choose to enter gay marriages anyway because they don’t want to spend their lives alone. They don’t want to live without love and a family, so they marry a same-sex partner and then just add that to following Jesus. Stanley says that North Point doesn’t draw “lines” to keep those people out of the church. Rather, they draw “circles” of inclusion so that they can remain at North Point as gay “married” couples. In Stanley’s words,
“[Gay Christians] choose a same sex marriage, not because they’re convinced it’s biblical. They read the same Bible we do. They chose to marry for the same reason many of us do, love, companionship and family.
And in the end, as was the case for all of us, and this is the important thing I want you to hear me say, it’s their decision. Our decision is to decide how we respond to their decision. Our decision as a group of local churches is how are we going to respond to their decisions? And we decided 28 years ago. We draw circles, we don’t draw lines. We draw big circles. If someone desires to follow Jesus, regardless of their starting point, regardless of their past, regardless of their current circumstances, our message is come and see and come sit with me. And this is not new. This is who we are. It’s who we’ve always been. And this is why I love our church and this is why I’m so extraordinarily proud of you. We aren’t condoning sin, we are restoring relationships, and we are literally saving lives.”
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Amnesty is undoubtedly easier, but maybe true reconciliation is worth the necessary work in a family or society. God certainly didn’t choose an easy route.  He makes us his children by inviting us to humble ourselves as he offers full forgiveness to bring us into the closest possible relationship with Him.  That invitation is in light of all he has done in Jesus’ atoning death on the cross.  God doesn’t hide from our sin; he dealt with it in full and then invited us to humble ourselves and accept genuine forgiveness. 

Recently an article in The Atlantic has created a stir.  In it, Emily Oster called for a pandemic amnesty.  She gave the examples of cloth masks and closed beaches, which both turned out to be pointless actions – but at the time, she points out, we didn’t know.  She writes that we need to learn from our mistakes and move on, focussing on the future rather than getting into a “repetitive doom loop” by analysing what went wrong.  She recalls being called a “teacher killer” for advocating that children were a low-risk group and should be allowed back into school.  She thinks it best that we do not dwell on things from a time when people just didn’t know better.
I generally do not flag up articles from political publications of any persuasion, but I think this is important.  Why?  Because if the media decides to push an idea, that idea will become part of our everyday vocabulary.  I can imagine well-meaning Christians then taking that notion and seeking to co-opt it for the communication of the Gospel.  But the Gospel is not an amnesty.
What is amnesty?  An amnesty is an official pardon generally offered by governments to political prisoners for specific offences.  Technically, it differs from a pardon because it is offered to those not yet convicted but subject to prosecution.  A pardon relieves the convicted from the burden of punishment, but an amnesty forgets the offence ever took place.  An amnesty allows a nation to move on after political turmoil, especially where punishing such crimes would only entrench division and make national unity impossible.
Notice that the cultural contradiction here is striking.  On the one hand, if we did anything wrong in the past two years, then there should be an amnesty.  After all, we didn’t know.  (And if we “fact-checked,” censored and silenced every scientist and doctor who did not support the official narrative; or if we vilified anyone who dared to question the prescribed behaviours; or if we dismissed the many voices who tried to tell us otherwise?  Well, that doesn’t matter because we are saying that we didn’t know.)
However, let’s say someone in the distant past can be connected somehow to a current issue of concern.  If that person ever expressed an opinion or even wrote a footnote that is now considered unacceptable, what then?  Well, there can be no pardon or understanding that they lived in a different time.  They will be tarred with one vast brushstroke of condemnation if we choose.  Then we must tear down their statues, ban their books, and erase them from our museums, libraries and education system.
Of course, there is something incredibly self-serving in this contradiction.  If the offender was in the past, I can signal my virtue by raging without knowing anything about them.  If the offender might have been me, I can protect myself and my tribe from scrutiny or accountability by signalling my virtue and calling for amnesty.  In the recent past, we didn’t know, so amnesty will allow us all to move forward.  In the distant past, they didn’t know, but we will show no mercy!
What are the implications of this call for amnesty?  Don’t investigate me or my tribe, we don’t want any scrutiny; let’s just move on.  Don’t convict me or any of my tribe; let us be considered innocent.  Don’t hold me or anyone I like accountable; let’s forget our offences.  (I mentioned at the beginning of this post that the article’s author, Emily Oster, pushed for schools to re-open.
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