An Assessment of Andy Stanley’s Unconditional Conference
The Bible does not treat homosexual sex or marriage as an agree-to-disagree issue. It’s univocal in its definition of sex and marriage. It’s also univocal in its prohibition of homosexual sex. Finally, it warns people who engage in such behavior that they will not inherit the kingdom of God. These are serious matters. To simply agree to disagree would be to disregard the eternal destiny of the people whom God is eager to save. Not only are people who engage in ongoing unrepentant sexual sin in jeopardy, but those who give them false hope are in danger as well.
In 2014, I attended Matthew Vines’s conference on the Bible and homosexuality. His stated goal was to “promote inclusion of LGBTQ people by reforming church teaching.” The organization he started, The Reformation Project, teaches that homosexual sex and same-sex marriage are biblically permissible, and its goal to mainstream this theology into the church is overt and clear.
Fast-forward to last month, when I attended the Unconditional Conference put on by Embracing the Journey (ETJ). Hosted by nationally known pastor Andy Stanley and held at his church, which boasts a weekly attendance of nearly 40,000 people, the event sought to create a theologically neutral space where parents and leaders could learn how to minister to youth who identify as LGBTQ. In other words, the stated intent was not to change anyone’s theology.
Before I explain my concerns, I want to highlight some positive elements of the conference. For example, I appreciated the focus on leaning into relationships with friends and family who identity as LGBTQ. Too often, believers shy away from them or, worse, end their relationships by their callous and disrespectful behavior. I’m glad the speakers encouraged Christians to change course in this regard.
The conference also provided many practical dos and don’ts. For example, if your child tells you they experience same-sex attraction or are confused about their gender identity, don’t freak out. Don’t lecture them immediately. Don’t assume they’re engaging in homosexual sex or transitioning. Instead, thank them for being vulnerable. Invite them to share more of their story. Listen and reassure them that you love them.
These are true and important principles that I have taught in my speaking and writing for nearly two decades. I think the conference got these and several other points right.
Three Serious Concerns
Despite these good aspects, the conference was deeply problematic because of the false and somewhat hidden premise that permeated most of the teaching: Followers of Christ can participate in homosexual sex, same-sex marriage, or transgender “transitioning.” That premise undergirds three serious concerns I have with the Unconditional Conference.
First, the Unconditional Conference claimed to be theological neutral but wasn’t. Virtually every aspect of it operated on the unspoken premise that it’s permissible for followers of Jesus to satisfy LGBTQ desires. The conference website says, “No matter what theological stance you hold, we invite you to listen, reflect, and learn as we approach this topic from the quieter middle space.” ETJ cofounder and conference organizer Greg McDonald said, “We have no desire to change your theology.”
Despite this claim, the hidden premise that permeated the conference was that walking with Jesus can include same-sex marriage as well as transgender “transitioning.” Not only did no one say anything to the contrary, but virtually every speaker, facilitator, and volunteer spoke in a way that led one to believe those behaviors are permissible. For example, Greg and Lynn McDonald talked at length about their son who is “married” to another man. They showed family pictures of their son and explained how, although they made parental mistakes at first, they now have a positive relationship with him. They never said their son’s “marriage” was not valid or that anything was suspect or sinful about his current expression of homosexuality.
Another example was David Gushee, who previously announced at Matthew Vines’s conference in 2014 that he changed his position to a gay-affirming view. Around that same time, he published Changing Our Mind, a book that calls for the “inclusion of LGBT Christians” and advances a fresh interpretation of the Bible supporting his new view. At the Unconditional Conference, he assured the audience that “this conference is not about changing anyone’s theology.” Although he never made a biblical case for his pro-gay view, he made several vague references to dangerous and harmful theology. For example, he argued that Christians once advanced biblical arguments for slavery and antisemitism, but because of the harm it caused people, Christians returned to Scripture for a fresh consideration. The implication was that the interpretation that “homosexual sex is sin” also harms people and should be reconsidered. In fact, his book, which focuses on changing your mind to his theology, was sold at the conference.
Furthermore, two of the conference speakers, Justin Lee and Brian Nietzel, are both “married” to other men. Their teaching wasn’t billed as a perspective from the other side on this issue. Rather, they were held up as authorities on the subject who could help parents better understand their own LGBTQ children. Since no one at the conference said or implied their “marriages” were not valid or that we shouldn’t see them as models for LGBTQ kids, parents could reasonably conclude same-sex marriage is an option for their children.
What the Unconditional Conference did was tantamount to a pro-life conference inviting—as one of their speakers—a Planned Parenthood employee who not only has had an abortion but also teaches as if it were a good, moral, and God-honoring decision. Attendees would reasonably conclude the “pro-life” conference believed abortion is an appropriate option.
What this abortion analogy also shows is that many pro-choice arguments sound persuasive because, like the Unconditional Conference, they are based on hidden (but faulty) premises. For example, pro-choice advocates claim, “Women should have the freedom to choose,” or, “Women should have the right to control their own bodies.” Notice how the fundamental question, “What is the unborn?” is not addressed. Worse, the pro-choice advocate simply assumes the unborn is not a human being and carries on making their case with that hidden premise.
The Unconditional Conference approached their topic in the same way. For two days, the speakers addressed how to minister to people who identify as LGBTQ but intentionally didn’t address the fundamental question of whether homosexual sex or same-sex marriage is sin. Worse, they simply assumed they are not sin and carried on offering advice with that hidden premise.
One final example worth mentioning is the parent panel discussion on “The Transgender Journey.” Approximately 75% of the parents in the room either shared their story about their transgender child or spoke up in some way. I thought to myself, surely among the parent attendees, there must be someone who thinks satisfying transgender ideation is inconsistent with their Christian convictions. Surprisingly, not one person said something to lead me to believe they thought their child’s social, hormonal, or surgical transition was problematic. Preferred pronouns were accepted and, according to one parent, failing to use them is tantamount to violence. There was no pushback to transgender ideation. They simply accepted the transgender experience and baptized it with Christian lingo by saying, “Jesus would love them.” To be fair, parents did say they were emotionally distraught and struggled to understand their child’s experience. But the counsel of the facilitators and other parents was merely to love their child and cope during the transition, not to uphold biblical principles and disciple their children accordingly.
Perhaps the best evidence that the conference was not theologically neutral was the response from leaders who advance pro-LGBTQ theology in the church. While at the conference, I asked one of them if the conference aligned with their goal. Their answer: “Yes.” That made sense. After all, the Unconditional Conference is advancing their cause.
After the conference, one progressive Christian attendee posted the following summary: “Every speaker, video, book and breakout I saw fully affirmed LGBTQ+ folks! I saw pastors advocating for inclusion, parents welcoming their children’s same-sex partners into the family, trans folks sharing their transition stories, and queer people leading at literally every level.” This was not a theologically neutral conference. It’s precisely what LGBTQ leaders want to see in the evangelical church, where they believe there is a stronghold of biblical fidelity that resists normalizing homosexuality and transgenderism in the church. The conference did take a position but attempted to downplay it.
Second, the Unconditional Conference advanced a false dichotomy of possible responses to a child who identifies as LGBTQ. Most of the speakers described two different approaches to ministering to kids who identify as LGBTQ: the “traditionalist script” and the “new script.” The traditionalist script was characterized as unbiblical, unloving, and abusive. Andy Stanley said it has a limited vocabulary that includes only four words: “Homosexuality is a sin.” Parents who follow this script typically don’t listen to their kids when they “come out as gay.” Rather, they lecture their kids about the “clobber passages,” don’t talk about the love of Jesus, lack empathy, and push them to the brink of running away. The speakers provided numerous disturbing, real-life examples. In one case, a father kicked his lesbian daughter down the stairs. In another example, a gay son came to a hospital and asked the nurse if he could visit his dad, who was about to die. The father told the nurse, “Don’t let him in because I don’t have a son.” This was the conference’s characterization of the traditionalist script.
The new script advanced by the conference has a “larger vocabulary.” It doesn’t focus on the “clobber passages.” Rather, it encourages parents to love their child, lean into a healthy parent-child relationship, and invite their child to walk with Christ. The way the speakers talked about the new script implied that Christian parents can support their child’s eventual same-sex marriage or “gender transition.”
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The Struggle for Soul in Christian Higher Education: Burtchaell was Right, and I Was Wrong, Part II
A serious Christian school must have an explicit, orthodox, Christian mission and it has to hire administrators, faculty, and staff for that mission. It has to have a fully informed and committed board that insists on those things happening. Above all, it needs a president committed to an orthodox vision who is willing to insist on a board that understands and supports it, as well as one who insists on hiring according to that vision.
In yesterday’s post, I recounted Burtchaell’s argument about the threats to Christian higher education and my response recorded in the book, Quality with Soul: How Six Premier Colleges and Universities Keep Faith with Their Religious Traditions.1
Burtchaell’s response to me, in a private letter, was quite complimentary but he claimed I was wrong on two types, the critical mass and the intentional pluralism, which he thought would easily secularize. Initially, I didn’t accept his verdict, but as the new century progressed, I was haunted by his judgment that the two types were unstable and would weaken.
First, I had close-at-hand evidence that Burtchaell was right about the instability of my third type, “intentional pluralism,” which was how I typed my own college, Roanoke.
Soon after I returned from by sabbatical at Valparaiso, I was asked by the new president to lead a task force to write a proposal for a substantial Lilly Grant that would enable the college to strengthen the Lutheran teaching on vocation in its curriculum. Our task force wrote a strong proposal, but one that had two fatal flaws. The task force did not prepare the faculty adequately for such a serious proposal, and the president did not take ownership of the initiative.
During one of the longest mornings of my life, a strong majority of the faculty—led by a cabal of secularists—thoroughly rejected the proposal. While I was quite embarrassed about the flaws in our task force’s approach, I think in retrospect that no strong proposal could have survived. The later history of the college more or less confirms that.
Since then, there has been a gradual secularization that has finally led to a complete sanitation of the college’s religious baggage. The final blow came in 2017, when the college was to celebrate the 175th anniversary of its founding, as well as the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. Throughout its history the college had taken pause at its anniversaries to reflect on its identity and mission. That always included a grappling with its Lutheran heritage. In 1992 we had done so at its 150th, with a fine program of broad reflection.
In order to do my share in participating in such reflection, I spent four years on writing a history of the college’s relation to its religious heritage. It is entitled Keeping the Soul in Christian Higher Education: A History of Roanoke College.2 I timed its publication to come out during the year of remembrance and vision. As I wrote the book over several years, I submitted each chapter as I wrote it to the president and discussed with him his reaction to each one. He seemed pleased with each chapter, even the last one. In the final chapter I argued that certain steps needed to be taken to preserve the public relevance of the Christian faith in the life of the college.
Upon publication of the book, which the president had the college subsidize, he ordered a large number of copies to distribute to the board, to new faculty, and to display in his office. He even invited me—to my great delight—to engage the college board for several hours at one of its meetings. Those of us who cared about the college’s religious heritage looked forward to a pivotal conversation at its 175th birthday.
Lo and behold, nothing happened. The whole event was canceled, though one faculty member did arrange observations of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. But no college-wide discussion of our identity and mission as a church-related college. Indeed, the president shelved the many copies of my book he had ordered on an obscure bookshelf. My engagement with the board was cancelled. Instead, I was given five minutes in the midst of the board dinner to say my piece.
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Finding Strength in Hard Times
For Christians, hard times might not be the blight on our existence we think them to be. If we believe God’s word, which reminds us that God is working in our favor as much in the hard times as in the good, we have no reason to panic during the difficult days, as we are prone to do.
The good times are to be expected, and the hard times are surprising and strange. Perhaps that unconscious assumption is causing us grief. In his book Jayber Crow, Wendell Berry describes the “old-timers” in a way that seems lost on many people today. He says: “As much as any of the old-timers, he regarded the Depression as not over and done with but merely absent for a while, like Halley’s comet.”
Though many wrongly interpret this disposition as fear, there can be health in this way of thinking. For many of us, politicians have promised us the world, and we have believed them. Conservatives and liberals alike often feel that the state of our existence should always be one of constant progress and that if we had the right politicians in place, humanity could build its tower to heaven. This thinking, of course, is foolish. There are good days and bad days ahead for all of us. Sickness, economic collapse, and natural disasters are nothing new. They have all happened in the past, and they will occur again in the future. Scripture tells us that when fiery trials come upon us, we should not think something strange is happening to us (1 Pet. 4:12). Though this verse applies primarily to persecution, it is true of any hardship.
To make this more personal, as long as our health is robust and our jobs feel secure, we think we can handle anything, but in the words of the late Rich Mullins, “We are not as strong as we think we are.”
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A Full-Stored Treasury of Sound Theology
Many Johannine tomes are more concerned with rethinking Christology rather than relishing in the old paths, more concerned with literary critique than looking at Jesus, more concerned with hypothesized compositional layers than the coming of the God-man to save sinners. Hutcheson’s aim in writing this commentary ought to be the aim of every biblical commentator—”to do service to the church of Christ in my generation, and to contribute my endeavours for promoting that public design of making the holy scriptures yet more clear unto the Lord’s people.”
One of the reasons I frequent used bookstores is the promise of hidden treasure. Buried beneath stacks of tottering books with faded covers can lie treasure of immeasurable value—gems forgotten by the passage of time. To discover that gem is like knowing a delicious secret before anyone else. I found that secret gem one morning when I stumbled upon The Exposition of the Gospel according to John by the Scottish Covenanter, George Hutcheson.
Hutcheson’s work contains all the hallmarks of robust Puritanism—doctrinal precision with heartwarming devotion to Christ. It is no wonder, then, that Hutcheson was one of Charles Spurgeon’s favorites. Hutcheson’s commentary on John was Spurgeon’s favorite to consult. He said of it, “Excellent; beyond all praise. It is a full-stored treasury of sound theology, holy thought, and marrowy doctrine.”1
For many today, however, George Hutcheson remains a stranger. Hutcheson (1615-1674) was a Church of Scotland minister, biblical commentator, and key figure in the events involving the Scottish Covenanters. He was educated at the University of Edinburgh (MA, 1638) and pastored in the villages of Colmonell and Irvine in the county of Ayrshire. He was close friends with David Dickson, another prominent Scottish Covenanting minister, biblical commentator, and Principal of the University of Glasgow. Hutcheson wrote other commentaries, such as A Brief Exposition of the Twelve Minor Prophets (1653-5), An Exposition of the Book of Job (1669), and more.2
Overview of Work
The Exposition of the Gospel according to John (1657) originated from Hutcheson’s preaching notes on the Gospel of John, likely from sermons preached at Colmonell, Ayrshire. Hutcheson explains in the introduction how he prioritized writing this commentary after he was faced with his mortality from some unknown incident. In the shadow of his own finitude, Hutcheson wrote this work to point to the infinite Son of God, who is “the fountain and preserver of life in living creatures” and who “hath undertaken to work the work of redemption of sinners, and so hath engaged himself to carry it through” (12, 84).
The commentary is a mid-sized volume of 439 pages. However, due to the density of the exposition and Hutcheson’s ability to make every word count, it feels more thorough and comprehensive than the largest contemporary tomes on John. The structure of the commentary is a combination of explanation and application. Hutcheson walks through the entire Gospel verse-by- verse. He first explains each verse and how it relates to the overall scheme of John’s narrative. Then, he has a section labeled “Doctrines,” which is a numbered list of various systematic doctrines and practical applications of the verse.
The explanations of the verses are clear and useful, but what makes this commentary stand out is the depth of doctrinal clarity and the breadth of application after each verse. Hutcheson combines lucid dogmatic explanation with sensitive pastoral application. For example, consider how in the space of a brief paragraph Hutcheson goes from elucidating the unity of the divine essence and the distinction of the persons in the Godhead, to redemptive-covenantal language, to an encouragement for believers to trust in Christ because of his nature and offices:
“The Son’s coexistence with the Father is also a matter seriously to be considered by believers, wherein they may see the deep wisdom and rich love of God, who hath found a way of reconciliation of lost man by the same in nature and essence who is the party offended, and that the unity of the divine essence and the distinction of persons should contribute to make the redemption and reconciliation of lost man effectual by him; wherein also believers, who have fled to Christ for refuge, may not only find him to be true God, able to supply all wants, and to save to the uttermost, but may also find the Father in the Mediator, as being one in essence with him.” (11).
Hutcheson and Reformed Orthodoxy
Spurgeon’s description of Hutcheson as a “full-stored treasury of sound theology” is certainly apt. Hutcheson’s exposition is a theologically sound distillation of the basic tenets of Reformed orthodoxy. His exegesis is doctrinal and biblical; his understanding of the Trinity and Christology is classical and conciliar; and his articulation of soteriology is set within the broader framework of covenant theology. Not only is the content of Hutcheson’s exposition markedly Reformed, but his method of exposition is reflective of earlier theologians, such as the sixteenth-century Reformed scholastic theologian, Girolamo Zanchi. R. A. Muller notes, Hutcheson’s style of adding “a series of doctrinal loci at the end of the exposition of each pericope” is similar to Girolamo Zanchi.3
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