Welcome to G3 Weekly—a summary of this week’s top news stories on Christianity and the public square.
This week, megachurch pastor Andy Stanley held a conference seeking to provide room for homosexuality and transgenderism. New York City announced a new on-demand abortion service controlled by the government. Meanwhile, a couple in the United Kingdom are fighting attempts from the state healthcare service to have their baby removed from life support.
Andy Stanley Hosts “Affirming” Conference
“Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them” (Romans 1:32).
Andy Stanley, the pastor of North Point Community Church in Atlanta, Georgia, held a conference last week designed to endorse homosexuality and transgenderism.
Various speakers at the conference presented cases for the biblical permissibility of homosexuality and hosted a panel about raising children who see themselves as members of the opposite sex. Stanley reportedly said that “biblical marriage is between a man and a woman,” but added that some individuals in his church are in so-called same-sex marriages, reminding his congregants that the lifestyle choice is ultimately “their decision.”
“Our decision is to decide how we respond to their decision,” he said. “Our decision as a group of local churches is how we are going to respond to their decision. And we decided twenty-eight years ago, we draw circles; we don’t draw lines, we draw big circles.”
Several prominent evangelical ministers warned that Stanley was departing from the historic faith by excusing unnatural sexual sin. “Jesus came to save sinners, and thus we are saved. But Jesus never drew circles that ignored the reality of sin,” Albert Mohler, the president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, wrote in one opinion piece about the sermon. “Christ also drew lines with clarity, such as the line separating the sheep from the goats.”
New York City Offers Government-Run Telehealth Abortion System
“When the righteous increase, the people rejoice, but when the wicked rule, the people groan” (Proverbs 29:2).
New York City launched the first public health program in the nation that will provide “telehealth abortion access” for residents desiring to murder their children.
Residents can request and receive abortion pills in the mail “within a few days” provided they are in New York City during a telehealth appointment and during the time they plan to take the pills. The majority of abortions in the United States occur through so-called medication abortions, in which a mother takes a series of two pills to respectively cause the death of her child and the induction of a premature delivery, according to data from the Guttmacher Institute.
“Here in New York City, we will not allow the far right to continue its crusade to strip women of their reproductive rights,” New York City Democratic Mayor Eric Adams remarked in a press release. “Telehealth abortion care allows the people in our lives to make the choices they need privately and safely, so that they can decide what is best for them and their futures. This is about protecting the ability for women to control their own bodies, their choices, and their freedoms.”
British Parents Fight State Healthcare Service to Save Their Child
“Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward” (Psalm 127:3).
The parents of Indi Gregory, a seven-month-old baby girl receiving critical care in the United Kingdom, will face a hearing in the British High Court to prevent the nation’s public healthcare system from removing the child’s life support.
Indi is currently receiving treatment for a rare mitochondrial disease at the Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham, which is run by the National Health Service. Her parents were told by doctors that her “best interest” would be to no longer receive care, even though she responds to touch and has a happy disposition, according to a press release from Christian Concern. Her parents, Claire Staniforth and Dean Gregory, were told abruptly that they would have forty-eight hours to prepare for a legal hearing that would determine the fate of their child.
“We know she will never be the same as other children, because she has disabilities, but it breaks our hearts to think that doctors don’t want to give her that chance at life,” her father said in the release. “They are saying she should get palliative care only. She is disabled but that does not mean she does not have a good quality of life.”
State healthcare systems in secularized Western nations have been criticized in recent years for offering medically assisted suicide and seeking to remove critical care in difficult cases.`
