I have watched some of this series, and I think the title of this article is a little misleading.
Andy points to the fact that the Bible, as it now exists, did, IN FACT, not exist for hundreds of years AFTER Jesus’ resurrection. He is asking for new believers or for believers who have fallen out of the faith to look at HOW Christianity survived for those years on the teachings of those who witnessed the Risen Christ. Christianity survived because people saw him after his death, and were willing to die for that belief.
His biggest takeaway from this is that people need to believe in the resurrection of Christ. If they are presented with that fact, and BELIEVE it, they can be saved.
Also, in later episodes, he DOES point to Scripture to make points.
Yes,
which is why James White describes this as
“epistemological chaos”.
I also saw a couple of episodes of this series (My wife likes to watch both Andy and Charles Stanley on TV). I saw it as merely a way to make a non-believer see that the truth of Christ's resurrection was sweeping the world and the numbers of believers were swelling because of the fact that it had happened, and not because they read it in a book. This does not bother me. It's a lot like asserting that the apostles were not lying when they wrote the Gospels because they would not have died for something they knew to be wrong. It appeals to logic, rather than the veracity of a book. One would hope that if any non-believers take a step toward belief, that they would then be taught the importance and truth of the Scriptures.
However, the article says that Andy Stanley is dismissive of several events in the Bible (the flood, destruction of Jericho, the Exodus!!!), etc., because he does not think newbies will accept any of it as fact. I guess he just wants large number of people who kinda sorta believe. And it appears he does not believe that the Holy Spirit will open the believers' hearts to reveal the truth of scripture to them.