Andy Stanley on Following Jesus
Andy Stanley believes the posture he is advocating for is modeled by Jesus himself. “When you follow Jesus through the Gospels,” he said, “he was not here to win anything the way that we define ‘win’…he refused it. When people considered him an enemy, he refused to return the favor…And if I’m a Jesus follower, then my mission in life is to replicate the character and the nature and the tone of Jesus and to live to the best of my abilities.”
At the same time, Stanley was not advocating for Christians to stay out of politics or to avoid having clear beliefs on different issues. “I think every American should vote every single time they get to,” he said. “We don’t have a Caesar. It is ‘we the people.’ And that’s the greatest privilege in the world.”
Stanley is, however, pushing back on what he sees as a pervasive problem of Christians not having a Christ-like posture when it comes to politics. Because we are all made in the image of God, we should pursue understanding when we disagree with others politically. “When I’m with a group of other believers, especially, and we don’t see the world the same way politically, we have more in common than not,” said Stanley. “I’m not suggesting this is simple or easy, but I am suggesting, as Jesus followers, we don’t have any choice but to follow Jesus in terms of how we approach these issues.”
