She was desperately looking to me for pastoral advice.

“You see,” she explained, “I am trying to rebuild my relationship with my son. He is married with a lovely wife, and with two children. But he is really dissatisfied in his marriage.
“But recently he has found a girl friend who satisfies him. And this weekend he is holding a party, to celebrate finding fulfilment in her. He has asked a few friends to join him and her to celebrate their new relationship; and he has asked me to join in with them as well.
“He is not a Christian. But I really want to build a good relationship with him.
“What should I do?”

I asked the mother, “Does your son understand your belief in Jesus?”
“Yes.”
“Does your son understand that your belief in Jesus makes it such that you can’t countenance in any affirming way the choices that he has made in life?”
“Yes.”
I said, “Well then, okay. As long as he knows that, then I suggest that you do go to the party. And I suggest that you buy your son and his girl friend a gift.”
“Oh,” she said, “what?”
She was caught off guard.

So I said, “Well, here’s the thing: your love for them may catch them off guard, but your absence will simply reinforce the fact that they said, ‘These people are what I always thought: judgmental, critical, unprepared to countenance anything.’”
We’re going to have to take a risk if we want to build bridges into the hearts and lives of those who don’t understand Jesus and don’t understand that he is a King.

Had such a mother actually asked my advice in this case, would I have suggested the poor woman participate? No I wouldn’t.
Because it is never right for a Christian to join in with those celebrating a sinful, immoral relationship.

But recently Alistair Begg thought it was OK, in a different case.
A grandmother was asking Begg’s advice on how to respond to her grandson’s invitation to his ‘wedding’ to his transgender partner.
The advice Alistair gave her was word for word as given above. Yes, though she does not countenance her grandson’s choices, she should still join in the celebration of a sinful, immoral act like this.

This he said all in an interview he gave back in September (here at 28:50).
At the time I was shocked, but hoped that it was just a blip in his thinking that would give way to sounder, Biblical advice once he had time to reflect on what he was actually saying.

But now, four months later, and with plenty of time to rethink, he hasn’t changed his mind. Then last week, the interview he gave back in September suddenly went viral. The Internet lit up with concern voiced by Christians everywhere; even some from among his own pastoral team expressed concern.

But to no avail: Alistair doubled down, insisting that, while he might give a different answer in a different case, in this situation, “I would not answer in any other way no matter what anybody says.” He went on to answer his critics by saying he, unlike them, is not a product of American Fundamentalism (but neither am I, nor a number of his critics), and suggested that to come to a different conclusion in this instance would be pharisaical.

Reluctantly I consider it is time for me to comment. I have no stomach for this, as anyone reading my blog would know I have long admired and appreciated Alistair Begg, and recommended his messages and books to others. Even my last post included a long pertinent quotation from him. (Eg. “If you read church history, you will know that the church is always at its most effective when it is most countercultural.”)

But Alistair is a very public figure. The aberrant advice he gave that poor grandmother will be picked up by poorly informed believers all over the world and lead them astray. Others, in positions of leadership, will follow his lead and be telling their people the same thing.

I am truly at a loss since I know for a fact that Alistair does not condone the sin involved in same sex or transgender ‘marriage’. He was clearcut and uncompromising in his sermons on same sex and transgender relationships, from Jude last year, and from Romans ch 1 (three sermons: “God gave them up”) the year before.

In his sermon from Romans 1:26-27 he stated:

“The Bible is really clear, loved ones. Homosexuality is unnatural. It’s a violation of God’s created order. It’s not the greatest sin, but it is the clearest evidence of a society’s defiance of God. When a culture finally reaches this place, where now even manhood and womanhood, gender itself, is deconstructed and reconstructed according to whatever agenda the individual has, whatever ethical set of norms they’ve decided to embrace, then the culture is in deep trouble…

“When you live in a culture where men and women are unclear as to why they were made, how they were made, who made them, and what they’re supposed to be doing and allow them to do whatever they choose, you’re living in a really, really weird place…

“John Murray says, ‘However grievous is fornication or adultery’—and it is—‘the desecration involved in homosexuality is on a lower plane of degeneracy; it is unnatural and therefore evinces a perversion more basic.’ In the moral squalor, in the brokenness of our culture, we find a clear evidence of the wrath of God revealed from heaven. The actual immorality is not the cause; it’s the evidence. It’s what happens when we turn in upon ourselves.”

He can say that; and yet still  encourage a poor grandmother to show her support for those living in defiance against God, by joining in celebrating with them in their very act of defiant gender deconstruction.

In the past, Alistair put his finger on how we have ended up in the moral mess we are in. Referring to the strategy devised by two New England professors, back in the early ’70s:

“This is what they said: ‘First of all, we will get the culture to sympathize with us.’ It starts off, ‘Please do not be unkind to me, and do not say bad words about me, because I have a problem.’ Right? ‘I am not doing things naturally. Sympathize with me.’
“‘Secondly,’ they said, ‘what we’ll do is we’ll not only have them sympathize, but we’ll make sure that they normalize these things. We’ll normalize it’—so that people begin to say, ‘Well, you know, there’s a lot of it happening. I saw a movie the other day. I read a book the other day. It just seems so normal.’ And of course, all the figures from the media make it sound as though there’s a wholesale revolution. Everybody’s coming out of the woodwork. It’s a flat-out lie, okay? But, ‘We’ll normalize.’
“‘And then, thirdly,’ they said, ‘what we will do is we will demonize.’ Okay? Sympathize, normalize, demonize. What do they mean by ‘demonize’? ‘Anybody that says that this is not true, that this is not legitimate, that this is not an obvious alternative, we will demonize them. We will cancel them. We will remove them.’
“Where are we?
“We’re right here!”

By all means, by all good means, show you love the one caught up in sin, and that you want his good. But the kind of sympathy Alistair suggests the grandmother show cannot be for the other’s good. Rather it is more likely to be the first step down the same path that Alistair has just described, only this time, not for society in general, but now for the church.

There are many thoughtful (and a very few, admittedly, not so thoughtful) responses to Alistair’s comments on the Internet and on Youtube. I include just the following by Owen Strachan.

There is much one could say here; for my part, I’ll give four thoughts in response.

First, Begg has earned trust from Christians. It’s hard to find a man, in fact, who is more respected in our time than Alistair Begg, and rightly so. Begg has preached the truth for decades. Even as some of his peers have wavered on contested issues in recent days, Begg seemed to hold strong. For example, not long ago he preached this faithful message about homosexuality.

He has spoken soundly, what’s more, while exhibiting grace in his manner and preaching a gloriously forgiving Christ in his pulpit. (I share his sermon clips on a regular basis on my personal Instagram feed for just this reason.) In striving for a godly balance of grace and truth, Begg has been one to learn from. He seems like a man you would want to have a meal with, and does not come off as a dour, severe, gloomy doomsayer.

In sum, the joy of Christ seems to be in this man, and that model in itself has been instructive, alongside his strong preaching of the whole counsel of God.

Second, Begg is prone to stumble as we are. We know that Begg—like all our exemplars and heroes—is just a man. But sometimes we put men on pedestals. That’s not right, and honestly, it’s not fair to them. They stumble in many ways just as we do (James 3:2). We have to remember this when we grieve a public leader’s words as many are in this case.

Begg’s error does not set him apart from the rest of us. He is called to a daily walk of confession, repentance, humility, and growth like every other believer. In fact, moments like this can actually be quite redemptive for the church. When they hit and destabilize us temporarily, we can be shaken out of our stupor, and go on to examine ourselves in times like these, remembering how easy it is for all of us to drift from God’s holy standard (2 Corinthians 13:5).

Third, we should not attend compromised “wedding” ceremonies. The Bible does not technically address so-called “transgender” ceremonies, so let that be said. Nor is staking a wrong position on this issue akin to the unpardonable sin. (We who seek to be convictional should be careful about such a hasty conclusion, especially in our overheated social-media age.)

With these caveats stated, though, I believe that Begg’s counsel is unsound. Christians should not attend “transgender” ceremonies. To explain why (in brief), I’ll make some swift cuts to follow. (For fuller coverage, here is a biblically-driven book I coauthored on this subject; here is another longer work that also engages “transgenderism” in biblical perspective; here’s a resource package I produced for an evangelical ministry.)

—The Bible does not enfranchise “transgender” identity; we are either man or woman per the creational design of God (Genesis 2:7, 21-22, 24-25).

—The Bible speaks clearly to attempts to blur the lines of one’s God-given sex; it is always wrong (Deuteronomy 22:5; 1 Corinthians 11:3-19).

—Marriage is defined in Eden and reaffirmed by Jesus; it is between one man and one woman, and God is honored only by such unions (Matthew 19:3-6).

—Attending a wedding ceremony is commonly—and rightly—viewed as affirming the union in question, as is giving a couple a wedding gift (as Begg encouraged the grandmother in question to do).

—Christians should therefore not attend “transgender” ceremonies, which in truth do not feature an actual wedding at all, for God recognizes no such union as holy or permissible in his sight.

—Christians should love people identifying as “transgender” in every way they can that does not so much as hint of affirming this sinful identity (as with every sin-pattern a person practices, and there are many).

—This approach of love is always gospel witness in action (in a kind manner, for example) but wherever possible is to translate into proclamation, namely through the call to repentance and confession of sin before a holy God.

—This gospel proclamation urges the sinner (just like us) to say “no” to sin and eternity in hell (which unrepentant transgression of God’s design will surely lead to) and “yes” to the Son of God crucified for the guilty so that we may be totally forgiven, made new, given the new identity of Christian, and granted inaugurated eternal life out of the overflow of the resurrection of Christ.

We see, then, that we cannot affirm a person’s “transgender” identity or practice in any way (this includes pronoun usage, please note). As with everything against God’s design and God’s revealed will, we can only call them to leave such behind. Connecting the dots of Scripture, I conclude that we cannot attend “transgender” ceremonies, where we not only give approval to a godless identity, but supposedly receive it as part of a “marriage.”

Collating biblical truths, I believe that we cannot positively engage such an event at all. It is not loving, we remember, to endorse sin; it is loving to warn fellow sinners away from it (see Revelation 3:19). In fact, instead of attending such a ceremony, we would do well to fast and pray for the individuals involved, asking God to grant them repentance and faith per the prerogatives of his mighty mercy.

Fourth, we should pray for Begg—and for us all. To speak personally, I have written this post in grief. The reasons for this emotion should be clear per what I have already written. But I do not only grieve this unsound counsel, broadcast publicly to a huge audience. (I have responded publicly because public teaching calls for public correction, much as I regard Begg as a father in the faith.) I am praying for Alistair Begg, and encourage other believers to do the same right now.

Alistair Begg is a good and godly man, and we all falter just like him. Yet the stakes of public teaching are high, very high indeed. Not many should become teachers for just this reason (James 3:1). Leading a little one astray, for example, is a disastrous reality (Matthew 18:6). None of us preaches or teaches perfectly; only Jesus hit that mark. Nonetheless, we must all strive to hit the biblical mark, and offer confession and repentance—publicly, yes, as men in ministry—when we fail.

Conclusion

The matter surveyed here is not small. It is not a tempest in an evangelical teapot. It is a serious matter indeed. Simply put, the line on Christian participation in ungodly ceremonies cannot move. Like the men at Lot’s door in Sodom, we are urged with great intensity to cave here. But we cannot do so. The church cannot capitulate to the culture.
In love, we must take our stand, and not give the devil the foothold he so desperately craves.

Owen Strachan is Provost and Research Professor of Theology at Grace Bible Theological Seminary.