Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 943 ｜ Alistair Begg Doubles Down on Gay Wedding Advice

00:00:00.000 esteemed pastor Alistair Begg doubles down on his counsel to Christians to attend same-sex

00:00:09.060 weddings. As you can imagine, there's been a lot of backlash to this. We are going to cover it

00:00:13.500 all today on this episode of Relatable, which is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers.

00:00:17.820 Go to GoodRanchers.com, use code ALI at checkout. That's GoodRanchers.com, code ALI.

00:00:30.000 Hey, guys. Welcome to Relatable. Happy Wednesday. Hope everyone is having a wonderful week so far.

00:00:37.780 Man, oh, man. So much to talk about, especially since Taylor Swift took our entire episode

00:00:45.700 yesterday. We've got a lot left over that we need to discuss. Some new things, too.

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00:01:25.820 Let's get into it. Pastor Alistair Begg is in a controversy over his comments about attending

00:01:33.880 same-sex weddings. Now, this is surprising. This is a surprising conflict to be talking about

00:01:40.740 because typically when we are discussing comments, progressive comments being made by those who are

00:01:47.480 Christians, those who profess to be Christians, we are talking about people that we kind of expect 1.00

00:01:53.880 to be on the fence about these things, that we anticipate having a more quote-unquote nuanced,

00:02:01.600 caveated take on these biblical, moral, and even what some people would call culture war issues.

00:02:09.020 This comes as a shock. If you don't know who Alistair Begg is, he is a pastor, an author. He is the

00:02:17.080 senior pastor at Parkside Church in Cleveland. You will hear when we play a little video, his accent.

00:02:23.800 He is Scottish, and he has been a prominent name in the American Reformed Protestant space for a long

00:02:35.100 time. And I have appreciated his work. I've done at least one devotional from him. I believe it was

00:02:41.060 an Advent study. And I've read other things that he's written. I've listened to him several times,

00:02:47.720 and I have appreciated so much of what he said. And I think everyone who is reformed would probably

00:02:56.380 say that they have benefited in one way or another from the work of Alistair Begg. And so it came as a

00:03:03.680 shock when he recently said on a podcast that Christians should attend a same-sex wedding,

00:03:10.460 that we should go, that we should celebrate, that we should give the couple a gift. And in this way,

00:03:16.380 we are basically sharing the gospel to them and showing Christ to them. Now, I have answered this

00:03:24.220 question on this podcast before in a Q&A episode because this is a question I get a lot. Should

00:03:29.600 Christians attend a gay wedding? And as I will explain more thoroughly in a few minutes after

00:03:34.860 we go through what happened here, my answer is no. And so you've got Alistair Begg saying,

00:03:42.160 yes, you should. And let's look at his reasoning behind that and then what the response has been

00:03:48.340 to that and then what his response to the response was. So he is, as I said, senior pastor,

00:03:56.160 Parkside Church in Cleveland. He also has a radio ministry called Truth for Life. It's carried by

00:04:02.980 nearly 1,800 radio stations nationwide. He's been in pastoral ministry since 1975. He became the senior

00:04:11.100 pastor at Parkside in 1983. And the comments that he made that are at the center of this controversy

00:04:19.220 were made in a podcast for his ministry, Truth for Life. And they were made almost three months ago,

00:04:24.860 but they've only now started circulating again on social media. And that is what caused the

00:04:32.020 backlash. So here's what he said in the September 1st, 2023 episode, which was focused on his latest

00:04:39.500 book, which is called The Christian Manifesto. So someone was interviewing him and they asked,

00:04:46.800 Begg this. As you think about this book and your prayer for this book, what do you hope will be

00:04:51.440 different? How do you hope people will be different after they have read this book and they've meditated

00:04:55.800 on this sermon? And so he answers that. And then he gives a specific example of, I guess,

00:05:05.480 what he hopes people are getting from it as they try to apply Christian principles to how they live

00:05:11.100 their life. He says, and in very specific areas, this comes across. I mean, you and I know that we

00:05:16.060 field questions all the time that go along the lines of, my grandson is about to be married to a

00:05:20.520 transgender person. And I don't know what to do about this. And I'm calling to ask you to tell me 1.00

00:05:25.620 what to do, which is a huge responsibility, he says. And he said that his response would be,

00:05:33.140 okay, as long as he knows that this family member knows where you stand as far as your faith goes,

00:05:39.860 then I suggest that you do go to the ceremony and I suggest that you buy them a gift. And he explains

00:05:46.840 that the person he was talking to was really taken aback by his answer. Then he says,

00:05:50.600 here's the thing, your love for them, this couple that's getting married, may catch them off guard,

00:05:56.360 but your absence will simply reinforce the fact that they said, these people are what I always

00:06:01.460 thought, judgmental, critical, unprepared to countenance anything. He says, it's a fine line,

00:06:07.180 isn't it? It really is. And people need to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling.

00:06:11.800 But I think we're going to take that risk. We're going to have to take that risk a lot more if we want to

00:06:16.520 build bridges into hearts and lives of those who don't understand Jesus and don't understand that

00:06:22.940 he is king. So people were taken aback by this after they saw this clip circulating on social media.

00:06:33.140 And really what I saw from a lot of the reformed Christians that I follow, pastors, theologians,

00:06:39.460 authors, just commentators was, wow, I really disagree with this, but I'm going to give him the

00:06:45.300 benefit of the doubt. Considering that he has been very clear in his sermons and in his work about

00:06:52.380 the reality of sin, about the need for holiness, the need for repentance, sexual immorality of all

00:06:58.760 forms, being a sin that people have to repent of, we're going to give him the benefit of the doubt.

00:07:05.760 This commentary, this conversation about these comments has been going on for a while now.

00:07:11.160 I didn't weigh in. And the reason I didn't was because I wondered about his use of words here and

00:07:19.960 if he meant what everyone assumed that he meant. Everyone assumed that he meant that Christians

00:07:25.980 should attend a gay wedding. And yet he said a transgender person. He didn't necessarily say

00:07:33.000 a gay wedding. Now, maybe I missed some context where he specifically said, yeah, he's talking

00:07:38.380 about a gay wedding, so-called, but he said transgender person. And so I thought, okay, maybe

00:07:46.840 he's not talking about a union of a man and a man and a woman and a woman. Maybe he is talking about

00:07:52.500 a man and a woman, but one of the people is trying to pretend to be the opposite sex, which of course 0.97

00:08:00.840 we know is actually impossible. And so maybe there is some discussion and debate to be had whether or

00:08:08.080 not it would be right to attend that kind of wedding because you've got someone who is, yes, in active

00:08:14.680 sin, but the wedding of a man and a woman, an actual man and actual woman, no matter what they identify

00:08:20.980 as, like, okay, that would actually be a marriage. And so, of course, we don't affirm that person's

00:08:28.280 confusion or the deceit that they're displaying about their gender, but is it possible for a

00:08:34.620 Christian to faithfully attend that wedding? So I thought that, okay, people are just assuming that

00:08:40.220 he meant gay wedding, but maybe there are some actual nuances there because he's talking about

00:08:44.660 transgenderism. So I didn't weigh in because I thought, okay, I bet he's going to come back and 1.00

00:08:50.020 he's going to clarify what he actually meant by that. And so I just kind of stepped back and I

00:08:58.000 waited to see what he said. And he did actually respond to a lot of the critics because this ended

00:09:04.940 up kind of blowing up. It wasn't just that people were criticizing him or disagreeing with him. And

00:09:10.040 all the criticism and disagreement I saw was very respectful, but it turned into a kind of a big deal.

00:09:16.600 American Family Radio, which has been playing his sermons and distributing the work of his ministry

00:09:28.560 for a while, they made the decision that after 10 years of amplifying his message that they would

00:09:36.320 no longer air his Truth for Life program. So American Family Radio, because of his comments about

00:09:43.800 attending same-sex marriage, they decided to cut ties with him. They said it has come to our 0.52

00:09:49.840 attention that Pastor Begg made statements that were unbiblical, failed to line up with the decades

00:09:55.180 of faithful adherence to scripture that listeners have come to expect from him. In essence, when the

00:10:00.800 question was asked of him whether or not a family member should attend an unbiblical wedding ceremony

00:10:04.880 between two homosexuals, Pastor Begg counseled Christians to attend and take a gift. And this is what 0.93

00:10:12.460 they say their stances. At American Family Association, we believe it to be an act of

00:10:16.460 unfaithfulness to God to attend a ceremony that celebrates in a union outside of the biblical

00:10:21.880 model of marriage as being between one man and one woman. Members of our leadership team held a call

00:10:26.720 with Alistair Begg's team and were unsuccessful in convincing them of his error. As a result of this,

00:10:32.600 we will no longer air Pastor Alistair Begg's Truth for Life program. So I don't know much about

00:10:38.020 American Family Radio, but I know it takes a lot of strength to take a stand like this,

00:10:43.040 especially against someone who is popular. And it sounds like they did the best that they could

00:10:48.560 to first talk to them directly and to say, hey, you know, we are giving you the benefit of the doubt.

00:10:54.780 We do appreciate what you have offered the church. We do appreciate your messages of clarity and

00:11:00.620 courage that you've given us and to our listeners. But here's where we think that you're wrong,

00:11:04.960 and we're going to point to scripture to try to sway you. And they say they were unsuccessful in

00:11:09.700 doing that. And so they had to make what I'm sure was a very difficult decision. It sounds like they

00:11:13.840 went about this the right way. And I happen to agree with their reasoning. If you are talking about

00:11:19.920 same-sex unions. And again, I wanted to wait for the clarification from Alistair Begg on that.

00:11:26.560 And he did. He did give us, I guess, a form of a clarification. So let me get into that before I give

00:11:33.160 you my full response. Okay, so Alistair Begg responded to the criticism that he has received

00:11:51.760 in a Sunday sermon. This past weekend, people are not happy about what he had to say. They're not

00:11:58.340 happy about it at all. The message was taken from Luke 15. That is the message of the prodigal son,

00:12:04.900 which I'm sure almost all of you are familiar with. And the sermon was titled Compassion versus

00:12:09.300 Condemnation. He warned about our inclination toward Pharisaism that is alive and well within all our

00:12:17.280 hearts, quote unquote. So he is defending himself here. And while I can't play you the entirety of

00:12:24.560 the sermon, I can give you a summary. And this is not me attempting to take things out of context

00:12:31.140 or to put words in his mouth. I do kind of have to paraphrase it. I believe that the entire sermon

00:12:36.520 is available online. Yes, the sermon audio is available online. We can link it in the description

00:12:41.700 of this episode. So you can go listen to it yourself to make sure that I'm not taking things out of

00:12:46.720 context. But in my listening of the sermon and also seeing the backlash that this sermon response

00:12:54.800 has gotten, I think I'm giving you an accurate rendering of not only what he said, but also what he

00:13:02.460 meant. So he defends himself saying, in that conversation with that grandmother, I was concerned

00:13:07.580 about the well-being of their relationship more than anything else. Now, I think that's very telling.

00:13:12.140 He was concerned about the well-being of their relationship more than anything else. Hence my

00:13:17.300 counsel. Don't misunderstand that in any way at all. And I will just say the BOD that I had given

00:13:23.080 that maybe he wasn't talking about a same-sex wedding, a same-sex ceremony. Well, that has gone

00:13:28.440 out the window because he emphasizes and clarifies that, yes, that is what he meant. He never says,

00:13:36.880 oh, no, I didn't mean two people of the same sex. I was talking about two people of the opposite 1.00

00:13:40.940 sex. One person who is confused about their identity in the same way that a lot of people

00:13:44.780 are confused about their identity in different ways. No, that's not what he says. He did mean

00:13:50.920 a same-sex union and a same-sex wedding. He does believe that Christians should attend that

00:13:56.780 because it may, from his perspective, help seal the relationship, help maintain the relationship

00:14:06.080 between a believer and then this non-believing family member who is entering into this homosexual 0.99

00:14:13.540 union. He says that he might not have given that answer to another person if it had to do with another

00:14:21.040 kind of situation. But in this case, with a believing grandmother, he wanted to make sure that he was

00:14:27.240 helping this grandmother maintain this relationship. And he says, look, I'm not wrong on this, basically.

00:14:33.760 He said, the fact of the matter is, I am not ready to repent over this. I don't have to. I don't have

00:14:40.340 to repent over this. And he goes to Luke 15, as I said, to look at the prodigal son. He said, God is

00:14:46.700 a seeking God. And the father in the story who represents God himself is running after the sinner and

00:14:54.640 running after his prodigal son who had squandered his inheritance, who had been living among pigs. And he is

00:15:03.320 making this point to say that has to be the kind of love that we emulate. And that is the support that

00:15:11.020 he uses to say, yes, Christians should attend this gay wedding because we have to go after sinners in

00:15:18.400 this same way. He also says that the problem with the Pharisees, or one of the problems with the

00:15:25.620 Pharisees, was that they were grumbling at Jesus because of the easy way in which he hung out with 0.91

00:15:31.820 sinners, that he congregated with people that the Pharisees thought were too unclean, were too

00:15:38.080 much on the margins of society, had done too much wrong for Jesus to be around him or to be around

00:15:46.100 them. And so he says that those who disagree with him, those who are saying, no, Christians should not 0.67

00:15:54.740 attend this gay wedding, that they're like Pharisees, that they're like the older brother, 0.99

00:15:58.580 the judgmental brother, the unforgiving brother in the story of the prodigal son. He says,

00:16:05.340 you got a problem with the grandmother showing up, sitting on the front row and buying a Bible for

00:16:13.400 her grandchild that she hopes will become a believer. And he says, you know, if you've got a

00:16:20.060 problem with that, then basically you're like the Pharisee. You are condemning, you are reviling,

00:16:25.980 you are like the older brother in the prodigal son story. So here is sought to where Alistair Begg is

00:16:36.340 saying, look, I'm going to come down on the side of compassion here. If I've got to go down on the

00:16:42.100 side of one or the other, I'll go down on this side. I'll go down on the side of compassion with

00:16:48.500 people actually accusing me of just weakness rather than go down on the side of condemnation,

00:16:56.020 which closes any doors of opportunity for future engagement with those who know exactly what we

00:17:02.780 believe about the Bible and about Jesus and about so on.

00:17:06.260 Um, okay. So this is shocking to me. There are a few things that are shocking to me. One,

00:17:13.200 it was shocking to me that Alistair Begg doesn't actually engage with any of the biblically based 0.99

00:17:19.580 critiques, criticism, and pushback that he received. He basically throws all of his opposition under the

00:17:27.560 bus and condemns them, ironically, with ad hominem attacks, calling someone who disagrees with you

00:17:34.840 biblically, a Pharisee or legalistic or an older brother or judgmental. Again, that's something

00:17:41.620 that I expect from progressives that don't believe in the need for repentance and don't

00:17:48.440 really believe in the authority of scripture. It is not something that I expect from someone like

00:17:53.140 Alistair Begg. And just to clarify, he has been extremely consistent and extremely clear

00:17:59.400 on what the Bible says about sexuality, what the Bible says about marriage, what the Bible says about

00:18:04.520 gender roles. I have no doubt that personally, he holds to a biblical sexual ethic. But here,

00:18:13.980 I not only believe that he's wrong, but what I'm very disturbed by is his unwillingness to,

00:18:21.920 I think, in good faith, engage with those who have disagreed with him. And what those of us who disagree

00:18:29.360 with him believe, and I can't speak for everyone, there's been a variety of arguments that have been

00:18:34.540 put out there, very eloquent, kind, articulate, biblical arguments that have been published

00:18:42.260 contra Pastor Begg. But the point that I think all of us have is that we do not have to affirm,

00:18:52.060 and we should not affirm and celebrate sin in the hopes that affirming and celebrating what God calls

00:18:59.540 wrong, what God calls destructive, what God calls harmful to a person's body and soul in order to

00:19:08.000 show them that we are loving, in order to show them the gospel, in order to show them the love of Christ.

00:19:14.400 We do not have to affirm and celebrate that which God calls sin to be ambassadors of Christ, to be the

00:19:24.260 aroma of Christ. That is a very, again, progressive and worldly way of thinking of evangelism, a very

00:19:32.380 worldly way of thinking of compassion. That is exactly what the world tells us compassion is. The world

00:19:39.100 tells us that compassion means celebrating someone's sin, affirming someone's sin. And I know that Pastor

00:19:48.020 Begg wouldn't say that this is affirmation, but it is a form of affirmation. It is. To celebrate a

00:19:57.380 ceremony in which what God calls abominable, what God calls unnatural, what God calls, again, destructive to

00:20:06.940 a person's body, heart, mind, and soul, that is wrong. It's not only wrong, but it is completely

00:20:16.000 unnecessary to show the gospel to someone. Yes, he is right that the grandchild in this situation will

00:20:25.180 be offended, that maybe all of the bad things that he's thought about Christians for a long time, that

00:20:30.360 they're just judgmental and bigoted and exclusive, that all of those things might be confirmed in his

00:20:36.300 mind. But there are a lot of things that could confirm that in his mind that Christians are still called to do.

00:20:46.360 And I know that Pastor Begg knows this, right? I know that he knows this. I know that he knows that there are sins

00:20:54.000 that we cannot affirm, that we cannot celebrate, that we cannot go along with, even if those in our lives that we are

00:21:02.400 trying to reach think badly of us. I mean, that's not the point of all of this, right? Like, that's not the

00:21:09.020 point of the Christian faith to ensure that the people in our lives, whether we're related to them

00:21:13.520 or not, think highly of us, or that we fit their definition of loving, or their definition of

00:21:19.340 compassionate, or empathetic, or virtuous, or whatever characteristic they want us to be. That's

00:21:26.880 not our goal, right? Our goal is to glorify God. Our goal is to honor God. And here's what I always say.

00:21:33.900 We cannot out-love God. We can't out-love God. 1 John 4, 8. God is love. God is love. So I cannot

00:21:42.040 out-compassion him. I can't out-love him. I can't out-empathy him. God is love. I am not. Therefore,

00:21:49.740 the most loving thing that I can do at all times is agree with God. That's the most loving thing

00:21:57.240 that I can do at all times is agree with God. I will never be more loving than God by disagreeing

00:22:04.860 with him or celebrating that which he calls sin. Don't you think that there is a clearer way to

00:22:12.520 communicate to that grandchild that I love you so much and I want what is best for you? And of course,

00:22:23.020 there is so much of me that wants you to be happy, but more than anything else, I want to honor God

00:22:29.120 and I want you to honor God with your life. And I know that God's ways are better. I know that they're

00:22:34.880 healthier and I want them for you. I want what is best for you. And because I believe that God's ways

00:22:44.180 are best, I can't celebrate that which God makes clear is bad for you. Wouldn't that be a better way?

00:22:55.960 And of course, an unbeliever is going to hear that and think, wow, I'm angry. That's so hateful. 1.00

00:23:02.500 That's wrong. That's unloving. But that's not really our responsibility. What someone thinks

00:23:07.360 about us, that's not any of our business. Our business is to go about trying to glorify God

00:23:14.040 the best that we possibly can. And he also, there's another logical fallacy in addition to ad hominem

00:23:31.800 that I think that he is employing here. And that is this false choice of the compassion that he

00:23:38.100 defines as going to the wedding versus condemnation that he defines as not attending the wedding.

00:23:46.220 And number one, I think that we should be condemning the sin. But I also think that we

00:23:51.880 should be compassionate towards someone, knowing that as Ephesians 2 tells us, we were all once dead

00:23:56.740 in our sin apart from Christ. And it is only by grace through faith that we have been made alive

00:24:02.400 in him. So yes, we can have compassion for all kinds of people, for all kinds of sinners, with all

00:24:07.340 kinds of different forms of depravity and disobedience and all of that. Yes, we can.

00:24:12.620 Does compassion require us to attend this wedding? That's what it seems like he's saying. He presents

00:24:19.320 this false binary, this false choice of saying either you are compassionate and you go to the

00:24:24.160 wedding or you are condemning like the Pharisee, like the older brother. And that's not actually

00:24:32.380 the choice that scripture presents to us, that we can love, that we can have compassion and still agree

00:24:37.720 with God and still refuse to celebrate what God calls bad for a person, what God calls sin,

00:24:43.840 what God tells us is wrong and destructive and deleterious to everyone involved. That's not

00:24:51.320 something that we can go and pretend to be happy about. Can't this grandmother gift the Bible to

00:24:58.180 this couple without attending the wedding? I mean, I do wonder too. Now I'm curious what he thinks about

00:25:04.380 pronouns. Like, should we be calling someone by their preferred pronouns because that might help

00:25:10.680 solidify a relationship with them? Should we call a man she because that's what the man wants to 0.73

00:25:17.080 be called? Should we assent to that delusion? Again, something that God calls a lie?

00:25:24.400 A complete deception from Satan is bad for that person's body, is bad for that person's heart and

00:25:30.200 soul, and bad for society at large because of what it gives us in the way of confusion and the

00:25:37.020 infringement upon rights and safety and protection of women and children? Like, are we supposed to

00:25:42.380 affirm that because the well-being of that relationship is supposed to take precedence

00:25:47.220 over truth, over health, over God's Word? I'm just curious. I'm curious what he would say about that.

00:25:55.580 I'm curious. And I do just want to point to some problems that I see with using the story of the

00:26:02.480 prodigal son and using the example of Jesus congregating with sinners to try to support

00:26:08.780 his case. Again, this is something that I expect from progressives that we see from progressives all

00:26:13.420 the time that is shocking to see from someone who is conservative in so many ways. Jesus didn't hang

00:26:20.080 out with sinners for the sake of hanging out with them. He certainly wasn't celebrating what they were

00:26:26.740 doing. He wasn't attending ceremonies that would be celebrating their sin, right? That's something that

00:26:35.480 we see a lot in society saying, well, Jesus hung out with sinners, so therefore you shouldn't say

00:26:41.620 anything wrong about someone's sin. Well, Jesus wasn't just hanging out with sinners, as Pastor Begg knows.

00:26:48.960 He was calling them to repentance. That was the purpose of his hanging out. That was the purpose of

00:26:55.340 his congregating with them, his congregating with them, is to call them to repentance and to show

00:27:00.660 them the radical repentance-inducing love of God that the Pharisees, of course, were not willing to do.

00:27:09.480 I think that we can do that. You can even spend time with people who are in sin without going to a

00:27:18.560 ceremony that is celebrating their sin, right? We know how to do that. I'm sure this grandmother knows how

00:27:23.780 to do that. There is something different about a wedding. There is something different about that

00:27:28.420 ceremony that I don't think that we should be affirming at all. And then this story of the

00:27:33.740 prodigal son that God is a seeking God and therefore we have to go to that gay wedding. Well, he wasn't 1.00

00:27:42.300 celebrating his son's sin. He was celebrating that the son came back. He was celebrating that the son was

00:27:51.200 running towards him. He was celebrating that that son had repented. The ceremony that the father and

00:27:57.640 the prodigal son's story gave was because the son had repented, right? Because the son had returned.

00:28:09.620 So if this were a ceremony in the story of the grandmother that celebrated repentance,

00:28:16.360 celebrated something that honored God, then sure, maybe that would be a relevant story to

00:28:23.040 point to. But that's not what's going on here. And so I don't really see the connection. I don't

00:28:29.580 really see the support in any way. And so I'm concerned about this. I'm surprised by this.

00:28:39.360 Um, I think that this shows a really, I think it shows really poor exegesis, a very progressive

00:28:47.680 understanding of these stories and emphasis on trying to maintain relationships, even if it means

00:28:54.680 affirming sin rather than, um, prioritizing our holiness before God. It also shows, um, I think

00:29:05.120 the wrong priorities when it comes to, um, when it comes to wanting someone's repentance versus,

00:29:14.280 uh, just wanting their happiness and caring too much what an unbeliever thinks about us. 0.61

00:29:22.120 And I was ready to hear his arguments. I was ready to hear his support for his case because again,

00:29:30.100 I respect him a lot and I respect a lot of the work that he has put forth, but I was thoroughly

00:29:38.240 unconvinced. And not only that, but I was extremely disappointed by how he categorized opposition

00:29:44.820 and the logical fallacies that he employed to basically condemn the people that disagree with him

00:29:53.080 and to try to make his faulty case.

00:30:00.100 All right. So my friend Samuel say he wrote an article in response and he said, Alistair Begg should

00:30:14.120 be corrected and rebuked for what he said. Um, he said what he said is indefensible. If a Christian 1.00

00:30:19.300 attends a gay wedding and the marriage officiant says, if anyone sees any reason why these two should 1.00

00:30:23.280 not be wed, let them speak now or forever hold their peace. Wouldn't the Christian be obligated to 0.99

00:30:27.760 speak? I think that's a really good point. And he also says, many of us need to stop acting like

00:30:32.760 we're commanded to disobey God in order to win the world's approval. Well said. He says, we're not

00:30:38.600 called to be like politicians. We don't win our race by gaining the world's approval. We're not

00:30:42.360 supposed to worry about how the world reacts to righteousness. We should only be concerned about

00:30:47.580 what unbelievers think about our sins. Sins like attending a gay wedding. That's so true. I remember 1.00

00:30:55.660 what Laura Perry Smalt said when she was on this show. Uh, she was, or is a woman who at one point

00:31:02.460 tried to identify as the opposite sex. She took testosterone. She went by the name Jake and she 0.68

00:31:07.060 lived her life presenting as a man for several years. And her, uh, conservative Christian parents

00:31:12.840 refused to go along with it. She was an adult. And so there wasn't much they could do about it, but, um,

00:31:18.480 they prayed for her. They continued to share the gospel with her. They refused to use her new name,

00:31:23.660 her new pronouns. They just weren't going to lie. This was their daughter. They loved her. They named

00:31:28.240 her Laura. And that's what they were going to continue to affirm. And they continued to maintain

00:31:34.420 a relationship with her. I'm sure that it was difficult. I'm sure that, uh, Laura was closed off

00:31:39.480 to them because they weren't affirming. But over time, the Holy Spirit through their love, through

00:31:45.040 their persistent truth, like chipped away at Laura's heart. And it was actually through transcribing

00:31:49.760 Bible verses for her mom, for a Bible study that Laura or that her mom was leading that

00:31:55.140 the Lord really spoke to Laura. It was through the power of his word. It was through the insistence

00:31:59.880 upon the Christians in Laura's life to continue telling her the truth. I'm sure the truth made 1.00

00:32:05.540 her angry at times. Do you remember when I had Daisy on this show, Daisy Strongin, and at one point

00:32:12.840 she also tried to identify as a man. And she talks about listening to this podcast,

00:32:19.360 Thank the Lord, by the grace of God. She heard us talk about the reality of gender. Also heard us 1.00

00:32:24.400 talking about the Bible and the gospel. And she said that she was trying to rebut what we were saying

00:32:29.660 on this podcast in her head, and she was unable to do so. Now, I'm sure that what I was saying made

00:32:36.440 her mad at one point. But she wasn't won over. First of all, she wasn't won over by me. Of course,

00:32:43.400 it was the Holy Spirit working in her heart. But she wasn't won over by someone skirting around the

00:32:50.080 truth, or being wishy-washy about it, or being affirming in any way and trying to hide what God's

00:32:56.820 word says in layers and layers of caveats and nuances. We told it like it was. Laura's parents

00:33:04.200 told it like it was. And even though it hurts, even though it's a little offensive, even though

00:33:10.060 like the prick of a heart can be painful, of course, we've all been there, by the way,

00:33:15.120 as people who have all been unrepentant at one point. Yes, it's offensive. Yes, it hurts. But God

00:33:21.000 can work through that faithfulness. God can work through that obedience. Here's something I always

00:33:26.040 say. God doesn't need to be let off the hook. God does not need to be let off the hook for what his

00:33:30.980 word says. We don't need to apologize for God. Again, we don't need to try to out-love God.

00:33:38.300 Owen Strand, theologian, he also wrote an article in response. He says, I believe Begg's counsel is

00:33:45.240 unsound. Christians should not attend, quote-unquote, transgender ceremonies. Again, I think, like, 1.00

00:33:52.160 I don't even know. The transgender part is, like, odd to me that that's even part of this 1.00

00:33:56.860 conversation. But again, since Begg did, I mean, he did emphasize that he does mean same-sex ceremonies,

00:34:05.580 the criticism is still appropriate. Strand says, the matter surveyed here is not small. It is not

00:34:11.140 a tempest in an evangelical teapot. It is a serious matter indeed. Simply put, the line on Christian 0.97

00:34:16.340 participation in ungodly ceremonies cannot move. Like the men at Lot's door in Sodom, we are urged with

00:34:22.400 great intensity to cave here, but we cannot do so. The church cannot capitulate to the culture. In

00:34:28.420 love, we must take our stand and not give the devil a foothold he so desperately craves. And I agree

00:34:36.580 with that. Again, I think it is similar to using someone's preferred pronouns. It's the same thing

00:34:42.000 that a lot of professing Christians say about trying to affirm someone's gender confusion in the hopes that

00:34:48.740 you can maintain a relationship. And as Samuel say, so articulately said, we should not be convinced

00:34:55.240 that we have to disobey God in order to be effective Christians. I mean, think about that.

00:35:00.480 That's essentially what is being said. We have to affirm sin to try to show people that sin is wrong.

00:35:06.720 What? Like, okay, what if this person who is getting married, who is in sin,

00:35:12.420 reads this Bible that was given to them, or later in life starts to understand what Scripture

00:35:18.480 says about sexual sin and the need for repentance, holiness, and all of that, and they look back to

00:35:23.780 the grandmother and say, but gosh, my grandmother, she was the godliest person that I knew. And she

00:35:29.040 was the most Christian person I knew. And even she attended my wedding. Even she affirmed this union.

00:35:34.500 So it can't be all that bad. What if that's the direction that his mind goes? Are we still like

00:35:41.380 the Pharisees? Are we still like the older brother in the story because of that pushback?

00:35:49.300 Robert Gannon, I'm so sorry if I mispronounced your last name. He's a professor of theology

00:35:56.580 at Houston Christian University. And I thought that he gave a really good response. It's pretty long,

00:36:02.940 so I won't read the whole thing. But he makes some really good points. So he talks about what we

00:36:08.860 talked about, the ad hominem attacks that I think Begg launched at his critics. And he basically says

00:36:16.860 that Begg doesn't even try to reckon with the arguments that were being given to him. He says

00:36:24.780 he attacks all those who criticize him as the product of American fundamentalism. And he says,

00:36:30.200 unlike them, I come from a world in which it is possible for people to grasp the fact there are

00:36:34.340 actually nuances in things. And again, that's patronizing. That's condescending. Just because

00:36:40.220 people are criticizing you doesn't mean that we don't understand nuance. We just don't think that

00:36:43.960 you are biblically correct. He also says that Begg's ironic lack of nuance in describing Jesus's

00:36:50.300 outreach to sinners is a problem. He says the failure to recognize that there is a world of

00:36:54.820 difference between Jesus fraternizing with sexual sinners and exploitative tax collectors who express

00:37:00.540 interest in his message on the one hand, and Jesus attending a ritual celebration either of a tax

00:37:05.500 collector's economic exploitation or of a sexual sinner's grossly immoral and a natural sexual union 0.95

00:37:10.720 on the other hand. He says that that is a lack of understanding the nuances of the difference between

00:37:18.340 what Jesus was doing and what Christians are called to do today. He also says that Begg has a 0.97

00:37:23.160 misapplication of the parable of the prodigal son, as we talked about. He says the older son refused to

00:37:28.460 attend a celebration of the younger son's penitent return from a dissolute and immoral life. That was

00:37:33.760 the problem with the older brother, not that he refused to attend a ritual celebration of a permanent

00:37:37.720 commitment to a dissolute and immoral life. Exactly correct. A better text that Begg might have chosen

00:37:44.000 than the lost son parable, and I didn't think of this, so this is interesting. He says that it comes from

00:37:52.700 Genesis 22, the binding of Isaac, where God taught Abraham not to make an idol even of his only son,

00:38:02.260 the son of the promise. We can't make holding on to a family member who is memorializing what the

00:38:06.820 writers of Scripture and Jesus deemed to be egregious the most important thing, even if we catch it in

00:38:12.480 terms of staying in evangelistic contact. He also says that Begg has a very narrow perspective

00:38:21.560 of this. Begg said, all I was thinking was, how can I help this grandmother not lose her

00:38:28.420 granddaughter? It's a little confusing because it keeps going back and forth, whether he's a

00:38:33.120 granddaughter or grandson. And what he should have been thinking is, how can I help this grandmother not

00:38:41.460 offend God? How can I persuade her not to speak affirmation to behavior that can get her grandchild

00:38:47.260 excluded from God's kingdom? Am I recommending that she do something that will stumble others by her 0.99

00:38:55.300 actions? Good question. Leaving them to affirm such immorality. Begg's failure to use good analogical

00:39:03.380 reasoning. This again goes to his apparent, Begg's apparent lack of understanding of what these

00:39:10.980 parables and biblical passages really mean. They do not mean affirming ceremonies that celebrate

00:39:17.140 someone's sin. So he goes on. There are several things that he says in response to Alistair Begg.

00:39:24.900 And I would like to see Alistair Begg actually respond to the criticisms that are being put his way,

00:39:31.940 that are being placed in front of him. That's what I would like. Even if he doesn't change his stance,

00:39:37.040 really wrestle with it and show us that you're wrestling with it.

00:39:40.980 Show us that you are actually taking seriously the biblical criticisms that people are being put

00:39:48.080 before you. Because again, I'm just disturbed. I'm disturbed by the response that he gave. Very

00:39:52.760 disturbed. And I gave the benefit of the doubt. But then when I saw him double down and honestly

00:39:57.820 misuse scripture to do that, I was really discouraged by it. And look, I'm not saying that I

00:40:04.140 have as much theological wisdom as Alistair Begg. I don't think anyone's saying that. I think all of us

00:40:09.520 can say that we really respect what he has contributed. And obviously, he's a very wise

00:40:14.460 and godly person. And I think everyone's just a little confounded of how he came to these conclusions

00:40:19.000 and then how he used the scriptures that he used to support those conclusions and condemn those who

00:40:24.200 disagree with him. I don't know. Really interesting. And again, there's a lot of projection here.

00:40:29.800 He accuses us of lacking nuance when really he lacks nuance. He accuses us of being condemning when really

00:40:36.720 he is being condemning of us when we're just trying to give our position. So I guess that he

00:40:44.520 will continue to that he will be speaking at the Shepherds Conference. I'll be interested to see how

00:40:50.180 this kind of develops over time. I would be happy to have Pastor Begg on this podcast if you were

00:40:56.860 interested in that. And I'm sure that he could school us on a lot of things and teach us a lot of

00:41:01.520 things even if we really seriously disagree on something that I find really, really important.

00:41:18.900 Okay, once again, we did not get to anything else that we wanted to talk about. There was so much to

00:41:25.740 talk about here. And I want to talk about other things. We will. We will. We will. We will cover the

00:41:30.580 other things in due time. But tomorrow we have on Krista Kolstad. And Krista Kolstad is the mother

00:41:37.040 of a young girl in Montana who has been removed from her parents' custody because she says that she

00:41:44.820 is the opposite sex. And her parents, being the same people that they are, have said, no, you're not. 0.99

00:41:50.100 You are our daughter and we are going to love you and we will get you help, but we are not going to

00:41:55.000 allow you to medically transition. We're not going to. The state got involved in Republican-run

00:42:01.700 Montana, by the way, and took this child from her parents' custody. Oh my goodness. So we'll be

00:42:09.860 talking about that tomorrow. We'll be talking with that mother tomorrow. And we will also be talking

00:42:15.660 about this horrific story of these peaceful pro-lifers being finally convicted of the crime

00:42:25.060 of singing hymns and praying in front of an abortion clinic. It's just insane what's going on. But we

00:42:31.860 got to know. We got to know what we are facing. Just remember, though, God is in control. He is

00:42:38.440 completely sovereign. His word is unchanged. And Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

00:42:44.500 And He is faithful. He is completely faithful and completely good. And as Monday's episode especially

00:42:51.820 reminds us, He is always doing the work of advancing His kingdom. No matter what's going on in our

00:42:58.200 political space or what's going on with disagreements between Christians and the church, that mission

00:43:04.040 remains totally unhindered and unfettered. God's plan of redemption is always going off without a hitch.

00:43:13.180 And that's what we can trust in. That's what we can rejoice in. And we can simply do the next right

00:43:18.040 thing in faith with excellence and for the glory of God. All right. That's all we got time for today.

00:43:23.160 We will be back here tomorrow.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - January 31, 2024

Ep 943 ｜ Alistair Begg Doubles Down on Gay Wedding Advice

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