Alistair Begg and Transgender Weddings

Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. I'm your host, John Harris. It's a short podcast today, but one I felt compelled to do because I've had many people reaching out to me over the last week and a half asking me, John, can you comment on the Alistair Begg same-sex wedding issue?

And to be fair, I did actually say something about this in a previous video, but the title did not suggest that the topic was about Alistair Begg. And so I think many people missed that and then didn't realize I had already said something.

And I think because there's been some development on it, I thought, well, you know what, I'll just make another video because there's been some things since then that have been said. And there's a few other issues that I thought about that would be good to raise.

And so I wanna talk to you a little bit about it. We're gonna play some clips and go from there. Before we do though, I want to let you know about a sponsor for this podcast, and that is Screen It, Screen It Books.

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So this is a great resource for parents, screenitfirst .com. All right, let's talk about this Alistair Begg stuff. I wanna start with the original clip. I first saw this at Reformation Charlotte. I think it's called The Dissenter now, but Jeff Maples is doing a great job just kind of cataloging this stuff, which is where I got a lot of this.

He put this clip out there. This was probably over a week ago, a week and a half ago now. And this is what Alistair Begg said.

In very specific areas this comes across. I mean, you and I know that we field questions all the time that go along the lines of, my grandson is about to be married to a transgender person, and I don't know what to do about this, and I'm calling to ask you to tell me what to do, which is a huge responsibility.

And in a conversation like that, just a few days ago, and people may not like this answer, but I asked the grandmother, does your grandson understand your belief in Jesus? Yes. Does your grandson 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 ceremony, and I suggest that you buy them a gift. Oh, she said, what? She was caught off guard. 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.

And it is a fancy, it is a fine line, isn't it? It really is. And people need to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling. But I think we're gonna take that risk. We're gonna have to take that risk a lot more 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.

So I don't wanna make a mountain out of every molehill, but I'm not sure exactly what he means at the end there by working out our salvation with fear and trembling on this particular issue. I don't know if he's just throwing that out there as an expression, but the context, of course, is he's preaching through the Sermon on the Plain, and he wants to really communicate to the audience, and this is on his radio show, I believe, Truth for Life, is it Truth for Life?

I just saw the, we all just saw, yeah, Truth for Life. He's trying to tell them that this is what Jesus would have us do in order to be a good witness. So being a good witness, I think, then creates this fine line, this tension between do I go and support in some way, or at least give the impression that I'm somewhat in support of what's going on, right?

And I think Alistair Begg would wanna say that he doesn't support what's going on at all, and we should not indicate that we're supporting that, but do we risk giving that impression in order to be a good witness?

And so Alistair Begg comes down on the side of, this is what being a good witness is, is you get them a gift, you go to this illegitimate ceremony for an illegitimate marriage. It's not actually a marriage.

It is a pretend ceremony. I mean, biblically speaking, that's what you have to say, and Alistair Begg, I think, would be the first to say that. But you somewhat tip your hat to the fantasy here. In order to love that person, in order to accept that person, in order to not reinforce a stereotype that person may have about Christianity and your faith, you end up playing the part of an accomplice because you go to this fake ceremony and you treat it as legitimate.

You give them a gift. These are the kinds of things that one does for a legitimate marriage, that two people are coming together, male, female, to share their lives, spend their lives together in a covenant, and because they're spending their lives together, that's why you get a gift, right?

Because they usually start out with a financial need and they need to buy their own stuff. They need their own place to live and their own stuff there. So that's why you get a gift at a wedding, at least traditionally it's been it.

Now you're gonna get them a gift so they can start their lives together in this pretend fake and sinful and evil relationship according to scripture. So it's obviously wrong. It's obviously confusing.

And of course I said as much, but I think the last time that I addressed this, I wanted to give Alistair Begg a bit of an insanity defense. I really wanted to. I didn't know if I actually could, but I know I really, really wanted to.

And that's just because I know that he's had a number of years of faithful preaching for the most part. I have had people reach out to me and tell me things like, you know, Alistair Begg's church during COVID was going along with everything the state told them to do.

I know people have told me that there are elders at the church who were essentially preaching critical race theory related content. I haven't seen though firsthand like primary sources of this kind of thing.

And I haven't really gone and looked for it either, but you know, it doesn't shock me. And maybe that's the first thing to say before we play the other clips that I have for you. It does not surprise me.

And maybe it's because I've developed maybe a slight cynicism since I've seen so much corruption and so many people have been exposed that I used to look up to even a few years ago that maybe I'm callous, maybe, and I'm just being real with you in the podcast audience here.

I'm not saying that's right or wrong. I think that's just a reality. But I think with him specifically, there's something else going on there. And it goes back to me. This isn't a huge revelation to all of you, but it maybe explains why I'm not as surprised.

When I was at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Alistair Begg came and he preached a message. It was a good message. And I talked to him afterward. He was very nice to me. I realized something about him at that moment when I talked to him.

He has like a photographic mind or it's an amazing mind for remembering things. Like he remembered some line from a Gene Hackman movie about Poughkeepsie and my friend was from Poughkeepsie and he could just reach back years and remember things that I think most people would just slip their mind.

And so I realized that about him. That doesn't really relate to this, but an amazing mind. I also though, one thing I saw in him was, and since then as well, is he's very ingrained in evangelical institutions.

Even though I believe his church is independent, they're not part of like the Southern Baptist Convention or anything like that. He does a lot of stuff for Calvary Chapel. He does a lot of speaking outside of his church and for denominations, for the Southern Baptist Convention in this case.

He's at Southeastern and he's been there more than once, I believe. And he speaks at the Getty's Christmas thing. He's spoken there, I believe a few times in New York City. And you see him pop up in all these different places.

And I know that people who have those relationships, extensive relationships for decades of ministry, it's very hard not to get pulled kind of in the direction that everyone else is swimming. And to have somewhat of a resistance to wanting to call those people out, even if you disagree with them.

So I didn't know whether Alistair Begg was woke or not. He didn't really take much of a stand, but that indication itself, the fact that he's speaking at places that were going woke at the time, that he did not take a recognizable stand on these things, that kind of told me what I think I needed to know.

And I didn't paint him as an enemy in my mind. I didn't tell anyone not to listen to him at all. Some people are like that. He's compromised, he's not taking a stand on this. Well, I just figured there's probably a weakness there.

And he doesn't see it as big of a deal as some people see it or maybe because he's from another country originally, he feels like some of the 2020 things regarding America's history aren't for him to weigh in on.

I don't know.

But for whatever the reason, he saw what happened with John MacArthur, how John MacArthur was vilified. He didn't stand up and defend John MacArthur in that moment. He didn't, and I'm not saying he had to, but it's just a culmination of things that transpire and you don't say anything, it becomes saying something.

It becomes, that neutrality actually translates into an inability or an unwillingness to stand against some very evil things, frankly, that are happening in the church, in my opinion. So this is based on just my experience.

This is based on watching other pastors and leaders in the church, sometimes even from a much closer vantage point than with Alistair Begg. But I wasn't expecting a lot from him. So when this statement came out, I wasn't expecting a lot.

And of course he said other things as well. This is another thing that someone pointed out to me recently, and apparently Alistair Begg has held this position for a while, but I'll just play this clip for you.

This is a different issue, but he's not a perfect man and it is anyone, right? But he has some weaknesses in his theology in certain areas. And generally speaking, if you start getting a little weak on the sexual stuff, you've probably started getting weak on women in teaching roles first.

Affirming the prohibition of women in the role of a teaching pastor or of a ruling elder, we recognize also the role of women as teachers. Because the prohibition is governed by the word men, and it is governed by the context.

It doesn't mean that women can't teach anywhere, anytime, anyhow. And again, the New Testament is littered with people—women in teaching roles. 1 Timothy 2 makes reference of it, 1 Corinthians 14 does.

And one of the chestnuts that always comes up—and we won't have time for questions, you'll be relieved to know—he said to himself, one of the chestnuts that always comes up and says, well, you did that thing on 1 Timothy 2, and then you had Helen Rosevere come to the church.

Na-na-na-na-na-na. And she spoke on a Sunday morning, and she's not allowed to speak on Sunday mornings because of 1 Timothy 2. Yes, she's allowed to speak on Sunday mornings, if the elders determine that we'd like her to.

She's not going to speak as the pastor and the teacher. She is not going to speak in a position of rule and authority, but she has something to say, and we like to hear it. There are women who have unique abilities in relationship to, for example, dealing with bereavement.

And if that woman has something to share with a fellowship in the context of the Lord's Day worship, then she can come and share it, providing it does not negate all that we have said. In other words, loved ones, we can't take a principle and make a law out of it.

And legalists always make laws out of principles, because it is far more comfortable. Then you can always have it cut and dried, but principles must be principles, and laws remain law.

Okay, so he's preaching on 1 Timothy 2, and he does the classic soft complementarian take on that by saying that, but by really separating that there's this role, a title, an office that women cannot be part of.

They can't fill that because God has ordained only men, and he's prohibited women from filling that role. And then saying, but there's another thing here. There's the thing that that role does. So there's a function here, and the function is, one of the functions at least is speaking, preaching in the context of the Lord's Day service, giving instruction from scripture.

And that's when he comes in and says, well, a woman can do that if it's under the elder's authority. So as long as it's under the elder's authority, he thinks that's okay. And this is a position that you've heard in different forms, and maybe with their own nuances from others.

Danny Akin's the first one that comes to mind who advocated this kind of a separation, where there's a particular place for a woman to come in and even preach on a Sunday morning, but it's got to have these stipulations.

And I think of J .D. Greer really wanting to have women come in and fill any role that they can possibly fill, except the ones that are specifically prohibited. And if memory serves me, I think he even said something like, they can lead Bible studies or co-lead Bible studies to mixed audiences and these kinds of things.

So the pressure is toward trying to elevate women into as close as you can get to these positions without giving them the titles, without giving them the actual office, and denying that they're getting these positions, but letting them fulfill the roles in some ways.

And of course, the mockery is always towards those fuddy-duddy fundamentalists, right? Those people who want to say, that's wrong. Hey, hold it. The Bible says, and then mocking them, calling them legalists, that kind of thing.

This is just a typical play we've seen for a while. And so Alistair Begg somewhat, I guess, was part of that. And again, I'm walking a fine line myself here because I don't want people to take what I'm saying and run with it and say, well, John said Alistair Begg is a false teacher or is a heretic.

I'm not saying those things. I think that he has some blind spots and, or, it's very hard for me to conceive of him having a blind spot with this transgender wedding issue, as I'll explain in a moment.

But he either has blind spots and, or he is just plain wrong in some areas. He is capitulated to the culture. And culture is not the word, actually, I wanted to use there. To the world is really the right biblical word there.

He's capitulated to the world. He doesn't know, he doesn't think that's what he's doing, but he has, that pressure is there and he has felt it. And he has, so these are your options. You don't really have another option outside of this, unfortunately.

And it's one thing to get some secondary or tertiary issues wrong. And I would say that, you know, something like this issue, this issue of women speaking on a Sunday morning, I can see how he's trying his best to maintain what the scripture says.

And yeah, he's still my brother. I disagree, but he's still my brother in Christ. It's a step more. And I think this is why this is really resonating with people. It is a further step than to start saying, you know what, you can go and you can kind of make a confusing statement on, as to whether you affirm of something that God calls an abomination.

It's toiva. It is absolutely something God hates. A wedding that is totally illegitimate. And it's something that is, it's really a war against the creator and his design. And you can go and somehow give a gift so that you can preserve your witness.

I think now people are starting to dig into the archives. They're remembering other things he said. And they're saying, yeah, you know what? I think he kind of capitulated there too. And maybe this wasn't as big of a surprise.

So I'm not saying not to listen to any of his preaching. I'm not saying that he doesn't have some good commentary, but there are, I do want to talk about, after we play these last two clips, I do want to talk about two things.

And one is being a witness and have evangelicals, evangelical leaders, have we had a blind spot for years in our circles with trying to maintain a witness or preserve a witness by sacrificing the truth?

And then the other thing, of course, is the exegetical preaching model. Because I think Alistair Begg somewhat typifies that, as does John MacArthur. Is there a weakness in that somehow? In some of the ways, as 2020 revealed, some of the ways that that's a weakness.

I want to talk about that too briefly. First, we're going to play two clips. So this is a first clip. And this took away my ability to give Alistair Begg the insanity defense. Because I want to say, maybe he's getting older.

And sometimes you say crazy things when you get older. I really wish that was the case. Because I've seen other pastors do that. I think one of the big pastors that I can think of doing that was Chuck Smith.

And so I've seen that before. Because he was, I think, recommended having a lady who called in. He said that there were certain circumstances in which an abortion can take place or something like that.

So you have that. And people just say, oh, he's getting older. Billy Graham was the same thing. So people say, oh, he's getting older. He's starting to say these wacky things. And you want to say that because you really like the other things that they've said throughout their ministry.

And it's like, man, don't let your ending be so bad. And it's like, well, maybe that's what Alistair Begg's doing. But then this happened.

I've been with Family Radio for, I don't know, 10 or 12 years, maybe. In this particular time slot, we've had a great relationship with Pastor Begg and his whole team at their ministry. He serves a church in the Cleveland, Ohio area.

Anyway, something has happened recently, which has forced our hand here at American Family Radio to make a decision. On continuing the Truth for Life program on AFR or not. And we're going to talk about it.

We wanted to explain to you, our listeners, what happened and what went into the thinking of our decision. So joining me in studio, Wesley Wildman's with me, but we have Itagliano and Walker Wildman. And I just heard about it last week and a few days ago, whatever.

And so people heard that answer and people began to call us, hey, what are you going to do? Do you hear what Alistair Begg said? What's your opinion, American Family Radio, of what he said? So that's what I mean by it forced us to take a hard look at this and make a decision on what, if anything, we were going to do about it.

So Ed, you and Walker had a phone conversation with not Alistair Begg himself, but his team. Is that fair?

Yes.

Yesterday.

Yes.

We wanted to give him an opportunity to say, I messed up right there.

Right.

And I think it's the wrong, I said the wrong thing. And I'd like to recant.

Sure.

And in any case, we want to do the Christian thing. And in as much as we can, sometimes with public statements, you can't get in touch with the person who made them. But because they're public, you can comment publicly.

But we have had such a long and fruitful relationship with Truth for Life and Alistair Begg. We wanted to have some sort of interactions. Now, let me just say from the outset, and then I'm going to get Walker to join in here too, that the two individuals that we talked with, it was Walker and I with two individuals from Alistair Begg's ministry.

They made it clear that Alistair Begg believes that homosexuality is wrong. He hasn't changed his views on that. He does not believe that homosexual marriage is valid and that the practice of homosexual activity is, as the Bible says, an abomination.

So all four of us were in agreement with that. But Walker, what we could not get them to change, and they said that Alistair Begg is not going to change his mind, was on the issue of whether Christians should attend, because that is what Alistair Begg was saying.

Yes.

He was saying Christians should attend and bring a gift.

Yes, that's right. And the goal of the call and the goal of all Christians when approaching these issues should be reconciliation, but reconciliation and truth. And so that was our goal with the call with Alistair Begg's team.

And unfortunately, we didn't get there, but we did press the issue multiple times. And we even asked point blank. So are you guys stating that Pastor Alistair Begg is standing by his original comment?

He has no regrets. He didn't misspeak. He doesn't want to further clarify nothing. And they said, yes, he's standing by his original comment. So very disappointing. And, you know, I even told Ed this and the gentleman and lady that we were on the call with, with Truth for Life, that Pastor Alistair Begg has such a long, decades-long track record of biblical fidelity and truthfully teaching the word of God, that this is extremely disappointing.

This isn't something that we saw coming. This isn't like some of the others, evangelical leaders that have drifted. This is not one that was on the list that we would have seen this coming.

So a couple of things.

So the question is, if a Christian goes to a homosexual wedding, are they approving of it? And our answer here is absolutely. And here's the example I used. And I gave this to Pastor Begg's team. I said, if my best friend cheats on his wife, and starts to have an illicit relationship with his secretary, and then wants to divorce his wife and marry that other woman, and comes to me and asks me to come, maybe be his best man, what would I say?

I would say, brother, no, I'm not coming to your marriage. I'm not going to participate, but I'm not even going to attend. What you need to do is to repent of this sexual sin and reconcile with your wife.

I think most Christians understand that. If you go to the wedding, you are approving of the new relationship this man has embarked on, and you are approving of what he has done to his wife. And you are going to celebrate the marriage when you show up at a wedding.

I mean, let's face it. You show up at a wedding, and you go to the reception. You are going to

And you bring a gift.

And you bring a gift. You're going to walk up to that couple and say, congratulations. You're going to shake their hands, these two men. You're going to shake their hands and say, congratulations. That is a sinful act.

You are approving of what they're doing. In my personal opinion, you could be culpable in God's eyes if those people go to hell, because you would not preach the gospel to them and preach the gospel of repentance and faith.

Yeah, and for those who didn't tune in 15, 20 minutes ago, our team did talk to the Truth For Life team yesterday on the phone with an attempt to have them and have Pastor Begg admit that he gave bad advice.

And he shouldn't have, but they did.

They doubled down.

They doubled down.

So that is what it is.

Well, there you have it. He's been confronted about this, and he's had an opportunity to think clearly. And also the men around him, the other elders have had a chance to think clearly about this. And the decision was made to double down on it, to stand by that initial terrible advice that Alistair Begg gave.

So I can't bring in the insanity defense. Really, none of us can at this point. They've had enough time to think through it. The last clip I want to play before giving some final thoughts is a clip from last Sunday, and this is Sunday morning.

And this is what Alistair Begg had to say.

I want to do what I'm not prepared to do this morning, and that is to acknowledge the amazing amount of traffic that there has been and noise on the internet in relationship to what I told you about some months ago.

And my colleagues felt it would be good if I said something about it, so I don't want to do it now as it goes out into cyberspace, but I'm happy to do it. It's for our church family. And I said jokingly to somebody, you know, making an attempt at compassion, I ended up, you know, starting a massive fire.

I would fully have anticipated some of the other things I've said would be far more inflammatory than this, but we should have known that, you know, Begg wouldn't manage compassion. So, let's pray.

You can tell something here. He's quivering. He's...I don't want to read too much into it. I don't know if he's scared. I don't know exactly what's causing the surface level things we're seeing, but there's certainly a profound disappointment on his face as he tells this to his congregation.

And our prayer needs to be that that is the conviction of the Holy Spirit. His defense here, I suppose it's a defense, is that he was trying to be compassionate, and he messed it up because he's just not good at compassion, which, I mean, that's just flimsy.

This is not compassionate to try to reinforce someone's lie that they're believing, first of all. But secondly, more importantly, this went out, broadcasted widely on the Truth for Life broadcast. That's my understanding, at least.

And it sounds like he has a radio microphone there. So I know that it's accompanying a teaching series, but this isn't a Q &A that accompanies the teaching series. So this has already gone out widely.

You know, even if it was something he just did with his church and someone put it out there widely, it's out there pretty widely. And to just keep whatever response to his church, and let's assume...well, let's just, for the sake of argument and good faith, let's just say that he actually said, you know, that was a dumb thing.

I shouldn't have said it. That was wrong, actually. And he only said it to his church. No one else got to hear it. Then there's a lot of people that will take what he said broadly, that was broadcast, and they're going to attend and participate in things they should not be, sinful participation, based on what he said, and the correction they will not hear because he's keeping it to only his church.

Now, I am not under the illusion that he corrected this, but he may be...I could see him saying, well, it was clumsy. I shouldn't have said it that way. Or, you know, who knows? I mean, he gave us a little preview with, you know, he was trying to be compassionate and he couldn't manage compassion.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I spoke too soon, and I recorded this entire podcast, and I was not aware. I guess the clip actually came out after I recorded it that Alistair Begg has truly doubled down on this.

So I figure you will still see the same ending to the podcast that I planned on Monday, which is when I recorded this. It's being released on Tuesday, but I figured before you hear it, you need to hear this clip from a sermon called Compassion vs. Condemnation.

You can go to Parkside Church YouTube channel and watch the whole thing, Compassion vs. Condemnation. But like I said, I recorded it, and it was after I recorded it that this was released, and you need to see it.

This is Alistair Begg completely doubling down on his comments about attending and giving a gift at a transgender wedding ceremony.

In that conversation with that grandmother, I was concerned about the well-being of their relationship more than anything else, hence my counsel. Don't misunderstand that in any way at all. If I was in the receiving end of another question about another situation from another person in another time, I may answer absolutely differently.

But in that case, I answered in that way, and I would not answer in any other way, no matter what anybody says on the internet as of the last ten days. If that were the case, I would never…. If that were the case, I should never have said it in the first place.

People want me to recant and to repent. To repent? I repent daily, because I say a lot of things that I shouldn't say. I mean, check with Sue, but the fact of the matter is, I'm not ready to repent over this.

I don't have to.

Okay, well, there it is. Back to the rest of the podcast. But two things that I mentioned before that I wanted to just briefly touch on. One, and these are things that I'm sort of developing in my own head as we sink faster and faster into paganism in the Western world.

One is this notion of being a witness. I have heard many Christians, some of whom I respect, friends even, tell me that I should or we should, as Christians, be very understanding of homosexual inclinations, be very compassionate.

We should see people who abstain from those things as brave if they're claiming to be a Christian, but they can still have this identity. And we need to make all kinds of rooms in our churches for single people so that really as a way to make homosexual people feel more included and less on the outside.

That's really what that is. And I've heard, I mean, I can give you a lot of other examples. Like I even, you know, I've seen Christians, people that I knew, people I respected, people in whose homes I was, you know, in Bible studies saying things like, we shouldn't celebrate Mother's Day in church because what does it say to all, what does it say to our witness, to all the single women out there?

The women who have had abortions and they feel bad about it. And you're just bringing it up on Mother's Day when you celebrate motherhood. And I'm kind of done with it. I'll be honest, I'm done with it.

There is true compassion as Christians, we are supposed to have. And it has been corrupted. I think, you know, Joe Rigney talks about the sin of empathy. I think I heard Doug Wilson talk about it before Joe Rigney.

I'm not sure who started talking about it. I think that might factor into this to some extent. It's a fair critique to say we have traded in empathy for sympathy or sympathy for empathy, rather. And I think that we want to affirm everything about someone in order to be welcoming and have good manners, which is not what good manners necessarily is.

We would never apply this to certain sins. Of course, the unfashionable things that are sins to our culture, like being racially insensitive, we would never apply it to that. Right. We wouldn't say, well, you know, in order to your friends, you're going to be at a Klan rally or something.

I don't know.

And, you know, you should attend with them. You should go if it's important to them just to be a good witness. Bring them a gift, you know, bring bring them fuel so they can light their, you know, whatever they're doing, their ceremony, participate in it.

We would never do that. Right. What big is suggesting that Christians do in the case of a transgender wedding is more insane by a lot because it's way more biblically clear in scripture that that is an abomination, that kind of thing.

So it is a desensitization. There are people we know in our regular everyday lives. Some of them were related to who have bought into some of these deceptions. And we want so badly to maintain those relationships.

We want so badly to outdo others in showing how compassion we are that we end up sacrificing truth. And it's just wrong. It's for pastors who preach against postmodernism and want to say that there's an objective standard that we should live by.

They're not always living by it. And this is where we have to be people of the word. We have to be very careful that we are not sucked into the world system on these issues, that we have the long view.

I remember C .S. Lewis saying, and not that he was good in all this theology either, but one of the good pieces of advice he gave was to read old books because it gets you out of the mindset of your current time.