Alistair Begg, a 71-year-old evangelical Scottish pastor of Cleveland’s Parkside Church, who has an influential radio ministry called “Truth For Life,” should repent of the dangerous advice he gave on his program.
In response to a question from a grandmother as to whether she should attend her grandson’s wedding to “a transgender person,” Begg said that, so long as the grandson knows that she “can’t countenance … the choices that he has made in life,” she should “go to the ceremony” and “buy them a gift.” The context of Begg’s advice indicates it applies also to gay unions. Indeed, a wedding involving transgenderism invariably entails a homosexual component, for the “transgender person” is either the same sex as the spouse or pretending to be so.
Not an Agree-to-Disagree Issue
From a biblical perspective, attendance at a gay or transgender wedding is no more an agree-to-disagree point of practice than is a Christian attending the marriage between a man and his mother, or a Christian going to an idol’s temple as a non-worshipper to maintain contacts. There is no faithful early Christian leader who would have advocated such attendance. Remember that in a transgender or gay union, the parties declare their intent to sin without remorse as long as they live and invite attendees to celebrate that commitment with them.
Nor is it loving to attend such a ritual event, since the attendance speaks louder than any words claiming disagreement. Attendees are expected to offer expressions of joyful affirmation at
