Posted on 02/25/2024 9:11:24 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Pastor John MacArthur recently repudiated Pastor Alistair Begg's comments suggesting Christians ought to attend LGBT weddings.
Responding to a congregant who asked for his take on the controversy during a question-and-answer period at his Grace Community Church in Los Angeles last weekend, MacArthur also suggested Begg's advice will tarnish the Christian radio personality's otherwise faithful 40-year ministry.
John MacArthur’s first public comment (that I know of) regarding Alistair Begg’s counsel to grandmother to attend her grandchild’s transgender wedding.
Q and A, Grace Church, Feb. 18, 2024https://t.co/E5MZZfkgwL via @YouTubepic.twitter.com/iHcY4Cl0Q4— The Christian Worldview (@ThChrstnWrldvw) February 19, 2024
Begg, who serves as senior pastor of Parkside Church in Cleveland, Ohio, drew backlash when comments he made last September on his popular "Truth For Life" podcast reemerged on social media and went viral last month.
While discussing his book The Christian Manifesto, Begg mentioned on the podcast how a grandmother had asked him whether she should attend the wedding of her grandson, who she said was marrying a transgender-identifying individual.
Begg said he advised the woman to attend the wedding and buy a gift to avoid reinforcing "judgmental" stereotypes about Christians.
“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,'" he said.
"And it is a fine line, isn't it? It really is," he continued. "And people need to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling. 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 build bridges into the hearts and lives of those who don't understand Jesus and don't understand that He is a King."
Days after his comments caused a stir, American Family Radio (AFR) announced it would no longer be airing "Truth For Life" after more than a decade. Begg was also scrubbed from the website of the Shepherd’s Conference, which is a ministry of MacArthur's Grace Community Church.
MacArthur noted last weekend that while he has "great affection" for Begg and their friendship goes back 45 years, he disagreed with his advice.
"I also want to say that you shouldn't judge a man by his weakest moment," MacArthur said. "All of us will have a moment of weakness. Having said that, I have to disagree with the answer that he gave to the question."
MacArthur explained that he believes there are "a lot of reasons" why a Christian should decline to attend a homosexual or trans wedding, and rejected Begg's argument that attending would be compassionate.
"My response to that is the most loving thing you could possibly do would be not to go, and to condemn the relationship; that is loving," he said. "It's not loving to help somebody celebrate stepping into the fury of God's judgment."
"This is not a time for you to celebrate, thinking that your affection for somebody is the means of their salvation," he continued. "They will come to salvation when the Lord exposes their sin. That's why the Holy Spirit — John 16 — convicts of sin and righteousness and judgment. And what should be said to somebody is: 'This is wrong, this is against God's order, this is not a marriage.'"
MacArthur went on to argue that same-sex marriage is "not a marriage at all" because it goes against God's design for the institution.
"It is a blasphemy against God, as is transgender life and homosexuality, as well," he said. "That is the message to give in love."
MacArthur doubted whether he would personally have the ability to "survive" sitting through a wedding ceremony he believes to be sinful while giving the appearance that he is supportive. To do so, he said, would be "to aid and abet the celebration of something that is defying God's design and [is] the very point of the spear, currently, of the corruption of this entire culture."
MacArthur also expressed bewilderment regarding why Begg would even wade into the issue, given its potential for damaging his ministry and reputation.
"Particularly, if I was at all prone to suggest that [attending an LGBT wedding] might be OK, I would never say that, because you'd have to calculate the cost of that," he said. "And how do you calculate that? The price for that is really epic. It's really epic."
"And there's so much more about [Begg] that is wonderful and faithful — and his ministry, he just passed 40 years of pastoral ministry in that church. It was a great celebration. And now he's going to be defined by that," he added.
Begg, who has been in pastoral ministry since 1975 and became senior pastor at Parkside in 1983, said in a sermon last month that he feels no need to repent over his advice. In the message based on Luke 15 and titled "Compassion vs. Condemnation," he warned about the "inclination toward Pharisaism" that is "alive and well within all our hearts."
He also noted how little attention his decades of teaching on biblical marriage received compared with one podcast episode.
Sodom and Gomorrah had a
“Come to JESUS” Moment and
even Lot’s Wife paid a price.
bttt
That’s true.
Begg needs to examine himself and remove his pride. He made a mistake. It’s as clear as any Biblical teaching out there. Begg needs to repent and move forward. I just don’t get it. He’s flat out wrong and he can’t defend it Biblically or logically. Put aside your pride!
Because if you're a pastor, you CANNOT condone sin in any way, shape, or form.
Even his inability to see that is concerning.
Nope - going means you’re supporting.
It would be doubly damning if the “wedding” pretended to be of the Christian sort. Attending a service celebrating polluting the altar with an unclean sacrifice would be the height of heresy.
MacArthur is right!
What about a wedding where the bride is pregnant? should a God-fearing christian attend? Yes, because the couple is having a return to God moment.
MacArthur is correct.
Begg is asking parishoners to accede to a lie.
Yes but quite obviously many religions have shunned morals so as to keep their pews full.
Gots to keep those donations coming so as to pay off their offtheir judgements in legal matters involving clergy
For this Christian grandmother to attend a homosexual/transsexual “wedding” would simply reinforce the non-believer’s thoughts that all Christians are hypocrites!
I guess the good Pastor didn’t quite see all the angles of view that would come from non-believers! He thinks non-believers thinking of us as “judgemental” (which we are called to be - RIGHTEOUSLY) is worse than being seen as hypocrites who celebrate a sin that God called “an abomination”!
A friend of mine told me that his fiance was pregnant. He said it was a one time mistake and they’d worked very hard not to be alone together since then until they got married.
He told me that he was going to stand up at church and confess his sin (that’s not done very often at our church so it was a big deal) and she was afraid to go back to church.
I told him that although I hadn’t been attending that church for very long, I assumed that there would be a collective gasp. Then as the service ended, the women would gather around his fiance, hug her and offer their support to her for properly owning up to their mistake.
That’s exactly what happened.
Correct. That’s the point of the whole thing. Otherwise, just go down to the Courthouse and take care of the paperwork. Homosexual ‘marriages’ aren’t. Attending such a ceremony makes a mockery of the real thing, which I suppose is the goal.
It is like eating meat offered to idols. It gives those seeing you do it and believe you are giving implied consent to the “marriage”.
And we are told to abstain from even the appearance of evil.
1 Thessalonians 5:22
And we are told to abstain from even the appearance of evil.
= = =
Abstain from evil, every time it appears.
I cannot abstain from every event that someone thinks even appears evil.
“MacArthur also expressed bewilderment regarding why Begg would even wade into the issue, given its potential for damaging his ministry and reputation.”
MacArthur is correct in his assessment, but it is obvious why Begg “waded into the issue”. Because there is increasing pressure on Christians to cave to the wokeism of the rabid left. Caving into that is caving to evil. It’s all a test (life).... and discernment doesn’t come easy (or at all) for some these days.
MacArthur is one of the few that I listen to and respect now. He’s not perfect, but compared to the other so-called religious leaders that I see as merely pretending to be Christians, he is genuine and the real deal.
“Yes but quite obviously many religions have shunned morals so as to keep their pews full.
Gots to keep those donations coming so as to pay off their offtheir judgements in legal matters involving clergy”
And that right there is exactly what “organized religion” has become and been whittled down to. It’s all about the Benjamins. Which is why I don’t believe in tithing and I don’t belong to any church. I’ve seen too many fall into the ‘Joel Osteen’ methodology and become liberal-minded. God is NOT a liberal, nor is Jesus (”Go and sin no more”).
Yes, it would seem this pastor is more afraid of being considered “judgmental” by the world than being considered a “unrepentant sinner” by God.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.