Alistair Begg | Parkside Church/Screenshot
Posted on 08/21/2025 9:51:27 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Alistair Begg | Parkside Church/Screenshot
Former pastor Alistair Begg recently doubled down on his controversial advice to a grandmother in 2023, which advised her to attend her grandson's wedding to a transgender-identifying individual.
Begg, whose radio ministry "Truth For Life" is carried by nearly 1,800 radio stations nationwide, drew backlash that year when comments he made went viral on social media after he shared his advice to the Christian grandmother that she ought to attend the wedding and buy a gift to avoid reinforcing "judgmental" stereotypes about Christians.
Touching on the issue again during an interview published this week by the Christian podcast "Expositor's Collective," Begg said he was attempting to be compassionate with his advice.
"If people said, 'What do you know about Begg?' I don't think compassion is necessarily the first word that they would use," he said.
"I'm not trying to be unkind to myself," he said regarding how others might assess him. "I think, realistically, they might say he's very direct, they might say he's funny. They could say a bunch of stuff, but I don't think they'd say 'compassion.'"
"So now, in my one attempt at compassion, I should have known better," he added, as the audience laughed. "I don't do compassion. I do compassion, all hell breaks loose against me."
Alistair Begg on the controversy that ensued after he gave some advice to a godly grandmother:
(complete episode coming out tomorrow) pic.twitter.com/Ie88rZe3jl— Expositors Collective (@expositcllctv) August 18, 2025
Begg, who has been in pastoral ministry since 1975 and became senior pastor at Parkside Church in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1983 before stepping down last year, echoed the sentiment he expressed in a sermon in the wake of the controversy, during which he said he feels no need to repent over his advice.
"I repent for a bad attitude, or an unkindness, or whatever it might be, but I'm not going to repent for giving somebody compassionate encouragement in relationships," he said.
Begg said he first thought the grandmother's letter about her grandson's transgender wedding was "a bad joke" until he realized it was "a fearful thing."
"It was a girl that had already begun to grow facial hair," he said. "It was [a] very sad-looking picture."
Begg nevertheless pushed back against accusations that his advice to the grandmother was an endorsement of gay marriage.
"I had just finished doing Jude, for crying out loud," he said. "And I had done Romans, Chapter 1 in the previous months as well. I thought I was going to be torched from another department, but I never thought it would come this way."
Begg went on to claim he was attacked by his own friends for being compassionate, with some turning on him over the issue without first reaching out to him.
"I had guys that I played golf with, Christian guys, who went on and did podcasts and [were] throwing me under the bus," he said. "But they never, ever picked up a phone. They never verified anything at all. That's distressing."
The late pastor John MacArthur, who noted he knew Begg well enough to have known his son when he was an infant, publicly rebuked him for his advice and suggested his ministry would be defined by his stance on the transgender wedding.
Days after his comments went viral, Begg was scrubbed from the website of the Shepherd’s Conference, which is a ministry of MacArthur's Grace Community Church.
"I would never say that, because you have to calculate the cost of that," MacArthur said last year of Begg's advice. "And how do you calculate that? The price for that is really epic, it's really epic."
"There's so much more about him that is wonderful and faithful and his ministry, just past 40 years of pastoral ministry in that church," he continued, adding the church had just celebrated Begg's milestone in ministry.
"And now he's going to be defined by that. I don't know how you calculate doing that for that reason, unless there is some very personal relationship with someone you're trying to win over or protect, but that's really speculation in my mind."
If you believe something is a sin, why would you attend something celebrating the same? That’s the whole point of the reception, is it not? It isn’t a luncheon celebrating something different where someone just happens to be with their “partner” at the event.
As a “beginner” Christian 20+ years ago, I used to listen to Alistair Begg a LOT - usually on my way into work on a Christian broadcast radio station in DC. I think I learned a lot about the gospel; the man certainly IS learned.
He’s also wrong on this.
JMHO.
It’s as valid as his.
I don't have a problem with those who publicly came out against his remarks - but do have a problem with cancelling him.
His overall body of work in the ministry was strong.
What you offered was not "compassion". Sorry that reality hurt your feelings.
How different was Alistair Begg’s advice compared to Pope Francis’ allowing the pastoral blessing of same-sex couples in his writing — Fiducia Supplicans: On the Pastoral Meaning of Blessings?
People abhor what was done (the faux marriage), but they take out their helplessness about that abomination by harming those they can reach.
I wonder whose faith is harmed more?
Because it’s their child or grandchild. Regardless of what one believes, a decision like that could be very hard for some people.
And it could destroy a relationship that might be important in the future.
A homosexual wedding is a mockery of marriage. Showing up for one regardless of who is involved is participating in that mockery. An abomination upon abomination.
Maybe he should have spent more time studying and reflecting instead of playing golf.
Is it compassionate to confuse many young people as to sexuality by placating the sexual dysphoria of a couple of adults who cannot bear children?
No. It’s not compassionate. “Compassionate” is not the same thing as not seeing or even denying the big picture.
Why would anyone be one half of it.
Im no psychologist by any strech but I believe transgender is a mental disorder.
Now he for sure knows that God NEVER gave the Rainbow to Satan!
Exactly right. Celebrating. Same as condoning sin. Sorry. Wouldn’t attend.
A strange little thing called Grace. Attending is not an endorsement. It’s you being there for the family member. Granted, none of my family will have one unless my brother finds a sugar daddy (please) so I will probably always have a prior commitment.
Thank you. I needed to find someone to say “Golf is as unGodly as same-sex marriage”.
You mentioned it could destroy a relationship. Don’t associate with Abomination, or people who practice those types of things. So biblically you lose a relationship you shouldn’t have anyway. If they become Christians and follow christ in thoughts and deed, embrace them with all your heart.
“A strange little thing called Grace”.
Yes; and Graciousness.
I don’t think anyone could really know how they would deal with something like this until it actually happened to them. It’s easy to boast theoretically.
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