COLLEEN TINKER
I have to admit that I’ve been surprised at the recent kerfuffle that has arisen because of the much-publicized comments by long-time evangelical pastor Alistair Begg on a podcast published by American Family Radio. Begg shared his interaction with a grandmother who contacted him in distress. Her granddaughter was marrying a transgendered person, and she asked the pastor if she should attend the wedding.
Begg responded by asking her if the granddaughter knew that she, the grandmother, considered homosexuality and transgenderism to be a sin. The grandmother said “Yes.” He further asked if the grandmother had talked to her granddaughter about living in this sinful relationship and urged her to repent of it. Again the grandmother replied, “Yes.”
Then, Begg said, he advised her to attend the wedding and to buy the couple a gift. The grandmother was surprised, he said—but I suspect that the grandmother’s surprise was mild compared to the reactions from the Christian community. American Family Radio cancelled Begg’s contract for air time, and Christians everywhere have found themselves engaged in intense discussions over Begg’s advice.
Begg’s advice came from a place of wanting the granddaughter not to be cut off from her relationship with her grandmother so that her grandmother’s love of her would become a compelling force that might open a door for gospel reality as time went on. Critics, on the other hand, felt disoriented by this advice from an evangelical expositor who has never equivocated about homosexuality. Even while speaking about this incident, Begg affirmed his belief that same-sex relationships are sinful. Online discussions have proliferated as people have tried to evaluate the disparate reactions of both lay people and Christian leaders to Begg’s comments.
Clarification From Living Near Adventism
I admit that over the years, I have struggled with similar questions about Adventism. Inevitably as people see the biblical gospel of the real Lord Jesus and recognize that Adventism has a different gospel, they bump into seemingly unsolvable conflicts with their Adventist loved ones.
“Can I continue to attend the Adventist Church in order to keep peace with my Adventist family?” people ask.
“I go to church with my Adventist husband to show him that I am submitting to him,” women may say. Conversely husbands may say they go to the Adventist church on Saturdays so that their wives feel loved and not abandoned. I’ve even had people say that they continue to attend the Adventist church so that they do not lose contact or influence over their children because the Adventist spouse is adamant about taking the children to church.
Besides the questions about weekly church attendance, bigger life moments begin to emerge. For example, one former Adventist whom I know well began to receive invitations to her nieces’ and nephews’ Adventist baptisms which were celebrated as family affairs with family dinners afterwards.
Should one attend a loved one’s Adventist baptism, or should one remain noticeably absent from the family at these landmark events?
Early in my work with Proclamation! as questions such as these arose, I struggled. Indeed, how does one decide to refuse to attend Adventist services when visiting Adventist family? To refuse would elicit hurt, anger, criticism, or difficult conversations. Further, it is common for people raised inside a false belief system to be vulnerable to manipulation through guilt or shame. These moments of deciding to attend or not attend an Adventist service are not mere preferences; they are seen as loyalty questions.
As I initially thought through how to react to these questions, I found myself thinking: “If I were speaking to a former Mormon or Jehovah’s Witness or Buddhist, would I advise them to attend the worship services at the venue of their former non-Christian religion?”
When I thought of the question that way, of course I knew my answer: I would never advise a person to continue to do “temple work” at a Mormon temple nor to perform the ceremonies of Buddhist worship in order to keep the peace with a loved one.
I realized that Adventism was also a false gospel; indeed, Richard and I had decided long before that we couldn’t continue to attend Adventist services to “make a difference” from the “inside” when we disbelieved Adventist doctrine. Had we kept attending Adventist services, we would have been sending implicit messages that we were still able to support “being Adventist”. Our presence implied consent.
Further, if we no longer believed Adventism, we would be dishonest if we continued to attend in order to avoid cutting off our Adventist loved ones. We had to see that our love for our Adventist families was distinct from our love for the Lord Jesus. We couldn’t rationalize appearing to support Adventism for the sake of relationships. Jesus Himself said that He came not to bring peace but a sword, that He Himself would be the instrument of division between our most intimate relationships.
Here is what Jesus said in Matthew 10:32–39:
“Therefore everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven. “But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven.
“Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.
“For I came to SET A MAN AGAINST HIS FATHER, AND A DAUGHTER AGAINST HER MOTHER, AND A DAUGHTER-IN-LAW AGAINST HER MOTHER-IN-LAW; and A MAN’S ENEMIES WILL BE THE MEMBERS OF HIS HOUSEHOLD.
“He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.”And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.
“He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it “.
Mt. 10:32-39
As I struggled with these questions, I began to realize that if I could reasonably support the idea of keeping my Adventist family happy by attending Adventist services and honoring the Sabbath when I was with them, then I had no business being involved in a ministry to help Adventists see the true gospel.
If going to Adventist services was permissible for the sake of “honoring” my relationships, then the gospel was the servant of my human connections instead of the other way around. In fact, if I could rationalize keeping my family happy with me by going to Adventist church with them, then Adventism was not such a serious problem that I should dedicate my life to exposing it and to helping Adventists see the true gospel.
Either Adventism was a matter of life or death—or it wasn’t. If it wasn’t, then I had no business devoting my life to a cause that would disrupt relationships. If Adventism really wasn’t “that bad”, if it was really just a heterodox version of Christianity, then I would be in sin if I caused divisions between Adventists and Christians.
If, on the other hand, Adventism’s “gospel” was sinful, then I was obligated to take my stand with the Lord Jesus who propitiated for my sin, even if it meant losing the intimacy of family members whom I loved.
The Issue is Trust
When I saw that the issue was not compassion or loyalty to loved ones but was my trust in Jesus and my commitment to Him, my internal struggle stopped. I see now that loving someone cannot be what defines my choices. I cannot demonstrate disloyalty to the gospel and to the Lord who saves me in order to convince a loved one that my belief is better than theirs.
So, coming full circle back to Alistair Begg’s dilemma, I now see the issue this way. A same-sex “wedding” is analogous to an Adventist baptism. According to biblical definitions, an Adventist baptism is not a true baptism because generally the person being baptized is being baptized into a false religion, not into Christ. Similarly, a same-sex wedding is not a biblical wedding. My attending such ceremonies would appear to affirm what they celebrate.
I want to be very clear that my concern is about affirming events where I would be a witness in support of an unscriptural covenant, not about family gatherings, birthday parties, and so forth.
Yet I would not stop interacting with my Adventist family if they still wanted to see me, and I see no reason to stop interacting with any unbelieving loved one if they desire to continue to have a relationship with me. (See 1 Corinthians 7 where Paul speaks of navigating marriage with an unbelieving spouse.) However, my refusal to engage in their “worship” and unbiblical ceremonies might become a point of division, as Jesus said.
With that being said, I acknowledge that the Lord brings each of us to Himself and to an integration of our own faith and practice in His own way and in His own time. Paul wrote:
“Who are you to judge the servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls; and he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand”.
Rom. 14:4
When we are the Lord’s, He convicts us and gives us wisdom from Him as we navigate these troublesome and vulnerable interactions. He knows what we need and what our loved ones need, and He knows how to give us the strength to stand in truth and reality as He applies His word to our lives. Even when our fellow believers make decisions that we misunderstand, the Lord knows how to keep us securely in Him. Furthermore, He knows how to deal with our loved ones who still embrace sin in some way.
Ultimately, the Lord Jesus calls us to trust Him and to bring our behaviors into congruence with our convictions. He will hold us fast, even if our relationships are altered, and He will use our conviction as a witness to His faithfulness. †
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