In this last episode of a three-part series, pastors Derek and Cliff reflect on what pastors can learn about this recent controversy.
Transcript
Derek: Welcome to With All Wisdom, where we are applying biblical truth to everyday life. My name is Derek Brown and I’m here today with Cliff McManis. We are both pastors and elders at Creekside Bible Church in Cupertino, California, and professors of theology at the Cornerstone Bible College and Seminary in Vallejo, California. And this is part three of our discussion about the recent Alistair Begg controversy and advice that he gave to a grandma about attending a so-called gay wedding. And so we’re going to continue with that. But before we get to our topic for today, I want to encourage you to check out withallwisdom.org, where you will find a large and growing collection of Christian resources, all rooted in God’s Word, aimed to help you grow in your walk with the Lord Jesus. So, Cliff, let’s close out this episode with some discussion on lessons learned from this recent controversy with a well-known pastor. What should we as pastors have learned from this? What do we need to know going forward? And really, what’s a way we can make sure that this doesn’t happen to us?
Cliff: Yeah. This is going beyond the specific incident here with Alistair Begg because this too will pass. It’s not going to last forever. Even the news cycle is going to go so quickly that people may forget about this a month from now, but there are ongoing, timeless principles that can be fine-tuned in our thinking regarding this widespread public controversy and scandal in the Christian world. So that’s what I wanted to zero in on. I think that could also be a unique contribution that you and I have to offer to this discussion, because we, you and I both, for the last ten days, have been listening to a lot of different podcasts and people speaking, most of whom, if not all of them that I’ve heard, I agreed with. All these Christian leaders and podcasters all say the same thing. God created marriage as between a man and a woman. It needs to be honored. To go to a homosexual or transgender wedding is endorsing homosexuality overtly. And that is a compromise of biblical principles, especially Romans 1, where we’re not supposed to endorse any form of evil. And this is not even tolerable or acceptable as a Christian. And that’s been the universal response. And everybody has said we love you, Alistair, but you’re wrong and you need to recant. Nobody’s deviated from that, at least that I’ve heard that’s a respectable Christian leader who has a biblical perspective on this. Again, this is a black and white issue, not a gray area issue. So there are lessons to be learned from this. But first, Derek, I had some questions. Can I ask these questions? These are questions I came up with, that, if I had an opportunity to just talk to Pastor Alistair personally, are questions I would ask him that I haven’t heard anybody talk about yet, or I haven’t heard him address. But I think they are at the heart of this issue, and just make us think. So here are my questions. Question number one is, Alistair Begg, based on your public response in your sermon, does Eric Alexander or Sinclair Ferguson agree with your counsel? Both those guys, I think, go to the Shepherd’s Conference every once in a while. That’d be a good question for them. You guys agree with what Alistair just said? Because John MacArthur just came out yesterday saying he doesn’t agree. And Alistair Begg has been disinvited from the Shepherd’s Conference as of last night. It’s a big deal. So here it is, February 1st. And a month from now, he’s not coming. And Grace Church didn’t do that out of being mean or to silence him. Pastors need to be united and encouraged, not distracted. So would they agree with you? Next question. Alistair, would they also agree with Sinclair Ferguson? Agree that you should go to a gay wedding and bring a gift? I wonder what he would say. Next question, Alistair, is your view the British Christian view? Do all Brits who are Christians agree with you? Because that’s what you made it sound like. Alistair, have you ever been invited to a gay wedding? I want to know that. Has he? And if you did, have you ever been to a gay wedding? Not only have you been invited, but have you ever been to a gay wedding? I would like to hear his response. And, Alastair, if you’ve been to a gay wedding, did you bring a gift? Which is actually an act of celebration. Did you do that? He should probably tell us, because that’s kind of a double whammy, because if he says, well, no, I’ve actually never been invited to a gay wedding and I’ve never gone to a gay wedding, then why are you advising this grandma to do it? That’s something you have never done. And then if he says yeah, actually, I have been invited and I’ve gone, that’s a problem. Because you shouldn’t have.
Alistair, should pastors counsel and exhort Christians to act in direct violation of their conscience? Because we heard on the audio that you gave that the grandma was kind of alarmed, shocked, and surprised at his answer. That’s Romans 14:23. You don’t do anything that violates your conscience, whether you’re right or wrong, on a gray area. This is a black and white issue. So it’s even worse. So, Pastor Alister, should pastors counsel Christians to act in violation of their conscience on a gray area issue, which this is not? An even worse, should pastors counsel Christians to act in violation of their conscience on black and white issues? Wow, that is dangerous. Alastair, could you be wrong on this issue? Well, he’s already answered it. He said no, he’s not wrong. We’re wrong. I’m not going to recant. I’m not going to repent. I don’t need to. So Alastair, could you be wrong? And if he says, no, I mean, that should just set off alarms for anybody who’s a Christian, and especially if you’re a pastor. You should be, on just about every issue when it’s your personal opinion or your counsel, you should be able to, if somebody asks you, well, could you be wrong? Well, yeah, actually I could be. Knowing me, and knowing sinful, finite humanity and the blind spots that we have. And how so easily prone to sin that we are. According to the wisdom of the Book of Proverbs, we should be willing to listen to others because we might be have a blind spot. And I think being willing to say that yeah, I could be wrong is a sign of true humility. And to say, no, absolutely not, I’m not wrong on this, when others are saying, yeah, in unison, from a biblical point of view, you are. From what I’ve seen in church leadership over the last 30 years, that’s a dangerous position to be in when you’ve got a man of God, a pastor, an elder who is the Lone Ranger on an issue saying, absolutely not. I’m not wrong. That’d be like if we had an elders meeting, and we’ve got ten elders, and one of the elders is saying one thing and the other nine are saying, no, this is clear. This is black and white. This is in the Bible, dude, and you’re out of line. And that elder hunkers down and says, no way. I know it’s one against nine, but I am absolutely right. There’s no way I could be wrong. That’s alarming. That borders on one of the qualifications of being an elder, which is being self-willed. If you’re self-willed, you can’t be an elder.
So this went, from my point of view, the way Pastor Begg is responding to all of those who love him universally, saying the same message over the course of two weeks now, and he’s hunkering down and hardening his position all the more. This has gone from just a one-time slip up from the pulpit or on the fly—which we all do. Oops, that was stupid. Or I was shortsighted in that I should have thought about that more. I didn’t really think that through. I didn’t pray through it. I didn’t get counsel on that. My bad. I need to retract that. That’s initially what most of us thought. Oh yeah, he’ll fix that. That’s an easy fix. He’ll clarify and readdress it and solve the problem. Well, that isn’t what happened. It’s like he hunkered down, defined it all the more, and dug even deeper. And now it seems like there’s these character issues coming to the surface which is what’s most troubling. Is this a character flaw that has gone undetected for a long period of time? We don’t know yet. Time will tell for sure. Next question. Almost done here. Pastor Alastair, all the major Christian leaders who have spoken up publicly so far against your view—Pharisees—as you’ve labeled them…
Derek: That’s a great question because he, at least implicitly, labels those who disagree with him as Pharisees in his response in that sermon.
Cliff: And my last question: Pastor Begg, do all of your elders at your church agree with your view? Because we don’t know that, because he’s saying this publicly from the pulpit.
Derek: I think he did say that not all of his elders did agree.
Cliff: Okay.
Derek: And he did say that in his response.
Cliff: And regardless of how he responded to that, do all of your elders agree with you? If he says yes, that’s a huge problem. Because then all of your elders are clearly wrong. And that’s a dangerous church; they’ve become woke. It’s a big church, and an influential church. But don’t go there until they change their position and recant. So if all your elders agree with you, that’s a problem. And if all your elders don’t agree with you, that’s another major problem. You’ve got a divided leadership and you’re not listening to your own elders who know you best. So that’s what we believe in our church—you know, a plurality of elders. We’ve had anywhere from 5 to 8 elders. Right now, we have 5, and we thank God for that. And that’s God’s wisdom to have a plurality of elders because we hold each other accountable. Iron sharpens iron. We all know we are short sighted and we don’t know everything. And we need our brothers as a mirror and speaking into our lives and saying, oh, you’re out of line there, or you don’t quite have that down or you’re off kilter there. You spoke a little harshly or no, that’s not true. Or you interpreted that verse wrong. And that’s why for 18 years at our church, we agreed that every decision that the elders made would be unanimous. And I preach a lot at our church, and you preach a lot at our church, and the guardians of what comes out of the pulpit, the first line of defense, is the elders.
Derek: That’s right.
Cliff: And so we are directly accountable to the plurality of the elders. And it doesn’t matter if it’s one guy or three guys, if they corner you and say, yeah, Cliff, did you say this on Sunday from the pulpit? Yeah, I did. Well, I think you need to rethink that because I don’t know if that’s accurate. I mean, I’ve had that said to me before, and there are times where I had to go back and admit, oops, my fault. So I don’t know what the makeup and constitution and accountability level is for Pastor Begg and his elders at his church. But every local church should have a plurality of elders who hold each other accountable. And you shouldn’t be getting up from the pulpit publicly reiterating something on a major doctrinal issue if you have elders saying, no, I totally disagree.
Derek: Yeah, that was going to be my point. That would never happen here at CBC. You wouldn’t get up on a major, controversial issue that you knew some of your elders were in strong disagreement with and get up and dig your heels in and defend yourself. If any of us did that, I mean, that’s huge trouble. That is a split. And that’s a defiance from that elder in the pulpit. That’s a split in the eldership. There are so many things wrong with that. And so that’s a concern as well.
Cliff: Yeah. Because it creates division at the leadership level, which trickles down and will divide the church and the Christian world abroad, which we’ve seen. Yeah. I mean, that was true even of Covid when you, me, and our elders at the time—we had eight elders—and we were thinking through Covid when it first hit. We didn’t know what to do. And in the end, a lot of the issues were gray area issues. But we agreed as elders, as we talked and prayed it through and searched the scriptures and got counsel from other churches. We agreed that whatever we present to our members has to be united front. We all have to agree on it. Even though we were across the spectrum and all over the map on personal convictions about certain things, it’s like, what we tell our sheep is going to be one united message. And we did. That was on a gray area issue. All the more, again, on a black and white issue about marriage. Another thing I had. Do you want to share that now? The lesson learned.
Derek: Yes, please. That would be great.
Cliff: I think a perennial lesson we can take away from this was a concept that’s not talked about much, but it’s clearly in the Bible. In 1 Corinthians 11, the apostle Paul was the pastor who founded the church at Corinth. He pastored those believers for a year and a half, and then he stayed in touch with them and visited them, loved them, and wrote them several letters. He was their pastor and they were saved. Yet they had some growing and maturing to do. They had some characteristics about them—good ones and bad ones. They were very spiritual, very gifted by God. And yet they were divisive, immature, and childish. So in 1 Corinthians 11:18. Paul’s kind of been rebuking them the whole letter. And then he gets to chapter 11, and in 1 Corinthians 11:18, Paul says, I hear that there are divisions among you. I hear that a division exists among you. I hear that you’ve got a lot of division going on in your church. What that means is, boy, you’re a church full of Christians, and there’s a whole lot of squabbling going on. How come you Christians just can’t get along? That’s not loving. That’s not what Jesus would do. Jesus wants unity. But you’re divisive. I hear that divisions exist among you, and the word for divisions there is schismatic, where we get the word schism. Actually, the root of that is schizo, which we’ve heard before. That person is schizo. It’s a Greek word. It means division, dissension, to tear, to rip apart. It’s not a good word. I hear that there’s divisions among you, Corinthian Christians. And then the next phrase that Paul makes is quite amazing in verse 19, because he follows up after by saying, I hear that divisions exist among you, Corinthian Christians. Well, nevertheless, there must be factions or divisions among you. There must be. Why? So that those who are approved amidst the controversy may become evident among you. So this is a great biblical principle here. Paul says that, well, divisions aren’t always bad. Controversies and arguments among Christians aren’t always bad. As a matter of fact, most times, it’s good. Even if they’re being sinful, as they debate with one another, the fact that there’s a division is usually a good thing because God uses it for good. That’s the promise of Romans 8:28, and the way God uses a division between two parties when Christians are squabbling is he always allows the truth to surface, whatever that controversy is. And that always clarifies the truth and it always exposes that which is false. And that’s what Paul is saying. Well, I hear there’s divisions among you about various things and opinions you have.
But you know what? That’s a good thing because through the process and the division things will settle down and then the truth will surface and then God will approve those who believe the truth and who acted and defended the truth, and God will expose the others who are resisting the truth, misrepresenting the truth, or deceived by the truth. And that will give clarity to the issue. So this is the good thing about it. We shouldn’t shy away or shirk from or get all nervous and overwhelmed every time there’s a controversy in the Christian church, for whatever reason, being fearful of man or what will the world think? Well, yeah, they’re looking, and Jesus said that in John 17 and other places, that the world will know that you’re my disciples by your love for one another—but that love is not apart from the truth. It has to be your love for the truth. That’s what’s going to unite you, is the love for the truth. And that’s what the world needs to see. And so a division can actually clarify that and bring the truth to the surface, where true Christians can all love one another and unite one another over that truth. And in this instance, I think this is a clarifying issue in the evangelical church regarding our view of homosexuality and wokeness and transgenderism and the institution of marriage, which is so important. How should we really believe and understand the institution of marriage? How should we honor it? How should we protect it? And then the most basic question: should Christians be going to gay weddings? One thing that’s baffled me in all this, Derek, is why has that question now become such a controversy when we’ve been dealing with gay marriage for decades?
I mean, I remember in 1993 or whatever it was when Bill Clinton was the president and gay marriage was a divisive issue then that was percolating. And so President Clinton, the liberal guy, the adulterer that he was, signed a federal law—the DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act. And it became federal law here in the United States of America. And two things that it did: it defined marriage as between a man and a woman. And then the second thing it did was it said that no state can force another state to recognize a gay marriage. President Clinton signed that into law. Both houses of Congress approved it in high numbers. It’s like, oh, well, that settles it. So we’ve been talking about gay marriage as a country and as Christians since then.
Then in 2000, fast forward to 2008, here in California, we had proposition eight which was on the state ballot where it defined marriage. It was one sentence long. Marriage is between one man and one woman. And that was going to be added to the state Constitution of California. And in November of 2008, a majority of Californians voted for it in favor of traditional, biblical marriage. And it became a part of the constitution of the state of California. And then that was 2008. Then you fast forward to seven years later and all the litigation, and then the Supreme Court rules 5 to 4 in favor of gay marriage. Undermining biblical marriage. That was in 2015. So we’ve been talking and thinking about gay marriage as Christians for decades. And so I was wondering, why is this just now being asked? And such a controversy. I think why it’s been such a controversy is because in our circles, in biblical church circles, Christian circles, conservative Christian circles, the answer has always been uniform and clear—that, of course, you don’t go to gay weddings. And now you’ve got a so-called respected conservative Christian, high profile pastor saying otherwise for the first time. I think that’s why this is blowing up. That’s the only thing I can think of.
Derek: Yeah, I think you’re right.
Cliff: I have been invited to gay weddings, by the way. Have you? I don’t know if you have, but I have. And the first gay wedding I was invited to was a while ago, and I said no, and I explained why, and I was trying to be nice about it. But I was vilified by unbelievers and Christians alike.
Derek: Really? Wow.
Cliff: As a matter of fact, I think I was called Hitler. And that’s not an exaggeration. So I have been invited to gay weddings then, and that’s also just an ongoing question that you and I have received since we’ve been pastors. You know, when people in our congregation are asking us for counsel. Pastor Cliff, Pastor Derek, I’ve been invited by my unbelieving cousin. Should I go to his wedding? My gay niece’s wedding. Should I go to that? So we’ve fielded that question for years now, and I think you and I, and whenever we’ve had opportunity to talk about it, counsel, pray, search the scriptures, I think we’re consistent in giving a biblical answer. And it’s case by case. Because if you have just two unbelievers getting married and it’s a man and a woman, a real man and a woman, and they’re unbelievers and they want to get married at the justice of the peace, then I would attend that wedding if it was a family member. I have no problem because this is not a marriage, is not a Christian institution. It’s not an institution of the theocracy of Israel. It’s a creation ordinance for all of humanity in Genesis one and two. So before God, a man and a woman, regardless of their religion or their faith, if they’re getting married by a proper, recognized authority, according to Romans 13, that’s a legit marriage.
Derek: Yeah.Well, this has been helpful for me, and I hope it’s been helpful for our leaders and listeners that are assessing the situation and watching it unfold. And we pray that this has been helpful for you as you think through these issues and deal with them on a personal level. We expect that those who are listening to this podcast have to deal with these kinds of questions in their relationships and or will have already or will have to. And so we pray that this equips you to follow the Lord, to trust His word, to obey Him even when it’s hard—especially when it’s hard. And you will find that when it comes to obeying the Lord in a family setting, it will be very challenging. But the Lord Jesus knew that, and so he gave us strong words so that we would recognize that our loyalty lies ultimately with him, and that there is coming a day when we will be with our spiritual family and only our spiritual family, and there will be a separation that has been previewed here on earth that will last for eternity. And so we don’t want to do something that would jeopardize our unbelieving family member coming to Christ. And when we compromise on the truth, that actually will jeopardize their opportunity to come to Christ, because they won’t be able to see clearly what it means to repent and follow after the Lord. So we hope that you’ve been able to understand that part of it and work your way through assessing Alastair Begg’s advice and counsel. And we trust that you’ve been benefited and helped by this episode, and we encourage you to check the other two episodes out that we’ve done on this series. And until next time, keep seeking the Lord and His Word.
