Mailbag: A Response to How I Addressed the Alistair Begg Question
Below is a recent email I received from a loyal Churchatopia reader, my friend, Pastor Carl. I’ve posted his full email (with his permission, of course), along with my response.
Jackson,
As always, your newsletter reflects great insight into the topic. There are perhaps two or three points that I would desire to reflect on but think I can do so by focusing on a particular observation that you make.
You said “The problem is assuming that because Jesus went into some contexts with unbelievers he would have most assuredly gone into all contexts with unbelievers. That’s quite a leap of logic.”
It appears that you are attempting to prove that there would be some situations that Jesus would not participate in and equating those situations to the focus of your discussion i.e., attendance at weddings (marriages) of same-sex, trans, LBGQT+ couples. You insulate your argument with the word “all” which makes it a straw man argument – in my opinion. The argument for not attending a same-sex wedding is made by implying that Jesus would not put himself in certain contexts.
To respond to the statement above it is necessary to recall the various situations that Jesus found himself dealing with and to analyze his responses in those situations. In other words, can it be proven from the encounters that we know about, that Jesus would not put himself in certain contexts?
The Gospels provide a fairly extensive list of circumstances to draw from. What results from such a study is an awareness of the tension that the Scriptures present. When we think we have them (the Scriptures) figured out, we encounter a tension that challenges our understanding.
1. Take John 2 and the wedding at Cana – Here our modern-day tension is centered on the debate of Jesus making wine.
a. To remove the tension, some argue that the wine was not fermented. That’s a convenient position, but others would argue that it does an injustice to the Greek text.
b. The fact that he was at this wedding and performed this miracle should be considered seriously within the context of the question being addressed.
2. Look next at the woman at the well in John 4. Here we see Jesus breaking through cultural norms on two fronts.
a. First, the fact that he is talking to a Samarian - a woman at that!
b. Second, the woman is known to have had multiple husbands and is living with a man that is not her husband.
c. This encounter makes it clear that Jesus did not restrict his movements and conversations based on cultural contexts – at least not that we can observe.
3. A third encounter that highlights the tension of who Jesus would associate with and who he wouldn’t is seen in Matthew 15:21-28, when he meets the Syrophonecian woman.
a. It appears at first that Jesus was not going to associate with this woman or heal her daughter.
b. But as we know, because of her faith, he heals her daughter.
These encounters demonstrate a couple of things:
1. By his omniscience Jesus was able to discern the heart of the people he encountered. He knew of their genuineness and responded appropriately to where they were.
a. Consider the rich young ruler (Mark 10:17-22)
b. The man’s heart was attached to his riches. Jesus called him out on this.
2. To suggest that Jesus would not go into some context diminishes his stature as the Son of God. The holiness of God is expressed in the Old Testament when he meets Moses at the burning bush. God’s holiness did not keep him from associating with humanity – humanity had to conform to that holiness.
a. Jesus even dined with the Pharisees (Luke 7:36-40)
b. Again, we have to recognize that Jesus’s omniscience gave him insight into the heart of man.
This brings me back to Alistair Begg and the grandmother. It is important to observe how Begg addressed the situation:
1. He confirmed the woman’s grandson understood she was a Christian.
2. He confirmed that the grandson knew the grandmother could not affirm his lifestyle choices.
3. I would guess that Alistair was also relying on the Holy Spirit to guide him in his response.
What we see in this process is Alistair Begg using the wisdom and insight of the Scriptures to guide him through the situation. I expect that his response to go and give a gift was a reflection of (Matt. 5:41-44) where Jesus admonishes the believer to (a) Go the extra mile. (b) love your enemies. (c) pray for those who persecute you.
The fact that not everyone will agree with Alistair’s approach regarding this doesn’t make him wrong and them right. In her book Five Lies of our Anti-Christian Age, Rosaria Butterfield makes the case for why the believer should not attend a same-sex wedding.
Her argument is along the lines of “attendance equals acceptance,” and this equals approval. In a situation where the questions that Alistair Begg posed to the grandmother could not be answered in the affirmative, or where discernment indicated the request was a setup, I would side with Butterfield. Her insight is spot on and yet, these are not always black-and-white issues.
This issue and these times make it crystal clear that the pastor must be constantly in communication with God and sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit. We are living in a very hostile culture and our actions/reactions put us front and center in the battle against evil.
Thank you for your deep insights.
Carl
Dear Carl,
Thank you for engaging with me on this very relevant current question!
I understand your concerns to be two-fold: First, that I’m too quick to dismiss the arguments of those who feel, based on New Testament examples, that they could place Jesus at the scene of something akin to a same-sex wedding ceremony, or situations like that. You’re especially concerned about my use of the word “all” in the bold paragraph, seeing that it creates a kind of straw man of my opponent’s argument.
Second, more specifically, you adduce examples from Jesus’s ministry to show that perhaps the issue is even more complicated than I admit.
In summary, you concur with me on (1) the prudential judgment of whether we would, under most circumstances, advise people to attend such events, and (2) my view that the overall question is more complicated than many of Begg’s critics are allowing for.
To your overall criticism, I completely agree that a survey of all of Jesus’s ministry in the Gospels is a great deal more illuminating on questions like these. Had I only the time and space in this newsletter to provide such a survey! Admittedly, when one writes briefly on a controversial issue, he inevitably forfeits the chance to account for all the variables.
Nevertheless, you’ve done some of the work for me, so I’ll comment on some of your examples, and conclude with a word about your criticism of my potential straw man argument.
First, the fact that the Gospel of John records Jesus in attendance at a wedding is noteworthy! However, we’re told nothing about the bride and groom (and we can safely assume it was a male and female!), and virtually nothing besides the shortage of wine, a need to which Jesus responded.
I don’t think much is at stake either way in whether the wine was fermented or not, or what the overall “strength” of it was. While Free Will Baptists covenant together to abstain from alcohol use, our historic position doesn’t require (1) a specific view on the nature of the wine in John 2, nor (2) adoption of the prohibitionist position. We can be abstentionists on the basis of prudential reasoning from the many Scriptural warnings about the dangers of alcohol, without overdetermining those readings, seeing them as blanket condemnations on the mere act of consumption (which is more akin to what I understand the Independent Baptist position to be).
So, is it instructive that Jesus attended social events like weddings, and even aided their conviviality? I think so, but it only gets us so far.
Second, Jesus’s encounter with the woman at the well is also helpful in that it challenges our conceptions of what our Savior (and presumably, a disciple) may or may not do in the name of love.
We would agree that the only reason it is unsettling to us is because we know from Bible background study that it was unsettling to Jesus’s own disciples. They have imbibed views of ceremonial purity and decorum from a cultural context that ultimately proved unhospitable to all kinds of people—the exact people Jesus cared for.
Jesus crossed an ethnic-religious-cultural boundary, all in one act. However, as far as I can tell, the most substantial thing that he actively does is (1) speak to her, (2) request water. He does identify and expose her problematic way of life and invite her to something far more fulfilling. While his discussion with her would have ruffled feathers (with religious hypocrites and still-learning disciples) and potentially sown confusion, there is nothing theologically or morally substantive in (1) where he goes with her, (2) what does with her, or (3) ignores about her situation that I think could be likened to approval.
Third, the issue at stake with the Syrophoenician woman is a bit more complex, only because there are some issues with what Jesus’s ministry called for at that moment in time. But his ultimate act to heal (which was precisely what she requested) seems to confirm a simple, but important message: Jesus responds to people who seek him. The taboo—not sin—associated with her is much like the Samaritan woman scenario in John 4.
To your other conclusion about Jesus’s knowledge, I say “yes.” Jesus clearly discerned people’s intentions and situations perfectly, whether the rich young ruler, or some other misguided person. Jesus wasn’t merely present to them for the sake of meeting a tangible need or answering a hard question, but in (1) showing love, (2) showing power, and (3) revealing truth. (I think his miracles were also the proleptic sign about the inbreaking of God’s Kingdom, but we’ll set that aside!)
Your point about Jesus’s holiness is an interesting one, one with which I partially agree and disagree. I agree with that the larger observation that the entire biblical canon (you use the example of Moses and the burning bush) is, in some sense, a story of a holy God having dealings with unholy people. This should give us pause, then, when we consider the fact that both Leviticus and 1 Peter say, “You be holy, for I am holy.” Whatever that means, it cannot mean that holiness is primarily about your physical location, or the persons with whom you associate.
Where I disagree, or at least where things get fuzzier to me, is the fact that our holiness is a work in progress. Our eyes and ears—windows to our heart—are shaped by that to which we are exposed. That inherently creates limits on where we go and who we’re around, even if we have to square that with being in the world, but not of it (Jn. 15). More to the point, we live in a symbol-laden world where cultural practices, institutions, and habits are quite real. They’re so substantial that Paul goes to great lengths in discussing the issue of eating meat offered to idols. That context—and other examples from Paul’s letters—are helpful because they seem to take the reality of Jesus’s dining with Pharisees seriously (Look at Paul hanging out in haunts like Mars Hill), while also thinking of the potential meaning of different social situations. Weddings (“So-called” ones, too) fit the bill, I think.
As I begin to conclude, let me agree with your interpretation about how you perceived Begg reasoning through the situation. He has even commented about this more in a recent sermon. I don’t think compassion vs. condemnation is the right way to set up the discussion, but it is a legitimate polarity to consider. Matthew 5 and passages like it force us to think a lot harder than we’re comfortable doing!
I also second your reminder about Jesus’s omniscience. Indeed, whether you’re looking at the issue of knowledge, purity/holiness, love, truth, etc. we’re all agreeing that Jesus possessed these things fully. That makes our ministries much more difficult and easier at the same time. On the one hand, we are in short supply when it comes to knowing every dynamic and possible interpretation of our action, loving others perfectly, having courage to go (or not go), and the like. On the other hand, we are entrusting ourselves daily to one who has freed us from the need to “get every judgment perfectly,” lest we lose His grace.
Finally, I stand by this statement: “The problem is assuming that because Jesus went into some contexts with unbelievers he would have most assuredly gone into all contexts with unbelievers. That’s quite a leap of logic.”
I think this is precisely the kind of naïve logic some are employing when it comes to justifying their judgment. Some might say I am arguing from silence, but I don’t think I am doing this any more than my interlocuters. They’re saying, “Look, Jesus went to some places with people that ruffled feathers.” I’m saying, “Part of the point of Jesus going to those places wasn’t just that he came to seek and to save the lost. (That’s the main thing!) But his ministry itself was a repudiation of the false shepherding that the religious class had either made possible or themselves participated in through Israel’s history, pre-exile to second temple period.”
To put it concisely, if the argument is that Jesus was misunderstood by religious hypocrites and irreligious lost people, and sometimes we will be too, then sign me up for that argument.
If the argument is, “We can and should be present in any conflicted social situation today because Jesus went to some places that were that way in the eyes of his Jewish brethren,” then count me out.
Maybe that’s one of the big, unspoken truths of this entire controversy. How much of this is about how our words and actions will be perceived by unbelievers, and how much of it is about how they will be perceived be believers?
Thanks so much for your thoughtful comments!
Jack
