Alistair Begg appears to be taking some heat because of comments he made in an interview for his forthcoming book. You can read about those comments here. The issue at stake – though you will need to read the article for full context – is his counsel to a grandmother concerning whether she should attend her grandchild’s transgender wedding. Begg advised her, given some particular and important questions (the answers to which, had the answers been different, it seems his advice would be different too), was to suggest she go. Again, read the article to see the full context. Suffice to say, his position received some pushback. I don’t intend to state who is right or wrong here. I just want to make a few brief comments.

First, it bears saying that the Bible makes absolutely no comment whatsoever on the appropriateness of attending a wedding that is anything other than one biological man marrying a biological woman with the intention of that union being for life. What that necessarily means is we are dealing with a question of wisdom here. Not so much the rightness of the situation, or how we are to view the situation itself, but the rightness of how we approach the situation.

Now, it bears saying, when we are dealing with questions of wisdom and application of biblical principles, we can’t and don’t always draw straight lines. If the Bible doesn’t give a cut and dried command on the matter, even if we think biblical principles push us in a particular direction, we have to be very careful before we suggest brothers and sisters who disagree with our application of those principles (which are not strictly what the Bible says but inferences we are making) are necessarily outside the camp or beyond the pale.

Second, it bears saying that bible believing Christians agree on the particular issue itself and what the Bible says about it. Where they disagree is over how we ought to respond on a personal basis. So, on issues surrounding transgenderism, the questions are things such as: is it legitimate to use people’s preferred pronouns – even if we disagree with their use of them – or not? Is it legitimate to use someone’s preferred gendered name – even if we disagree with their use of it – or not? Is it legitimate to attend an engagement party or wedding – even if we struggle with the nature of the wedding itself – or not? These are all specific questions the Bible doesn’t address directly and on which we must think about principles first and then how we personally might apply them. Our application of these things is, to some degree, the world of wisdom and not biblical mandate. That being the case, we shouldn’t treat our answer to those wisdom questions as though our attempt at wise biblical application is itself a biblical mandate.

Third, I suspect on the particular issue at hand, the heart of the matter boils down to what we are affirming or not. This question, I think, applies equally to whether we would sit in a mosque with Muslims who are worshipping and, conversely, how we view non-Christian people sitting in our church services. This past Sunday, for example, we met with our Muslim friends for our monthly Muslim-Christian dialogue. I should just say for clarity, this is not our service of worship. The dialogue event is additional and separate to our usual weekly worship and not in lieu of it. So, to be clear, this is not a joint act of worship (you can see here as an example of what we do).

Whilst we were there, our Muslim friends told us their prayer time fell in the middle of our time together and insisted they would need to pray. Everybody knew – because we were there in dialogue, presenting the gospel and openly sharing our differences in very frank ways – that none of the Christians watching on were in any way affirming those prayers to Allah. Our presence, in that particular context, was no affirmation of what we were witnessing and nobody was confused about it. As we were in their building this time, so were guests there but nobody thought we were joining in an act of worship (and it bears saying we weren’t), this was legitimate. I think we see a similar response from Elisha to Naaman in 1 King 5:15-19 (you can see my comments on that here). In our own building, we have opted not to provide such a space to pray because, though I think our Muslim friends should be free to pray and I would advocate for their right to have mosques in which to worship, I don’t think it is honouring to God nor a helpful witness to actively create a space for them to pray to what we believe to be their false God in a building our community very much associates with Christian worship.

My point in sharing this is simple. I don’t pretend these things are what every Christian must do – your mileage may legitimately vary – it is just how we have sought to wisely engage with our Muslim neighbours within our predominantly Muslim community. I am particularly wary of insisting our legitimate attempt to wisely apply and synthesise various biblical principles is the biblically mandated way. When the Bible doesn’t expressly say this is what we ought to do, the most we can say is this seems to be a helpful and wise approach to us. But other may land differently in seeking to synthesise these things and I don’t think I can legitimately say they are disobeying scripture if they do so.

When it comes to something like a gay, trans or even just a garden variety heterosexual re-marriage, the question boils down to what we are actively affirming. Reading Begg’s answer, he was very careful to ask whether everyone knew the grandmother’s Christian belief in Jesus and whether, knowing that, they were all aware that she could not in any way endorse the decisions being taken. The answer in both cases was ‘yes’ and so Begg appears to be arguing, not unlike Namaan and Elisha, and similarly to us when our dialogue event is held on Muslim turf, given everybody knows you don’t endorse this thing, you can go safe in the knowledge that nobody will confuse your attendance as an expression of affirmation of the particular choices on display and may just open up doors for the gospel because it will be viewed as loving in light of those commitments.

It is important to recognise that those who disagree with Begg’s approach are similarly concerned with what is being affirmed. I suspect (though I haven’t seen specific comments in reply to Begg) they would argue that the very act of attendance is itself an affirmation. The very act of being there is to affirm what is happening. A wedding, they argue, is a celebration and so going at all to what is being celebrated is necessarily to affirm the event itself. There are implications of this principle being applied this way for other settings too (for example, is it okay to attend a Catholic Church or a Gurdwara when everyone knows you don’t subscribe to all that is going on?) We similarly have to figure out what to do with that passage concerning Naaman and what is going on there. That isn’t to say there are no credible or reasonable answers to this, just that these are the implications.

The question in whatever position we take on these things comes down to what we are affirming. We may agree on that principle, the question is whether we actually think that is what we are doing in the particular context. If everyone knows your position already, some would argue there is clearly no affirmation in attending. Others argue that your very presence is affirming whether people know your views and what you affirm or not. After all, they aver, a wedding is a celebration by its very nature. But these are the principles and the questions that need parsing.

My purpose here is not to take a specific stance. I am simply outlining two competing positions on how to apply the biblical principles that we probably agree upon. I similarly want to make the case that neither position is explicitly outlined in scripture. Given that scripture does not explicitly tell us what to do in these situations, nor does it give us examples of specifically what to do either in these particular cases, we need to be careful before we argue that our particular application is necessarily the biblically appropriate position and that others are somehow denying scripture or being unfaithful if they land differently in their understanding of how to apply scriptural principles to these situations.

As seems to be becoming a bit of a catchphrase on this blog, just because we think something to be good, right and appropriate – if the Bible doesn’t explicitly say it is so – we cannot mandate it for everyone. Though these personal issues of what to do when it comes to loving our family, friends and neighbours well without affirming every choice that they make – and these issues clearly extend well beyond particular marriages and whether to attend a specific wedding – we need to be careful that we don’t bind people with the force of scripture on matters the Bible doesn’t explicitly mandate itself. We can think a course of action best, wisest, clearest, most appropriate or whatever. We can seek to show brothers and sisters what we consider to be the best way and offer our reasons for it. But in the end, if it isn’t specifically in the Bible, we can’t insist that our application is necessarily the biblically sanctioned, Spirit-sanctified application of the matter that applies to everyone, in every place, for all time, world without end. We need to be careful that we don’t inadvertently add to scripture by taking our wise, biblically informed applications of what we think scripture says and adding a little ‘Jesus says’ where it doesn’t exist.