The Idolatry of Evangelical Witness

Gay Wedding Gifts and a Misguided Gospel

Evangelical leaders have often stressed the need to be “a good witness” to the Gospel. But what if a time has come in which these leaders should be ready to be called a “bad” witness for the Gospel?

Sometimes, someone says something which says far more than the something they said.

Alastair Begg, an evangelical statesman of significant renown, has been widely criticised of late for his response to a question from a grandmother asking whether she should attend her grandson’s marriage to a transgender person (see here, from 28:50).

“As long as he knows [you do not affirm all their life choices], then I suggest that you do go to the ceremony. And I suggest that you buy them a gift…Your love for them may catch them off guard, but your absence will simply reinforce the fact that they said, ‘These people are what I always thought: judgmental, critical, unprepared to countenance anything’”

Begg has received much backlash from many evangelicals who rightly see this as a categorical error in our time. But such an error did not emerge by accident. It emanates from the kind of missional thinking in which evangelicalism has been entrenched for decades. Whilst Begg may have been the one caught out here, his logic echoes the way many evangelicals have become misguided on the implications of the Gospel in recent times.

In a sense, you can see how Begg arrived at this conclusion. As one who has been so good at emphasising the power of the cross in God’s gracious salvation of sinners, it seems he simply wanted to emphasise the wonderful grace of God’s love in the Gospel.

On closer inspection, however, his response shows not only a lack of true awareness of the challenges to the Gospel in our day, but a posture toward Gospel witness that is more concerned with the reputation of the witness than the reputation of the Saviour. I speak, of course, of the way in which the worst thing imaginable to an evangelical is now to be thought of as - to use Begg’s words - “judgemental, critical, unprepared to countenance anything”.

Arguably, in fact, there are times in which we are called to be all three of these things! Whilst there are ways not to judge, God’s people are called to be “judgemental”: “to judge with right judgement” (John 7:24); we are also called to be “critical” of the works of darkness by “exposing” them (Eph. 5:11); and we are indeed called “to not countenance” certain things, especially idolatrous or “worthless things” (Ps. 119:37).

That Winsome Witness

When it comes down to it, this is ultimately once again about the problem of evangelical winsomeness, the kind which ill prepares the evangelical for the more aggressively anti-Christian assaults we face today, assaults which will only continue to ramp up in future.

Increasingly, many of the evangelical leaders we have inherited - well-intentioned as they may have been - will no longer be the guides to follow as we navigate this terrain.

Indeed, it was disheartening but in no way surprising that another prominent evangelical leader, John Stevens (Director of the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches) publically responded in favour of Begg’s point: