In a wedding the couple are publicly declaring to family and friends both their resolve, commitment and intention to a life-long sexual union. And they are asking everyone present to support them in fulfilling such goals. This means  that in an LGBTIQ wedding they are announcing their commitment not to repent, but to continually rebel against the One who made them. A Christian can never support such a decision because the Bible explicitly warns us not to be deceived that such an unrepentant person will ever enter the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6:9-11).

A Vexed Pastoral Issue
One of the most vexed personal decisions Western Christians face today is whether or not to attend an LGBTIQ wedding of a family member or friend. Nobody who follows Jesus wants to destroy the relationship or lose the opportunity to present the Gospel to those they know. But at the same time, we want to both honour the LORD as well as not be a stumbling block to others (See Matt. 18:6).
Unfortunately, sometimes the Gospel brings us into conflict with those we are closest to. And it is at that point which our loyalties are truly tested. As Jesus says in Matthew 10:34-39:
Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’; and a man’s enemies will be those of his own 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 finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.
What this means is that our relationship with Jesus must come before all other earthly loyalties. And this is where our allegiance to Him is tested. Christ Jesus calls us to what Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously referred to as “costly discipleship”.  One in which we take up our cross and we die to the applause of the world. Because this is what it means to bear witness to Christ in a world which lives in rebellion to Him.
Alistair Beggs to Differ
A social media storm obviously erupted recently then, when the well-respected evangelical preacher Alistair Begg, told a Christian grandmother that she should attend a transgender wedding involving her grandson so that she wouldn’t be perceived as being “unloving, judgmental, critical, and unprepared to countenance anything.”
It should be noted that Begg does not support gay marriage and neither would he commend Christians usually attending a gay wedding. But Begg suggested that he would advise someone to sometimes attend as a way of showing love and preserving the relationship.
Since then though, Begg has doubled-down on his comments stating that he “is not yet ready to repent over this…I don’t have to”. (This was probably in response to the article by Robert Gagnon which can be viewed here). Some evangelical Christians agree with Begg that the decision to go a gay or transgender wedding is a ‘disputable matter’ (i.e. Rom. 14), which should be left to an individual’s conscience[1]. But an increasing number of theologians and pastors teach that Christians should not celebrate an LGBTIQ marriage by attending.[2]
An Ancient Problem
The problem is actually not a modern one but was an issue which even the people in Jesus’ day faced. John the Baptist famously confronted Herod over his incestuous marriage to Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife (Matt. 14:1-12; Mark 6:14-29; Luke 3:19-20). John was both imprisoned and later  beheaded due to his confrontation with Herod and Herodias over their incestuous ‘marriage’.
This is a helpful analogy in that it helps us to see the issue from another perspective and an angle of which we are yet to be confronted with, namely incest. What follows then is a ten-point summary as to why a Christian should never support or even attend an LGBTIQ union.
First, If a Christian Goes Then They Would Have to Publicly Declare Their Objection in the Service of the LGBTIQ Marriage from Proceeding
The Presbyterian Church of Australia’s Public Worship and Aids to Devotion Committee,[3] outlines that the congregation—and also couple—be asked the following questions:
Declaration of Lawfulness
If anyone can show any reason why this marriage would not be lawful, let them now declare it.
And I require and charge you both, knowing that you are answerable to God, that if either of you know any reason why your marriage would not be lawful, you declare it now.
Normally there are only nervous looks between the bride and groom, as well as uncomfortable laughter from the congregation, at this point in the ceremony. No one expects someone to say something at this point and it rarely if ever occurs. However, when it involves an LGBTIQ couple the issue quickly becomes relevant.
Historically, the question was there to safeguard against the unlikely—but not altogether impossible—situation of either one of the couple being married to someone else at the time. Or, as was the case with Herod and Herodias, being a close relative to one another. However, because both LGBTIQ desire and behaviour is a transgression of God’s law, one would be duty bound to stand and voice his or her opposition to the unlawful union from proceeding.[4]
Second, Christians Could Not Give Their Personal Congratulations
Following on from the previous point, even if the ceremony was not conducted according to the specific religious rites of a Christian denomination, a Christian could not offer his genuine ‘congratulations’ to the couple. As Al Mohler, President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has said:
Remember that the traditional word used of those who are attending a wedding is that they are celebrants. They are there to celebrate the wedding. It is virtually impossible to go to … a wedding of a same-sex couple and go and smile and not give affirmation to what you believe to be fundamentally contrary to nature and injurious to human flourishing.
If you are consistently biblical in your thinking, you simply can’t go to a wedding that actually isn’t a wedding, for a marriage that you don’t believe is a marriage. One of the principles that has guided the Christian church through the centuries is that the Church cannot sanction and Christians should not celebrate weddings that are illicit or unlawful according to Scripture.
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We can draw the inference that a Christian in politics – just as we would say to a Christian butcher, baker or candlestick maker – is called to honour God in the position he has given them and seek to live faithfully as believers as they go about their work. But this is not the same as the church qua church. Nor, incidentally, do we find many – even with the wherewithal to do so – pushing for government or regime change. It was John Calvin who said, ‘No man should think he is giving less service to the one God when he obeys human laws, pays tax, or bows his head to accept any other burden.’ The tenor of scripture, and consistent noise of the Bible, is submission to human authorities and non-compliance only when submission would cause us personally to disobey God.

Yesterday, we were continuing our sermon series in Matthew. This week we had reached Matthew 22:15-46 and the various attempts to trap Jesus with tricky questions. If you want to know how that passage was handled, you can watch our service back here – the preaching in our church comes at the front end of the service.
One of the points I made in that sermon concerned submission to civil authorities and government. Jesus’ famous ‘render unto Caesar’ comments – if he is saying anything at all – is that there is nothing incongruous or incompatible between living faithfully as believers and submitting to civil authorities. Everybody tends to get their knickers in a twist about ‘bad government’ and ‘government overreach’ but it doesn’t seem to trouble them that Jesus says nothing about that nor caveats what he says. Jesus is effectively commanding submission to the human authorities he has established in government.
It also bears saying two further things before I get to the point. First, Jesus is making these comments in the context of the Jewish people having just cheered him into Jerusalem and affirmed him as the Messiah. Matthew has been very carefully arguing up to this point that Jesus’ kingdom and messiahship will not necessarily meet the expectations of the Jewish mainstream understanding of kingdom and Messiahship. The expectation of the day is that the Messiah (and, therefore, Jesus at this point in their thinking) will re-establish the throne of David, reunite Israel and drive out the Roman occupying forces to restore a Jewish Free State under a Davidic king.
Second, it bears saying that the political context in which Jesus is making these comments is that of the Roman Empire. Leaving aside mainstream Jewish expectations of the Messiah, the Romans were hardly deemed benevolent rulers. The Jews hated them and their occupation of their land. And things didn’t get much better when the Apostles pick up Jesus teaching in both Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2:17, both of which were written during Nero’s reign. Whatever else you may say about Nero, benevolent and tolerant are not the two obvious words that come to mind. So, for later Christians, for Paul and Peter to pick up this teaching and command submission to Rome and to ‘honour the Emperor’ is no small thing. This is the wider political context into which Jesus makes his comments.
In my sermon, the point I drew was a simple one: Jesus calls us to submit to earthly authorities. The repeated tenor of the New Testament is to submit to earthly authorities. So long as they are not specifically asking you to personally sin, you are to submit even to government you think of as particularly bad. There are no examples in the New Testament of Christians rising up to fight the power nor of seeking to gain control and then pull the levers of power. The general tenor of scripture is both to submit to authorities (cf. Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2:17) and to seek, not authority or special treatment or any such thing, but simply to pray that we would be able to lead peaceful and quiet lives (cf. 1 Tim 2:2). Very much a live and let live attitude, seeking nothing more from civil authorities than the ability to freely obey Jesus on a personal level. #
There is no crowing about government overreach anywhere in scripture nor is there a concerted and organised campaign by any of the churches to overturn social injustice – something which challenges the engagement of both left and right; both culture and social justice warriors. The church addressed injustice by seeking to lead peaceful and quiet lives as a church in all holiness, serving the community around them by doing what Jesus asks them to do as believers (cf. Acts 2:41-47; 4:32-37). Their only engagement with government were not when the authorities were passing laws that meant other people could sin in ways the church deemed detrimental to society nor to organise for rights and privileges (we see neither thing). Rather, it is only when the authorities sought to stop the believers from being able to obey scripture on a personal basis (e.g. Acts 5:27-32). Even then, the consistent message of scripture is simply non-compliance i.e. we will not do that and we will accept and submit to the consequences.
Which brings me to my point. It is very easy to look at Jesus’ words here, and the Apostles further teaching on it in the rest of scripture, and challenge others with it.
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Rice desired his children to reach a spiritual height that surpassed him. He did not want them to be content with low spirituality which he said was common among Christians in his day. Instead of a list of rules for them to check off, he provided a paradigm to measure every action taken. The principle of our actions first and foremost must be a high regard for God. A holy reverence for the Divine majesty and a thankfulness for the work of Christ on our behalf must dominate every decision. Indeed, without this sacred regard for God, Rice wrote, “none of our actions can properly be denominated religious actions.”

David Rice (1733–1816) was a Presbyterian minister who played a prominent role in the development of Presbyterianism in Kentucky. He was born in Virginia and converted under the preaching of Samuel Davies in the 1750s. After serving in Virginia for some time, Rice came to Kentucky in the 1780s and immediately felt the challenge of ministering to those living on the frontier. Despite the difficulties, Rice was able to aid in the organization and establishment of churches through his faithful gospel preaching. He also played a hand in establishing schools—including the Transylvania Seminary (now Transylvania University) which had its beginnings meeting in his home.
In 1792, the year that Kentucky was admitted to the Union, Rice played an important part in the State’s first Constitutional Convention. He argued for the insertion of an article allowing for a gradual emancipation of slaves. Although his speech, entitled “Slavery Inconsistent with Justice and Good Policy,” provided a passionate apologetic for the cause, it ultimately failed to pass. When the revivals of the Second Great Awakening came to the frontier at the turn of the century, Rice advocated for moderation. He was not anti-revival as some have claimed, but he was opposed to the excess and bodily agitations that accompanied many of the camp meetings. Like a good Presbyterian, he wanted all things to be done decently and in order (1 Cor. 14:40).
Rice married Mary Blair, the daughter of prominent Presbyterian minister Samuel Blair, and together they had 11 children. By all indications, the Rices were faithful in raising their children in the instruction of the Lord. History testifies that all of their children had their own families and remained faithful to the church. Church historian Robert Davidson, writing in 1847, recorded that one of their children was converted from reading a Bible that was left on his clothes when he was leaving home for the first time!
One can see the love that Rice had for his children in some of the last words that he spoke to them. It is often the case when death is near, trivial and superficial matters lose their predominance. We are no longer preoccupied with them, and our attention no longer gravitates toward them. Instead, we become obsessively concerned with things that truly matter. We confront eternity face to face. David Rice’s advice to his children nine years before his death exemplifies this. As Rice grew older, he wrote some final words to his beloved children, which have come down to us in a work entitled The Rev. David Rice’s Last Advice to His Children, Whether His by Affinity or Consanguinity: Written in the Seventy-Fourth Year of His Age.
Rice began this work by sharing that he started to think about his final advice after the death of his wife. It was by this act of God’s providence he realized tomorrow may be his last day, and so he needed to share some parting words with his children. At the outset, Rice reminded them:
My dear children, frequently recollect and seriously realize that we must all appear at the dread tribunal of Jesus Christ; and that then you must give an account to him of the use, the improvement you have made of all the religious advantages and privileges you have enjoyed; and particularly those that you have enjoyed in the family in which you have been educated.
David Rice, “The Rev. David Rice’s Last Advice to His Children, Whether His By Affinity or Consanguinity: Written in the Seventy Fourth Year of His Age,” in The Virginia Evangelical and Literary Magazine 2/6 (June 1819), 246.
It was his purpose to exhort them to live with this in mind, and the remainder of the work was to help them practically live thankful to God for their advantages. The advice that followed was written under three broad headings: On the Doctrines of Christianity, On Christian Morality, and On Conduct in Civil Society. What follows are some prominent points, not an exhaustive study.
On Christian Doctrine
Stand firm in your convictions, show charity to Christians who disagree, and do not get weighed down in trivial matters or doctrine of secondary importance.
Rice urged his children to be fixed and well-established in the fundamental doctrines of religion, the government of the church, and the scriptural modes of worship. He desired that his children would be steadfast in their conviction. Rice had instructed them in the Presbyterian tradition, which, according to his testimony, was the best system of religion. They were to be unwavering in their beliefs, and not let anything move them from the foundation that they stood upon. Yet, simultaneously, where good Christians disagreed on secondary or tertiary issues, Rice exhorted his children to show charity. “At the same time,” he wrote, “extend your charity to others as far as reason and scripture will warrant you, treating Christians of every denomination as brethren…Men may differ widely as to the mode of worship, and yet be acceptable worshippers of God through Christ.”
While it is important for Christians to know secondary matters well, Rice did not want his children to get weighed down in these issues at the expense of Christian unity. He was also concerned about pride. He wanted his children to study those doctrines that produced holiness in the heart and life. Doctrines that carried a lot of speculation and did not produce a holiness of character could be hurtful. This is not to say they were not important, but that doctrinal hobby horses could easily open the door for pride and temptation to unpack and settle in our hearts. Rice warned his children to avoid religious controversy if it were possible, but if it wasn’t, he spurred them to faithfully defend the truth. They were to defend it with humility and meekness, not out of pride and vainglory. Further, they were to never “engage the enemy, until you are acquainted with the ground you occupy, your own force, and the forces of your antagonist.” Another warning Rice wrote was to avoid “religious novelties” which, generally speaking, were nothing better than seducing errors. In every century, religious fads and movements attempt to sway the people of God; Rice encouraged his children to resist.
In exhorting them to stand firm in their convictions while cultivating a heart of charity for those who disagreed, he was very clear that they were not to have communion with those who were nominal Christians. He wrote: “Treat all of your fellow creatures with kindness and with the respect due to their several characters; but have no religious communion with those nominal Christians, whose principles sap the foundation of the Christian religion, lest you thereby countenance their errors, and partake of their guilt and punishment.”
The world today is changing at a rapid pace. Our culture is in the midst of a moral revolution, the speed of which is unprecedented in history, and as a result, many Christians find themselves wrestling with how to approach culture. On top of this, there is an alarming number of professing Christians who are sliding into progressive ideologies and deconstructing their faith entirely. Consequently, these kinds of conditions create an environment where everyone is suspect. It is very tempting in this climate for Christians to fight with other Christians. If someone does not espouse a particular view or does not agree with this or that position, they are treated with suspicion. Indeed, today we slap labels on each other faster than green grass through a goose. In this type of atmosphere, let us remember the words of Rice. We are to stand firm on our convictions. All Christians ought to be willing to go to war together on the primary teachings of Scripture.
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No matter what uncontrollable forces may push you around in this life, Jesus is on His throne, and those who place their faith in Him are His children. He will save us; every principality and power contrary to Him will be judged and ultimately destroyed. Take heart, children of God.

Daniel chapter seven opens with a vision of four beasts, each more terrifying than the one before, but the Ancient of Days eclipses them all. The first beast was like a lion with eagle’s wings, but its wings had been plucked off. It was lifted from the ground and made to stand on two feet like a man, and the mind of a man was also given to it.
The second beast was like a bear with three ribs in its mouth, and it was told to devour much flesh. The third was like a leopard with four bird wings on its back, and it had four heads and dominion.
The fourth beast is described as terrifying and dreadful, exceedingly strong. It had iron teeth, and whatever its teeth did not destroy, it stomped with its feet. It also had ten horns, and an eleventh horn came up among them that grew boastful and said great things.
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Written by Aaron M. Renn |
Monday, February 19, 2024
I’ve noticed that it’s becoming harder for some of these folks to engage in the public square without managing to work in some kind of bashing of those ultra-conservative evangelicals over there that they don’t like. We see that here. Last year I noted that some of the people behind the He Gets Us campaign explicitly view various other Christians as a key problem for Jesus’ image. Nevertheless, they really didn’t let that attitude shine through in the ads that I saw. Now, they apparently can’t restrain themselves anymore and have declared open war against conservative Christians they don’t like.

The $1 billion dollar ad campaign for Jesus called He Gets Us has been controversial from the start. And there was controversy again this year when they ran two new Superbowl ads on Sunday.
If you didn’t see them, they are available on Youtube under the titles “Foot Washing,” and “Who Is My Neighbor?”
I’m someone who defended the He Gets Us campaign after last year’s Superbowl outing. I said they might be flawed but were aiming at the right target, focused in on the key area of pre-evangelism that’s needed in today’s world. I even mentioned He Gets Us positively in my new book Life in the Negative World.
Given my record, I am clearly not biased against the He Gets Us. And given the psychological principle of consistency, where we are biased to take actions consistent with our previous actions, I should be primed to defend them again this year.
Unfortunately, this year’s He Gets Us Superbowl outing was terrible – unconscionable actually.
There are several problems with these advertisements.
1. These Ads Present Jesus as an Ethical Teacher and Moral Example Rather than a Savior
Many of the He Gets Us ads try to show Jesus as able to relate to our condition. A good example is this ad called “Physician.” This relates to the Bible’s teaching from Hebrews that because he was made in all ways like us, he is able to sympathize with our condition, temptations, and weaknesses. It also makes reference to Jesus’ miraculous healings, as well as to his being sent as the Great Physician to those whose souls are sick with sin.
By contrast, the 2024 Superbowl ads portray Jesus exclusively as ethical teacher and moral example. He “didn’t teach hate” but rather he “washed feet.” He taught us to love our neighbor as yourself.
Clearly Jesus was an ethical teacher and moral example, but the view of Jesus that’s being portrayed here is identical with the view promoted by liberal mainline Protestantism. This ad is very much in line with a traditional liberal theological view.
Last year’s Superbowl ad “Love Your Enemies,” also links to a teaching. But the content of the ad emphasizes Jesus’ love for everyone – “Jesus loved the people we hate.” In fact, had the ad not included a URL with “LoveYourEnemies” in it, this ad may not have been connected in anyone’s mind with that particular verse. The other ad, “Be Childlike,” links directly to Jesus’ instructions on what one do to be saved (“become like little children”).
In short, there’s a big difference in the presentation of the ads in 2023 vs. 2024. In 2023 there was about Jesus’ love and about the path to salvation. In 2024, it’s about Jesus’ ethical teaching and moral example – a liberal Protestant emphasis.
One implication of that difference is that this year’s Superbowl ads were really more focused on us than on Jesus.
2. The Ads Are Explicitly Left-Wing Culturally and Politically
Last year’s ads did a great job of avoiding appearing to take sides on cultural or political matters. This year, they explicitly endorsed a culturally and politically left view of the world. Or, as the left wing pundit Matthew Yglesias, a secular Jew, correctly observed, “Jesus has gone woke.” 
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Written by Colin J. Smothers |
Monday, February 19, 2024
What is to be done about moral vertigo? The book of Jeremiah records the words of the Lord to a wayward Israel suffering from a kind of moral vertigo: “Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls” (Jeremiah 6:16). What are the ancient paths? These are the roads that have been trod before and stood the test of time, because they are the ones that lead to and from God’s revelation.

The Federal Aviation Administration estimates that around 15 percent of airplane crashes are caused by vertigo, which is a false sensation that can lead to disorientation related to fluid in your inner ear. In order to guard against this, one exercise pilots go through early on in their training is induced vertigo. My dad is a professional pilot and an Air Force Top Gun who flew the F-15 Eagle. Growing up around aviation, I was inspired to go for my pilot’s license and I experienced this training firsthand.
For this training exercise, you put on a visor that limits your range of vision so that you can only see what’s inside the cockpit. Under this arrangement, you must rely solely on your instruments and not what you can see outside, which simulates nighttime and low-visibility flying. With the visor on, you close your eyes and your instructor puts the airplane in a slow bank, descent, or climb and holds it there for several minutes. This is when vertigo sets in. Your inner ear adjusts to the current flying conditions and the trajectory begins to feel normal—it actually feels like you’re flying straight and level. After a while, the instructor tells you to open your eyes and check your instruments. Herein lies the danger.
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Written by Alan D. Strange |
Monday, February 19, 2024
The “spirituality of the church” (SOTC) relates to the reality that the church is supremely a spiritual institution (not a biological one, as is the family, or a civil one, as is the state) and that its power is moral and suasive (not legal and coercive, as is state power), ministerial and declarative (not magisterial and legislative, as is power in the Roman Catholic Church). Thus, the church is an institution gathered and perfected by the Spirit, having chiefly spiritual concerns, carried out in a spiritual fashion by a Spirit-indited use of the means of grace.

An Ongoing Dialogue
Historically, the church has at times claimed a supremacy that she does not have—over the state, especially—and she has, at other times, allowed the state to dominate her. Part of the genius of the Reformation was the rediscovery that the state is not over the church or vice-versa, but that all institutions are properly under God. The Scots, in opposing Erastianism—the notion among some Protestant rulers that the church is properly under the state, as was the case with the Church of England under the English monarch—particularly developed this Reformational notion that the church was not under the state in what they called the “spiritual independency of the church.” In the American context this came to be known in the nineteenth century as the doctrine of the “spirituality of the church” (SOTC).
To be sure, the doctrine was often abused to stop the mouth of the church against slavery; however, Charles Hodge of Princeton, and others of his time and following him, developed a better use of the doctrine, capturing the older notion that the spirituality of the church was calculated to spare the church from simply giving way to politics and state control, minding instead its proper spiritual call and mission, having rule over its own affairs. At the same time, Hodge was careful not to muzzle the prophetic voice that the church always possesses as she calls the whole world to repentance and faith. The spirituality of the church of this sort could be helpfully recovered for the ongoing dialogue of how the church is to relate to the world in which it finds itself, both in how it distinguishes itself from the world and how it gives itself to the world.
It is important for the church to do both: to distinguish itself from the world, or it fails to be the distinct agency of gospel proclamation that it is called to be, and to give itself to the world, or it fails to be the foot-washing servants that Christ calls it to be. The present atmosphere, in which the politicization of virtually everything looms, can prove especially challenging in this regard. Highly charged partisan political currents can impact the church as well as civil society, especially when it comes to the temptation of those on both extremes—left and the right—to bring social, economic, political, and like agendas into the church. The church as church may have something to say about present concerns (e.g., abortion, same-sex marriage, etc.), which is to say that God’s word may address such, usually in principle, though not in detail; in any case, not in a way that renders the church just another voice in the current cacophony of shouted political slogans, but that contributes a proper faith perspective to vexing moral questions in the public square. We need to be salt and light, to witness to the power of Christ and his gospel in an unsavory, dark world in a way that does not avoid the moral issues of our time, bringing a clear prophetic witness to them, but also not allow politics to swamp the boat so that the gospel gets sunk in a sea of cultural concerns.
Recapturing Spirituality
The SOTC, which we seek to recapture, is today either forgotten as a concept or remembered only for its abuses (e.g., justifying the church not addressing American slavery and the racial hatred that especially developed in its wake, including iniquitous Jim Crow laws).
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