Alistair Begg: Christian Realist

The great danger of Christian realism is that it involves appearing to do evil in the eyes of ones coreligionists.

Study: Non-Affirming Attendance at Gay Weddings Saves Souls

Over the last twenty years, out of the public eye, evangelical researchers conducted a longitudinal study of the relationship between evangelical parents and grandparents and their LGBTQ+ youth. They conducted interviews and gathered qualitative data about the “coming out” experience and the evangelical adult response, church participation, and the theological and ethical views of youth and adults.

One finding stood out. When non-affirming parents did not attend a same-sex wedding, the LGBTQ+ individuals remained convinced of affirming moral views. But when non-affirming evangelical parents did attend their child’s same-sex wedding, 30% of LGBTQ+ individuals changed their views within the next five years. In one example, the gay son of evangelical parents ended his same-sex marriage after two years and returned to professing Christian faith, holding non-affirming moral views, and regular church attendance within four years of the wedding.

And yet, when one well-known, seasoned evangelical pastor mentions that he counseled a grandmother to attend her grandchild’s wedding to a transgender person, evangelicals dug up the months-old quotation and got his radio program canceled!

The pastor is Alistair Begg, and the response has been fierce. To many, it is absolutely clear that attending such a wedding while expressing moral disapproval is tantamount to expressing moral approval. While some have kindly defended the validity of Begg’s prior ministry, even they have held to the party line that attendance can’t be considered.

Now, obviously, I fabricated the study above. But if this empirical data came out, wouldn’t it provide reason to question what seemed so clearly biblical?

If we found that the way the world works is that non-affirming attendance is the most effective tool to bring back the prodigal son or daughter, wouldn’t all our handwringing be proven mistaken?

For these reasons, I think that Alistair Begg’s counsel is not the first step toward theological liberalism but an exercise in what is called Christian realism.

Realtheologik

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Last week, I published one of my pillar essays, “Christian Realism: A Philosophy of Effective Action.” Together with “Sophisticated Realism” and “Civilized Empiricism,” you now have my statements of metaphysics, epistemology, and now ethics.

In ethics, realism is the view that ethical action does not consist in rule-following but in appropriate response to the needs of the situation.

American evangelicalism, by contrast, has had a penchant for moral absolutes and maintaining a kind of purity. As a result, laypeople expect from their Christian leaders absolute “do’s” and “don’ts,” rather than counsel in situational sensitivity.

In response to Begg, many have echoed the absolute “don’t” of never attending a same-sex wedding, a position staked out by John Piper.

By making an absolute claim, the need for situational sensitivity is short-circuited. Evangelical congregants are protected from having to wrestle with the question and are given a clear word from above.

In comparison, Begg’s words seem like the first step onto the slippery slope of liberalism, moral and theological. He has departed from the moral orthodoxy, however slightly.

My alternative proposal is that Begg is not a liberal in comparison to a conservative, but a realist in contrast to an absolutist.

American evangelicals should be able to recognize realism. In spite of their moral scruples, many American evangelicals made a political calculation, held their nose, and voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020. We call this realpolitik.

In the same way, Begg is engaged in realtheologik. In spite of their moral scruples, Begg advises this grandmother to make a spiritual and personal calculation, hold her nose, and attend the trans wedding. It’s an act of realism, but in the theological realm.

Incurring Guilt

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The great danger of Christian realism is that it involves appearing to do evil in the eyes of one’s coreligionists.

Ignorant of the details of one’s situation and eager for the comfort of moral and tribal absolutes, those judging from the sidelines will perceive you breaking the rules and call “foul.”

While many moral acts provide the safety of also appearing moral, in this situation, you lose that protection. The thing is, the only true proof of a good will is the willingness to do what is right even when it appears wrong.

Plato argued in The Republic that people only do what is right because other people are watching; that is the moral of the tale of the Ring of Gyges, the inspiration for Tolkien’s ring of power.

But Plato argued that the real test of character would not be to do what is right in spite of risk to life and limb only, but in spite of positively being considered immoral or impious. Significantly, Plato’s teacher Socrates risked both, as did Christ.

In Bonhoeffer’s Ethics, the Christian realist version of Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, the Nazi prisoner argues that it is only in the doctrine of justification by faith that the Christian can find the confidence to act ethically, in spite of being thought unrighteous.

In Bonhoeffer’s context, German Christians held that the duty to obey the governing authorities was absolute, on account of Luther’s Two Kingdoms doctrine. This was summarized in the statement the Nazis used to defend themselves during the Nuremberg trials: Befehl ist Befehl: “An order is an order.”

When, at the height of Nazi power, Bonhoeffer decided to join a plot to kill Hitler and overthrow the government, he risked being thought un-Christian by his coreligionists, not to mention an enemy of the state by the government.

Bonhoeffer himself did not believe in a moral law justifying killing God’s appointed magistrate when things reached a certain threshold. No moral law could justify unquestionably his own choices. In the end, the Christian acts without legal or moral justification; the only justification of his action is by faith.

It’s Not a War, It’s a Purity Spiral

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In our own context, things don’t look as dire as Germany in 1942. But there’s an irony: Evangelical Christians believe in a culture war (Kulturkampf). But their preferred strategy is the internal purity spiral and friendly fire, instead of realpolitik.

I admit that there are dangers of adopting a wartime mindset in peacetime, of Christians becoming controlled by the culture war. But if it is a war, why are we shooting our own? Why are we aiming to keep our hands clean? Why aren’t we elevating our strategy and engaging in some sober-minded realpolitik?

In fact, what we observe in evangelical discourse and behavior bears little resemblance to wartime strategy and more to what Gurwinder Bhogal calls a “purity spiral.” In a purity spiral, “members of political (and religious) tribes…begin competing with their fellows to be the most ideologically pure.”

When engaged in a purity spiral, a group does not pursue its strategic goals, but culling its own membership of independent-minded individuals. After all, strategy often involves expanding one’s alliances, co-belligerency, rather than further narrowing who one will work with.

When it comes to Christian approaches to LGBTQ+ issues, the purity spiral and the realtheologik recommend diverging paths. The purity spiral would mean shunning evangelicals who even appear to compromise in any way with the prevailing zeitgeist. Those who use the language of “LGBTQ+” or “sexual minorities” and especially those who use such language to describe themselves are to be culled from the tribe.

Realtheologik would recommend a different path. One of the primary reasons evangelical youth leave Christianity, and the primary reason young people are not attracted to Christianity is its approach to sexual ethics and to LGBTQ+ people in particular. Assuming that the Christian sexual ethic is not itself hateful, evangelicals and other Christians need to make central to their public perception their love for LGBTQ+ people in spite of their traditional ethical beliefs.

Strategically, this would involve promoting celibate and/or chaste gay Christians as models of Christian faithfulness, people like Wesley Hill and Greg Johnson. It would involve recommending that Christians pursue constructive relationships with LGBTQ+ people. And it would involve allowing for complexity in how this love is expressed, including whether to attend gay or trans weddings.

None of this is to discount the faithful witness of those cake-bakers and photographers who have refused, on Christian principle, to bake cakes or photograph same-sex weddings. Theirs was also a situational act of Christian realism. Realism allows for complexity rather than dictating conformity, in either direction.

But They That Are Sick

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Let’s go back to the study with which I began. Even though it’s imaginary, it throws a wrench in the gears of Christian responses like this one, from Steven Lawson:

puritytalk

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Should Christians attend a “transgender wedding?” Lawson proclaims, “Absolutely No.”

But what if it were shown in practical life and social scientific studies that there was no more effective way to persuade LGBTQ+ people of the truth of Christianity, sexual ethic, and all? The absolutism of Lawson’s position suggests that not even such studies should make any difference to his claim.

But if so, then what business is Lawson in? Not the business of saving souls? Not the business of fishing for men? (Including “trans men?”)

When theology meets reality, absolute claims are shipwrecked. Never attend a same-sex wedding? Even if doing so might “save some?”

If the gospel story had occurred in our own day, I can imagine a passage reading something like this:

And the third day there was a same-sex marriage in Cana of Galilee; And both Jesus was called, and his disciples, to the marriage.

And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at table, behold, many gays, lesbians, and transgender people came and sat down with him and his disciples.

And when the pastors and conference-speakers saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why eateth your Master with gays, lesbians, and transgender people and attendeth their weddings?

But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.

Can I confirm that this is what Jesus would have done and said? No. Like Begg, I write without the firm foundation of infallible specific revelation.

But as Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes, all Christian action must be without justification and must risk appearing immoral and even incurring guilt for the sake of the world:

“Jesus took upon Himself the guilt of all men, and for that reason every man who acts responsibly becomes guilty. If any man tries to escape guilt in responsibility, … He sets his own personal innocence above his responsibility for men, and he is blind for the more irredeemable guilt which he incurs precisely in this.” (Ethics, 241)

Was Begg right to recommend attendance at the trans wedding? I cannot judge.

But let him who is without sin cast the first stone.

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