Is Attendance Approval?

We in the body of Christ need to be addressing situations that we never had to address before. 

For example, should Christians attend a gay wedding? 

First, let’s define a gay wedding biblically: It is the formal ceremony that claims to commit two people to a lifestyle that God calls a “shameful lust,” a lifestyle that damages people's hearts and souls (Romans 1:26-27). It would definitely be what Scripture calls “a fruitless deed of darkness” (Ephesians 5:1-14).

It’s legal, but so are premarital sex, drunkenness, strip clubs, and pornography. Legality isn’t the test for Christian involvement. 

The most common reason Christians give for attending such events is their desire to show the person or their family “love.” So let’s see how God defines love in this area: 

“Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people.… For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them” (Ephesians 5:1-14).  

There is nothing loving about attending something God calls darkness because “love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth” (1 Corinthians 13:6).

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I encourage you to familiarize yourself with the errors in “gay revisionist theology” so you will be able to respond if someone uses these arguments to claim that God approves of LGBTQ lifestyles. See the Bible Love Notes series Responding to Gay Revisionist Theology. We cannot love someone and remain silent while they choose a lifestyle that sends them to Hell.

 

Note: After writing this devotion, I discovered that a well-known conservative pastor, Alistair Begg, publicly explained that he advised a woman to attend her grandson's LGBTQ wedding and buy her grandson and his transgender partner a gift. He said that, as long as the couple understood that this grandmother's faith kept her from affirming their choice, it was fine for her to attend the wedding. In fact, he said that not attending the wedding would reinforce the belief that Christians are "judgmental, critical, unprepared to countenance anything" (source). Let's put this in perspective. Suppose someone invites you to a party celebrating their recent abortion. Is it loving to attend as long as you let them know you are opposed to abortion? Suppose someone invites you to a party celebrating the extramarital affair that ended their marriage? Is it loving to attend even if you don't believe in extramarital affairs? Since when do we show love for people by helping them celebrate fruitless deeds of darkness? 

Update: Alistair Begg has responded to criticism by claiming he's better than American evangelicals who he believes are Pharisees. See I Will Not Repent.

Christ was hated because He testified that the world did evil things (John 7:7). And He told us that the only way the world is going to love us is if we belong to the world instead of belonging to Him (John 15:18-25). If we think the world will love us if we help them celebrate things God disapproves, we are sadly mistaken.

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