Christian leaders are challenging well-known Scottish pastor Alistair Begg after he shared that he encouraged a grandmother to attend her grandson’s transgender wedding.
Begg’s comments came during a September 2023 interview with Bob Lepine for Begg’s book “The Christian Manifesto.”
In “The Christian Manifesto,” Begg focuses on Jesus’ sermon found in Luke 6. In a promotion for the book, Begg said, “It is a manifesto that is not oriented towards the political arena, but towards the relational and individual one.”
Begg, who is the senior pastor of the nondenominational Parkside Church in Cleveland, Ohio, and the Bible teacher at Truth For Life, was asked by Lepine how he hopes his new book will change readers.
“I hope that I will be different,” Begg replied, recalling the lyrics from old hymn “Standing in the Need of Prayer”: “It’s not my brother nor my sister, but it’s me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer.”
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“I hope that that would be multiplied. I hope that our church family, those who choose to read this book, that it might have an impact among us,” Begg explained.
Begg went on to share how he was recently asked for advice by a grandmother on whether she should attend her grandson’s transgender wedding.
“My grandson is about to be married to a transgender person, and I don’t know what to do about this, and I’m calling to ask you to tell me what to do,” the grandmother asked.
Begg answered, “People may not like this answer.” Begg then explained that he replied to the grandmother by asking her, “Does your grandson understand your belief in Jesus?”
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The grandmother responded by saying, “Yes.” So Begg asked, “Does your grandson understand that your belief in Jesus makes it such that you can’t countenance in any affirming way the choices that he has made in life?”
