Each new generation faces new challenges in attempting to apply the word of God to the complexities of our day. In the 1st century, the decisive difficulty du jour was how to understand the Mosaic Law and regulations like circumcision in light of the New Covenant. In the 4th century, the burning question was the relationship of the Son to the Father (and Spirit). The next generation labored to understand the nature of original sin and the meaning of grace. Fast forward a millennium and the Western world was abuzz and divided with efforts to explain justification and the nature of the church.
Each age must answer new questions. Ours is an age obsessed with sexuality. For the past 60 years, the fault lines have shifted and now we find ourselves in the rubble of such seismic shifts. With myriad novel ideas about sexuality come countless new questions. What is a woman? Should I use a co-worker’s preferred pronouns? But few questions have the rhetorical and emotional power as that of attending a gay wedding.
By and large the church has quickly and consistently spoken with a unified perspective. Pastors and theologians such as John Piper, Kevin DeYoung, Al Mohler, Doug Wilson, Denny Burk, Steven Lawson, and countless others have laid forth the conviction that attending such a ceremony is inappropriate and unwise at best, if not outright sinful. With them, I am in agreement.
Although I sympathize with the emotional weight of the decision, I think the logic and theology of the matter is rather straightforward. Attending a gay or transgender ceremony is inappropriate in light of clear biblical principles. How do we arrive at such a position? Here are a handful of the convictions that lead to this conclusion:
- Gay marriage is not marriage. It is a mirage. In other words, a gay (or transgender) wedding is not a wedding because the union is not a marriage. Marriage is, by definition, the union of a man and woman, and thus any distortion of that is, by definition, not marriage. Marriage involving adultery, unbiblical divorce, and any of a handful of other sins, may be gross and immoral, but a real marriage is nonetheless taking place (and thus it is not necessarily inconsistent to attend the remarriage of someone who was unbiblically divorced). But with “gay marriage” there is no marriage at all.
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. (Genesis 2:24)
- Attendance of a wedding implies acceptance and approval. In other words, it is not a neutral act. One might attend a retirement ceremony and be absolutely convinced for some reason that the person shouldn’t retire or attend a concert and not agree with the politics of the musician or attend a birthday for a noted racist or attend a graduation ceremony for your child though you hate their chosen degree, but attending a wedding is of a different nature.
Consider the traditional part of a ceremony where the officiant asks if anyone present knows of any reason why these two might not be joined in holy matrimony. Now, this is no longer part of many ceremonies, but why was it traditionally included? Well, that language was incorporated into The Book of Common Prayer as a way of signifying the Church’s understanding that attending a wedding carried forth certain responsibilities. Attendees act as witnesses and celebrants of the union. Thus, they are not only given permission, but are required to object if there is a valid objection (the bride is already married, the groom was married and forsook his family, the groom is a woman, both parties are brides, etc.).
For those who object to the idea that attendance implies acceptance, consider the alternative. What would not attending imply? Why would the bride or groom be offended if not attending didn’t mean something? And if not attending means something then surely attending means something as well.
After all, there is no legal reason for a wedding ceremony. Beyond one or two witnesses and some sort of approved officiant, there is no governmental requirement to make the joining of two persons in matrimony a public event. If you prefer, you can just go to the local justice of the peace for a few bucks. The reason for the public event is so that friends and family can join in the celebration of what is taking place. Again, the entire point of the ceremony is celebration! Attendance means approval, to the couple and to those others in attendance.
- The logic of attending the wedding doesn’t work when we plug in other sins. Oftentimes it is helpful in thinking through the logical implications of an issue to think of an analogous situation. Would the same logic apply if we simply switched out a few details? For instance, if you’re kid claims he isn’t hungry and thus doesn’t want dinner, but would love a bowl of cereal and a handful of candy, maybe the issue isn’t really his hunger level.
So consider the counter-argument in favor of attending the wedding. It is often said that though the wedding itself is sinful, Christians should still attend in order to show love and support to family and friends. Well, if so, then the logic should still hold if we think about how to show love and support in other scenarios involving the celebration of sin.
For instance,
Should a Christian attend a ceremony to celebrate his granddaughter’s abortion?
Should a Christian attend a relative’s hooding ceremony for the KKK?
Should a Christian attend a wedding where their child is marrying a child bride they purchased on the black market?
Should a Christian attend their grandson’s baptism into the church of Satan?
Should a Christian attend an incestuous wedding between their grandson and his stepmother (see 1 Corinthians 5)?
Now, I don’t know if the KKK has hooding ceremonies or if the church of Satan practices a form of baptism or even what an abortion party entails, but the point is to see if the principle holds.
If you are tempted to attend the gay wedding, but recoil at some of these other scenarios, I think that is telling. Namely, I think it shows that part of the problem in answering the question of attending a gay wedding is that to some degree we have already been desensitized to it. Homosexuality and transgenderism are such culturally celebrated issues that we have a greater yearning to capitulate and compromise here, lest we be considered bigots.
If the principle itself of showing love by attending a ceremony that celebrates sin is sound then it should be able to withstand the exercise of plugging in other sins. If it doesn’t, I think that indicates that the principle itself is flawed. I think it likely that Christians who would consider attending a gay wedding would shudder to think of attending a KKK ceremony and that suggests an inconsistency that should be explored. Namely, I think it shows that the logic of attending the wedding is warped.
- Love never lies. Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth (1 Corinthians 13:6). But on the other hand, a gay wedding celebrates and consecrates a lie. As Christians we are to “speak the truth in love.” Notice those virtues are not at odds. It isn’t that we choose either truth or love, but rather both. In fact, to lie to another is to fail to love them.
Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! (Isaiah 5:20)
They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace. (Jeremiah 8:11)
The truth may initially hurt, but it eventually heals. We see the opposite with falsehood. Though lies may comfort, they ultimately condemn and kill. The idea that we have to sacrifice what is true in order to love buys into a cultural lie that puts asunder what God has joined together. In other words, what is actually most loving might very well be the thing that others perceive as hateful and what is actually hateful might appear most loving. Love is always and intrinsically related to truth. We can’t simply assume the culture’s definition of love, but must define words according to God’s Word.
As Al Mohler has stated, “One of the hardest issues for every Christian will be the responsibility to relate to everyone we know with both love and truth. But it is truth that protects love from dissolving into mere sentimentality. Likewise, it is love that prevents truth from being reduced to impersonal abstractions.”
- The Bible forbids participation in sinful celebrations. Some may consider the question of attending a gay wedding to be of the category of acts known as adiaphora (neither commanded nor condemned in Scripture). The classic example of this would be eating meat sacrificed to idols. So some may want to say that just as the Bible gives permission to eat meat sacrificed to idols, so we should give permission to attend a gay wedding. But that fails to consider the full context of what Scripture says about eating meat sacrificed to idols.
In Romans 14, Paul is certainly dealing with adiaphora issues. In that context, he gives freedom to eat or not eat depending on individual conscience. But in 1 Corinthians 8 and 10, Paul takes a different tact. He says that to eat meat that was knowingly sacrificed to idols would be to be a participant with demons and he says that to eat meat in a context that would cause another to stumble would be forbidden.
Now, Paul wasn’t contradicting himself. Rather, he was dealing with two entirely different scenarios. There are contexts in which it would be okay to eat the meat, but Christians must never eat that meat as a part of a feast dedicated to an idol.
This is important because it cuts off one main objection to the more conservative position. Namely, that you can attend as long as your private intention is one of disagreeing with the wedding. But in that case, Paul’s advice doesn’t make sense. The idol’s feast has a public meaning that is at odds with following Christ and thus the Christian isn’t to partake, even if they were to privately disagree.
Or, to consider another example, think of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. What if they absolutely did not intend in their hearts to worship Nebuchadnezzar’s image? What if they had even explained their position to Nebuchadnezzar beforehand? Would they therefore have been justified in bowing to the idol? Of course not. But why not? Because that public act has a recognizable public meaning regardless of the private intentions of the parties. It seems to me that the logic of that holds for a wedding as well.
Conclusion
For at least the past decade, the question of attending a gay wedding has been on the evangelical conscience. But it has erupted recently given the news that a high-profile conservative pastor advised a grandmother to attend just such a wedding. Though I disagree with his counsel, I also think that such a misstep shouldn’t nullify a lifetime of faithful ministry.
But one line in his comments stood out to me. He said that he was “concerned about the well-being of their [grandmother and grandchild] relationship more than anything else.” What stood out to me is that phrase “more than anything else.” I think that is the key. While that relationship is certainly important, we can never say that it is more important than anything else. Faithfulness to God, loving God, obeying God, speaking the truth, etc. is more important than familial relationships which is why Jesus said that the gospel will ultimately divide fathers from sons and mothers from daughters and so forth. Family relationship is so very important, but it is not ultimate. Only Christ is ultimate.
For further consideration:
Ask Pastor John: Would You Attend a Gay Wedding?
The Gospel Coalition: Is Attending a Wedding an Endorsement?
Ligonier Ministries: True Compassion and LGBTQ Weddings
Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: Should Christians Attend Gay Weddings?
Kevin DeYoung: The Case Against Christians Attending a Gay Wedding
Robert Gagnon: Is it Loving for a Faithful Christian to go to a “Gay Wedding”?