John MacArthur's Shepherd's Conference removes Alistair Begg from speakers' lineup
Pastor, author and Christian radio personality Alistair Begg continues to face fallout from comments he made in a podcast last year about advice for Christians and same-sex weddings.
Begg’s bio has been removed from the website of the Shepherd’s Conference, a ministry of Grace Community Church led by Pastor John MacArthur, following controversy over Begg’s advice for a grandmother about attending her LGBT-identified grandson’s wedding.
An archived version of the site from November shows Begg listed as one of the speakers after MacArthur and Desiring God founder John Piper.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
The theme of this year’s Shepherd's Conference scheduled for March 6-8 is “Truth Triumphs.”
It wasn’t clear who made the decision for Begg not to participate. The Christian Post reached out to Grace Community Church for comment but did not receive a response.
Begg is also a guest lecturer for the Doctor of Ministry program at The Master's Seminary, which is run in partnership with Grace Community Church and where MacArthur serves as chancellor. It’s unknown whether Begg’s role at the seminary was also impacted by the decision to drop him from the Shepherd’s Conference.
The move is the latest in the backlash against the 71-year-old Begg, the senior pastor at Parkside Church in Cleveland, Ohio, who's also the voice behind the radio ministry "Truth For Life," carried by nearly 1,800 radio stations nationwide.
In recently resurfaced comments Begg made in a podcast for "Truth For Life" in September, in which he discussed his new book, The Christian Manifesto, and touched on a specific question he said a grandmother asked him about her grandson, whom she said was "about to be married to a transgender person," and whether she should attend the wedding.
Despite the podcast being nearly three months old, Begg’s advice resurfaced on social media, leading to a controversy that ultimately led to American Family Radio (AFR), the radio ministry of the American Family Association, making the decision to "no longer air" "Truth For Life" after more than a decade.
After initially declining to comment, Begg addressed the issue in front of his congregation during his Sunday sermon at Parkside Church last week.
In the message, taken from Luke 15, titled “Compassion vs. Condemnation,” Begg warned about our “inclination toward Pharisaism” that is “alive and well within all our hearts.”
“In that conversation with that grandmother, I was concerned about the well-being of their relationship more than anything else,” he explained. “Hence my counsel. Don't misunderstand that in any way at all.
“If I was on the receiving end of another question about another situation from another person at another time, I may answer absolutely differently, but in that case, I answered in that way, and I would not answer in any other way no matter what anybody says on the internet.”
In his message, Begg also acknowledged the controversy threatened his ministry’s popularity and said if that’s the case, he would much rather “go down on the side of compassion.”
“If I’ve gotta go down on the side of one or the other, I’ll go down on this side. I’ll go down on the side of compassion, with people actually accusing me of just weakness, rather than go down on the side of condemnation, which closes any doors of opportunity for future engagement with those who know exactly what we believe about the Bible and about Jesus,” said Begg.
Ian M. Giatti is a reporter for The Christian Post and the author of BACKWARDS DAD: a children's book for grownups. He can be reached at: [email protected].
