SBC leader says Christians should not attend a same-sex wedding

A Southern Baptist seminary president’s forthcoming book is making headlines with a suggestion that Christians should not attend a same-sex wedding ceremony, even it if means boycotting the marriage of their own child.

"STANDING RESOLUTE" screamed a front-page headline in the Oct. 13 Louisville Courier-Journal reporting on Albert Mohler’s We Cannot Be Silent: Speaking Truth to a Culture Redefining Sex, Marriage, and the Very Meaning of Right and Wrong, due for release Oct. 27 from Thomas Nelson.

The story, picked up Oct. 14 by USA Today and Religion News Service Oct. 15, quoted the president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary as saying that while boycotting a loved one’s wedding is a difficult choice, by attending, a Christian would imply "moral approval" of same-sex marriage.

"At some point, attendance will involve congratulating the couple for their union," Mohler wrote in the book. "If you can’t congratulate the couple, how can you attend?"

The article quoted critics including Joe Phelps, pastor of nearby Highland Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky., which performed its first same-sex wedding earlier this year. According to the newspaper. Phelps, whose church left the Southern Baptist Convention years ago over difference with the convention’s conservative leadership, praised Mohler’s intellect but called his words "harsh and offensive."

While timely in light of recent media coverage of protests against a recent conference on homosexuality held on the seminary campus, Mohler’s views are in fact nothing new. In 2011 he criticized Prosperity Gospel preacher Joel Osteen for telling CNN's Piers Morgan that while he would not marry a same-sex couple, he would attend a gay wedding.

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"This is beyond mere incoherence. It is moral and theological nonsense," Mohler ranted. "More than that, it is a massive statement of ministerial malpractice."

"You cannot celebrate what you say you know to be sin," Mohler said. "You cannot honestly say that same-sex marriage defies the law of God, and then join in the celebration of that ceremony."

Mohler elaborated in a blog a week later titled "Would You Attend a Same-Sex Wedding?" He called it "incoherent and inconsistent to refuse to perform a same-sex marriage ceremony, and then to attend one."

"The reason for this is deeply rooted in the nature and history of the wedding ceremony," he wrote. "The presence of witnesses at a marriage ceremony affirms the righteous nature of the union. The ceremony then becomes an occasion of shared joy and celebration.

"The traditional Christian ceremony, as reflected in The Book of Common Prayer, asks if anyone present knows of any reason why the couple should not be joined in holy matrimony. That is not intended as a hypothetical question. It is intended to ensure that no one present knows of any reason that the union should not be solemnized, recognized, and celebrated.

"To put the matter straightforwardly, any Christian who knows that same-sex marriage violates God’s law and purpose for marriage knows — and cannot act as if he or she does not know — that a same-sex couple should not be joined in holy matrimony. To remain silent at that point is to abdicate theological and biblical responsibility. Even if the question is not formally asked in the ceremony, the issue remains. We cannot celebrate what we know to be wrong."

Nor is Mohler the first Southern Baptist leader interested in winning gay people to Jesus who draws the line at attending a same-sex wedding. Russell Moore, head of the SBC Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, said during a three-day conference on "The Gospel, Homosexuality, and the Future of Marriage" in 2014 that while he would not attend a gay friend’s wedding ceremony, he would attend the wedding reception.

"I think that what a wedding ceremony is is a gathering of witnesses who by their very presence are saying, ‘We are here in order to support this couple and to walk with this couple forward, hold them accountable and to walk forward,'" Moore explained. "In that case, I would not attend the wedding. Now, I would attend the reception. I think it’s a different thing."

Denny Burk, professor of biblical studies at Boyce College, blogged in May that "attendance at a wedding is not like attending a concert, where attendance suggests nothing about your own views on the proceedings."

"A wedding is a public recognition of a union, and those in attendance are there to help celebrate and add their assent to the union," Burk wrote. "There is a reason that the traditional ceremony includes the bit about ‘let him speak now or forever hold his peace.’ The witnesses are not merely spectating. Their mere presence implies their support of the union. Because our Lord has told us not to celebrate or approve sin (Isa. 5:20; Rom. 1:32), Christians should not attend gay weddings."

"Can we invite our gay neighbors to dinner? Can we welcome them as guests in our home? Can we work alongside them as colleagues at our places of business? Can we offer real friendship and love?" Burk asked. "Yes, yes, yes, and yes. But we may not attend their wedding. We should vigorously pursue other ways to love our gay friends and neighbors that don’t include compromise on issues of truth. No one relishes the conflict that comes with declining such an invitation. It’s a tough call, but it is the right call."

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