"Pride Month," a Word Please

[We posted this in the past, but a lot of subscribers have come aboard since. Besides, if Sodom can shout its sin every June, the army of the Lord can shout something nobler. Let holiness ring from heaven’s bell. And give no ground to the hounds of hell.]

Dear LGBTQ Community:

Our differences are irreconcilable. As Christians, we believe the Bible. If your worldview begins without God, we disagree on the very nature of reality. “So God created man in his own image...male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:27, ESV). Being in God’s image entails privilege and obligation. For life on earth, God gave us physical bodies and sexual reproduction. Sex is not inherently evil, but it can only be rightly expressed as God has authorized it to be expressed. And, the only sexual relationship God authorizes is between a man and woman who are rightly married to each other (Matt. 19:4-6). There is no other arrangement in which anyone can have a sexual relationship with divine approval.

Nature did not create anyone. God created nature. And God created people with a particular human nature. Some behavior is “contrary to nature” by perverting the way God made things. Scripture directly addresses homosexuality in multiple places. For example, “God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error” (Rom. 1:26-27). Any desire to do what God says not to do must be resisted. If homosexual relationships are sinful, then, if you desire homosexual relationships, you must resist the temptation. Crush the desire; it is evil. No practicing homosexual will inherit God’s kingdom, so says the Lord (1 Cor. 6:9-10).

Jesus also taught that “he who created them from the beginning made them male and female” (Matt. 19:4). You do not make yourself male or female. You are male or female at conception, by God’s design. You can no more choose your sex than your skin color. Men and women have different God-given natures and duties. It is wrong to blur the line between the sexes. God drew the line. No male has a God-given right to behave as a female, and vice versa. A man cannot act like a woman, dress like a woman, or approve the same in others without incurring God’s condemnation. A male cannot become a female by surgery, loud declaration, or force of habit. “A woman shall not wear a man’s garment, nor shall a man put on a woman’s cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God” (Deut. 22:5). In plainest language, God demands that men not dress like women, and women not dress like men. To do so is to be abominable in God’s eyes. Do it at your peril.

“Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall” (Prov. 16:18). Incredibly, you have hitched your movement to “pride,” a sin God specifically says will eventuate in your ruin. Is this the pinnacle of tone deafness? Deep down, you know you’re wrong. Like all of us, you’re made in God’s image. Humans are meant to intuit certain truths about morality (cf. Rom. 2:14-15), even if we never hear a sermon, read a Bible, or take an ethics class. It’s hard to escape the guilt of living in a way you know is not right. You can’t outrun your shadow. Could it be that, the more “pride” you assert, the more it comes off as a sad effort to convince yourselves? After all, where is the movement of those who must talk up having “pride” in any other behavior? Why is “pride” the touchstone of LGBTQ people, but none other? Your “pride” betrays that you understand something is unnatural and the only way you can try to make it feel right is to insist that it’s worth being proud of. Even then, you’re not comfortable about it, as shown by your insistence that everyone endorse you. What other group is so insecure it cannot tolerate the existence of a divergent view?

You can call Christians “homophobic” or “transphobic,” as though we harbor an irrational fear stemming from ignorance or prejudice. Such is not correct. Christians oppose homosexuality because we hate sin. We love our Savior too much to endorse those who hate him. Therefore, we hold your “pride” flag in contempt because everything it represents is a slap in the face of a holy God. Vengeance belongs to him (Heb. 10:30). “God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap” (Gal. 6:7).

No denying, your successes are many. You turned God’s rainbow into a symbol for perversity. You got the Supreme Court to make a mockery of marriage by insisting it include same-sex unions. You accrue public sympathy by feigning victimhood. Your friends are in high places. You build organizations for self-promotion and defense against insult or injury, giving your ideology the appearance of legitimacy. You lay claim to an entire month every year when the whole country is expected to fawn over you. You insert yourselves everywhere, wanted or not. And it isn’t enough. It is never enough with you—not until you’ve silenced every sliver of opposition, demolished all sense of public decency, groomed the next generation to grovel for your cause, and herded a hopeless culture to the gates of hell.

Having denied God who created you, you make yourselves into gods. And society bows down in worship at your feet. But Jesus said, “You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve” (Matt. 4:10). It never goes well when someone who isn’t God pretends that he is.

So, here we are, at odds with each other. As Christians standing on Scripture, we are not moving. There is no agreement to be struck, no compromise to seek. It’s a simple matter of good versus evil. We invite you to repent, obey the gospel, switch sides while you can. “Save yourselves from this crooked generation” (Acts 2:40). Victory is only through “our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 15:57). To rage against righteousness is to fight a war you cannot win.

[A slightly different version of this piece first appeared in “Living Oracles” (Vol. XLII No. 3, Summer 2023), a publication of Tennessee Bible College.]