Pride is Destruction

Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before the fall. Proverbs 16:18

It is June and that means it is Alzheimer’s Awareness Month. Oh, you didn’t know? Perhaps that is because June is also known as PRIDE month. Though one might be a more noble cause than the other. All over the nation, and world, corporations put on rainbow flags and put out statements of support for those in the LGBTQ+ community. Even the Marines are getting in on the action: https://twitter.com/USMC/status/1531994393950953472?s=20&t=gYB78yAx9sKbGxkBWXXUOcZFepYO7mDRDY6trgVWpr0 PRIDE is a month of celebration for those of varying sexual identities, as if a person’s identity can be boiled down to gender pronouns and sexual preferences, but in our highly sexualized culture that is precisely what has happened in the last 50+ years. The inherit contradictions in the acronym itself are part of the point of PRIDE.  For instance, the very idea that one is born gay stands at odds with the idea that one is born transgender. The ideologues of sexual identity can have it both ways because postmodernism has won the battle.  In their minds and their hearts, the cognitive dissonance is the point.  Live YOUR truth. It need not be logically coherent, only sexually satisfying. That is, of course, unless you are part of the out group known as cis-gendered heterosexuals. Then, the only acceptable identity is that of "ally." https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1532414239695990796?s=20&t=AdTEHawPwuDrvg3cogIh2w The LGBTQ+ activists claim that grooming children into their ideology isn't the point just that Drag Queen shows are appropriate for children because Drag is “fun.” https://twitter.com/JackieCoxNYC/status/1530565008999972867?s=20&t=Ru_D_EHVp4OE34d1Xji03w There are gay and trans kids?  How? Why?  This is grooming at its finest and most despicable. To define any child by sexual appetite seems predatorial and it used to be. https://twitter.com/Bel_B30/status/1531772286520500228?s=20&t=mJ7mkqLkPkzeDL0uJmMO5g Last year, children’s programming on Disney and Nickelodeon included Drag Queens, Pride Parades, and allusions to transgenderism.  We can expect more of the same in 2022. But none of this is the apex of the issue when it comes to this month. Beneath all the moral preening and activism stands one foundational cornerstone, and it is not hidden. In fact, it is in the name: Pride. https://twitter.com/thechurchsplit/status/1532011217686085633?s=20&t=MnUxwZ7u-GGYOAHdTrRCxQ This tweet hits the nail on the head.  The very idea that one should be proud of their sexual proclivities is something of an absurdity.  I am a heterosexual male.  I am glad that I am, but I am not proud of it. It is not something I wish to shout from the rooftops. It is not part of my core identity.  I do not relate to the world and every aspect of my life through a sexual framework.  If I did, that would be extremely unhealthy. So how should a Christian respond to Pride month?  Revulsion is not too strong a word.  Not revulsion at the idea that there are those that have sexually divergent proclivities. For individuals steeped in any sin we offer truth, grace, love and the gospel. But revulsion at the idea of pride in and of itself being virtuous.  Pride of anything, let alone pride of sexual behavior, is not virtuous. In scripture, pride is a pejorative. In our culture, Pride, in the sin of sexual self-indulgence, is a virtue. God is opposed to the proud but gives grace to the humble (James 4:6). But pride in sinful things is even worse:

The fear of the LORD is hatred of evil. Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate.

Proverbs 8:13

You rebuke the insolent, accursed ones, who wander from your commandments.

Psalm 119:21

Pride month, in that sense, is an affront to God in and of itself, but when coupled with a coopted promise of God (the rainbow) and the audacity to call that which is clearly contrary to God’s law good, it is somehow even worse. In Mark 7:20-23 Jesus speaks clearly on the issue of pride and defilement (emphasis mine):

And he (Jesus) said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts,

sexual immorality

, theft, murder,

adultery

, coveting, wickedness, deceit,

sensuality

, envy, slander,

pride

, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

Pride month fills out nearly the entire list.  Pride is what threw Satan from the presence of God.  Pride is what convinced Adam and Eve to ignore God’s command and eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  Pride is what drove David to murder Uriah the Hittite. Pride is what kept the Pharisees from seeing their own sin and embracing Jesus.  Pride makes us gods in our own image and casts us into the despair of the flesh (Romans 1). Lest you think I am hateful of the men and women that partake in this yearly satanic ritual (Here I mean satanic in the technical sense. I do not believe they are Satanists, but they are living the lie of Genesis 3 and Romans 1. The act of worshipping self is, in and of itself satanic.) I am not.  I am in despair because I love them deeply.  After all, God’s

kindness

leads us to

repentance

(Romans 2:4).  It is not kind to play along with evil.  It is ultimately damning for the very person you are trying to care for (

see:

Of Truth and Empathy

). What is celebrated during Pride month is not simply the pursuit of equality regardless of identity.  Human dignity and care should, of course, be extended to all people.  What is celebrated during Pride month is the normalization of perversity and the insistence that anyone who does not fall in line with said normalization should be silenced. The Bible has much to say of pride, almost none of it good.  The only times pride is mentioned in a positive light is in relation to God's redemptive work.  As 1 Corinthians 1:31 says, "Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord." And the Corinthian church new something about boasting in sexual sin. Elsewhere we read of boasting God through Jesus Christ in Romans 15:17, Galatians 6:14, and Philippians 1:26 and many more. We may meet Pride month with Pride in our savior and the truth that He testifies to (John 18:37).  Part of that truth is the truth concerning fleshly pride, this includes sexuality (1 Corinthians 6:18;Matthew 19:4-6). To make sexuality the cornerstone of individual identity and liberty is idolatry. Being “proud of who you are” because of things you have accomplished is understandable so long as it does not morph into outright arrogance but being “proud of who you are” simply because of your sexual desires or identity is the epitome of arrogance and licentiousness. On top of all of this, the things celebrated during Pride Month are always outside of God’s design.  Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender identities are all parts of very real struggles and are very real natural proclivities, but they are nothing to be proud of.  They are evidence of a broken creation and a need for salvation.  Pride month, at its core, is an effort to numb the conscience and embrace licentiousness.  It is a direct repudiation of repentance! There are ways to respond to these proclivities that are both loving and based in truth. We

must

do so continuously without ceding ground on truth in the name of love because if we do, in the end, we will have neither truth nor love. I have written much on these topics, but much more could be said. The slippery slope of gender and sexual ideology is very real.  When this movement started the acronym was much shorter.  Now, it grows seemingly by the day.  There were once two genders, now there are countless.  There was once a desire for loving monogamy regardless of sexual preference and now there is an embrace of polyamory which extends beyond the scope of known gender identities.  Even pedophilia and bestiality are on the doorstep of normalization.  The tautological absurdity that love is love and the logical absurdity that small children ought to choose for themselves what gender they are and ought to be treated seriously in such statements leads us further down this slippery slope.  After all, if love is love and my six-year-old can choose her own gender why can’t she also choose to have a sexual relationship with a thirty-year-old man?  Love is love, is it not? The slippery slope is here, and pride led the way. So how should we respond?  This Pride Month I encourage all of us to think deeply about these issues.  The following is a collection of articles I have written on these topics. I am by no means the sole voice that should be listened to so let me plug a few more resources here:

Rachel Gilson

,

Christopher Yuan

,

Preston Sprinkle

Cuties – The Absurdity of Love is Love

Confronting Homosexuality

– Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Biblical Identity meets Gender

https://nationaltoday.com/alzheimers-brain-awareness-month/ https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/01/health/pride-month-explainer/index.html https://crossexamined.org/lgbtq-contradictions/ https://www.todaysparent.com/family/activities/fay-and-fluffy-the-fabulous-show/ https://boundingintocomics.com/2022/05/27/disney-uses-drag-queens-to-promote-fund-lgbtq-curriculum-in-public-schools/ https://people.com/parents/blues-clues-pride-parade-sing-along-nina-west/ https://www.screengeek.net/2021/08/06/muppet-babies-gonzo-gonzorella/ https://nypost.com/2021/11/15/allyn-walker-says-attraction-to-children-isnt-immoral/