A Question of Hubris by Bob Perry

When Every Month is “Pride Month” and the Church is Expected to Celebrate

Every June, the Spirit of the Age demands that we pay homage to the sexual proclivities of a small minority of Americans. "Pride Month" they call it. And if you don't agree to applaud the exhibitions of its celebrants, you will be in for some serious backlash from the culture. But I have always been confounded by the connection between sexual choice and pride. Why would anyone consider their sexuality something to be proud of?

In a rational, morally respectable world, they wouldn't.

But we don't live in a rational world. We live in a rationalizing world. A world that not only mocks traditional morality and natural law but demands that we lionize the mockers.

Backstory

On June 28, 1969, New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular hangout for homosexuals in Greenwich Village, and arrested several employees and patrons. The reason for the raid was not because of its gay clientele, but because the Stonewall operators were suspected of running a Mafia-related extortion ring out of the bar.

The community reacted to the raid with days of protests and rioting that became known as the Stonewall Uprising. A year later, on June 28, 1970, supporters conducted the first “Pride March” to commemorate the riots. In the decades since then, the pride celebration has expanded to encompass the entire month of June.

The Stonewall riots were not just about the arrests that were made on that June night. They were a reaction to years of mistreatment and harassment that the mostly closeted gay community had endured. And the march that occurred a year later was more than a way to commemorate the Uprising. It was a poke in mainstream America's chest. The title of the march was no accident. It was the gay community's way of screaming for acceptance.

They were proud to be “out of the closet.”

The Origins of Pride Month

In the summer of 1969, what was then referred to as the "homosexual" lifestyle was not in any way mainstream. As a result, there is no doubt that those who practiced it were vilified, and some were abused both physically and emotionally. So, the reaction that became known as the Stonewall Uprising is not surprising. It was born of frustration. A cry for "rights" or "freedom" to be left alone and not harassed would be natural.

But instead, it became an expression of "pride." And the intensity of that cry has only increased over the ensuing 50 years.

Two Kinds of Pride

Exhibiting pride in something is not necessarily a negative thing. The first dictionary definition of pride is “the pleasure or satisfaction taken in an achievement, possession, or association.” I can be proud of an accomplishment, proud of my children, or proud of my country, for instance. While one could take any of these too far, there is nothing intrinsically bad about that kind of pride.

But philosophers and theologians have long considered the kind of pride that comes with an “irrationally corrupt sense of one’s personal value, status or accomplishments” to be a vice. Some call it “hubris.”

The Bible calls it the most heinous form of sin. It is one of the few things God tells us he hates:

I hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech ~ Proverbs 8:13

No form of sin is more defiant to God than the sin of usurping his position by claiming it for ourselves. And that’s what makes the hubristic form of pride so hideous.

The Most Heinous Form of Sin

We human beings find a lot of ways to rebel against our Maker. Any form of rebellion against God’s perfect moral nature is bad. But we add a special kind of malevolence to our actions when we remain unrepentant about them. We take it to the next level when we then brag about it for all the world to see. As C. S. Lewis put it in, Mere Christianity:

There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which everyone in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else and of which hardly any people, except Christians, ever imagine that they are guilty themselves. There is no fault which makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves. And the more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it in others.

According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison. It was through pride that the Devil became the Devil. Pride leads to every other vice. It is the complete anti-God state of mind.

Image Deniers

Being "made in the image of God" means that our identity reflects his. It means that he defines who we are and why we exist. The meaning and purpose of our lives are not found in the reflection we see in the bathroom mirror. They are found in objective reality. And that's why you don't need to have a complete understanding of biblical anthropology to know why sexual sin is particularly corrupting to us. Biology will suffice.

Every form of sexual sin is an abomination to God's design for human nature and natural marriage. But each of the letters in LGBTQ+ label finds a way to unrepentantly glorify the corruption. And "Pride Month" takes the rebellion to a whole new level.

When Every Month is Pride Month

As sad as it is to admit, celebrating "Pride Month" is something we've come to expect from the culture. But make no mistake, that is not the endgame of the Spirit of the Age. Acceptance by the culture is just a steppingstone that leads straight into the church. And when the Spirit of the Age shows up in the church demanding acceptance, we must resist it. Loudly and clearly.

If you doubt that celebrating Pride is about more than parades and rainbow flags, consider this reply to a recent Tweet by Megan Basham, a traditionally orthodox Christian who has sounded the alarm about the LGBTQ agenda working its way into the church. Here’s what she tweeted:

Here’s what pastors need to know— billionaires are funneling tens of millions of dollars into organizations to intensively train LGBTQ activists to come into your churches and undermine sound doctrine on gender and sexuality. We’re talking college-level training.
— Megan Basham (@megbasham) May 10, 2023

In response, a group called "The New Evangelicals" made it clear that that is their goal.

Queer Affirming churches are the future. https://t.co/So17zgs2RL
— The New Evangelicals (@newvangelicals) May 10, 2023

When it comes to defending the faith against this cultural tsunami, don't just be on guard in June. It turns out that every month is "Pride Month."

Bob Perry

is a graduate of the U. S. Naval Academy (B. S., Aerospace Engineering) and Biola University (M.A., Christian Apologetics). Recently retired, his professional aviation career included 8 years in the U. S. Marine Corps flying the AV-8B Harrier attack jet and nearly 32 years as a commercial airline pilot. Bob blogs about Christianity and the culture at: True Horizon.

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