Gay Pride Comes Before a Fall
As we approach the day tomorrow where we celebrate our country's 250 years of existence, it is worth noting that we also just ended the month our country celebrated Gay Pride. Yet long after our semiquinncentennial party is over, we will still be dealing culturally with what last month represented.
Baseball is at the heart of Americana, as we hear in the old advertising slogan “Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie, and Chevrolet.” So when players wear mandated rainbow baseball caps and stadiums have LGBTQ+ events in front of children, we know the celebration and promotion of homosexuality in all its forms has become mainstream. As we reflect on the history of our nation, perhaps also reflecting on what the Bible says about where pride leads people, would be in order in thinking about our country's future.
A Brief Survey
The homosexual community has been far wiser at discipling this nation than the church has, proving Jesus’ assertion that the sons of this age are more shrewd than the sons of light. The article “The Overhauling of Straight America” from The Guide, a gay pride magazine, explains their strategy for accomplishing the acceptance of homosexuality in American culture. This article first appeared in the November 1987 issue (let how long they have been at work sink in). As David Limbaugh explains in his book Persecution, the homosexual community has followed this six-point strategy:
1) Talk about gays and gayness as loudly and as often as possible until people become accepting of it.
2) Portray gays as victims, not as aggressive challengers.
3) Give protectors a just cause, i.e., make it appear that gays are being discriminated against.
4) Make gays look good and paint gays as the pillars of society.
5) Make the victimizers look bad.
6) Solicit funds for the cause from influential gays.
In his autobigraphical account of his ministry entitled When the Wicked Seize a City, Charles McIllhenny, an Orthodox Presbyterian Church pastor who ministered in San Francisco for many years, described how the gay community took over that city, confirming these points of strategy. McIllhenny documented how the homosexuals wanted to seize control in a major city or two first, then spread throughout the nation. Through their steady, zealous pursuits, the gay community has seen landmark decisions follow, such as the 2003 Lawrence v. Texas outlawing sodomy laws and the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges allowing same-sex couples to marry. Clearly, the LGBTQ+ movement has become the transcendant social movement of our day.
Yet where will all this Gay Pride lead?
The Biblical Perspective on Pride
The proverbial statement "pride comes before a fall" is actually found in the Proverbs in this form: "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall" (Prov. 16:18). In the Scriptures, pride is when mankind arrogantly despises God's Word and chooses a path of his own making. The immediate context of this proverb shows this contrast.
How much better to get wisdom than gold!
To get understanding is to be chosen rather than silver.
The highway of the upright turns aside from evil;
whoever guards his way preserves his life. (Prov. 16:16-17)
Following God's Word protects and preserves life; turning from the Lord's will to evil opens a people up to destruction and a terrible fall.
Yet when it comes to what people deem as gay pride, the path of horrible judgment is even more definitive. Any label found under the LGBTQ+ "rainbow" would fall under the Bible's teaching.
In Romans 1, the Apostle Paul traces how the path of pride spirals downward. As men and women reject God, they exchange truth for a lie, exchange worshiping the Creator for manmade idols and ideology, and then, as they further spiral, exchange "natural relations for those that are contrary to nature" (Rom. 1:25-26). Homosexuality is not a natural orientation, but a perversion or twisting of nature. Paul goes on to say
For this reason, God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another (Rom. 1:26-27).
The word translated as 'natural' here is the word phusikos, from which we get the word 'physical.' The Word of God says that when a man and woman, bound together for life within the bonds of marriage, come together in sexual union, that is a beautiful, physical gift God has given to the world. Anyone should be able to see how He designed man and woman to share this gift. The exchange of this natural gift, from which the fruitfulness of children naturally comes forth, with the unnatural, barren practice of homosexuality, goes against the very way the world has been made.
Many who support this lifestyle claim, “But it is my natural orientation. I was born to feel this way.” However, that contradicts what God’s Word says. Repeatedly, the Spirit of Christ denies the idea that homosexuality is a natural orientation. “God gave them over in the lust of their hearts.” “They exchanged the truth for a lie.” “God gave them over to degrading passions.” “Their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural.” “Men abandoned the natural function.”
The Inevitable Consequences
God holds the culpability of this sin against the one practicing it, as a perversion of the natural, an exchange of the natural for the unnatural. Any sense that one might have that this is normal behavior should hear that God is giving you over to your own lusts, and that should terrify you. Homosexual sin is like one who jumps off a high cliff and believes that there is no law of gravity because, hey, he is flying. Perhaps in the initial sensation, it can appear that this jump is exciting and no one will be hurt by it. But those who engage in this lifestyle will soon find they will hit bottom. The end result is the disastrous ruining of lives and souls, which I have sadly witnessed in people as I sought to minister to them.
Yet what about when a whole nation chooses this path? Speaking of a nation's history, perhaps it is time to recall the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah. As much as modernists seek to deny, debunk, and deride this Biblical story, these city-states were actual historical communities that had become so overly indulgent in their perversions that the Lord destroyed them for it. Or read The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire to see where paraphilia leads. Edward Gibbon regularly reminds his readers of the sexual debauchery that undermined Rome's power, saying of the first fifteen emperors, "Claudius was the only one whose taste in love was entirely correct." When a society unravels its social fabric by tolerating detestable sexual practices, it is severely weakened morally and will inevitably collapse.
The Saltless Modern Church
The preservation of nations from sinful corruption and homosexual degradation is suppose to come from the church. Yet a quick look at the church's summer activity in this regard is surely disheartening. The Evangelical Presbyterian Church appears to be opening the door to allow celibate same-sex attracted men and women to serve as pastors, through the influence of Revoice proponent Greg Johnson. Dr. Al Mohler, in his article "The Episcopalian heads for extinction" in WORLD magazine, states, "Over the last several decades, the Episcopalians had joined the sexual revolution, ordained women as priests, moved toward the full blessing of the LGBTQ spectrum, and embraced radical theology. " The PC(USA) actually debated whether ministers had to be monogamous or not, choosing not to vote this year on this issue because it was deemed too controversial.
How have whole denominations, once faithful to the gospel, fallen to such depths?
In part, it is due to the training that seminaries are giving modern pastors. For example, the other seminary in the city of Pittsburgh (that shares the intials of the seminary I serve except for the first one) is a case in point. It has an LGBTQIA section in its library featuring books with titles such as: The Queer Bible Commentary; Gay Theology without Apology; What God Has Joined Together?: A Christian Case for Gay Marriage; Rainbow Theology: Bridging Race, Sexuality, and Spirit; and Rescuing Jesus: How People of Color, Women, & Queer Christians are Reclaiming Evanelicalism. Besides the obvious blasphemy of saying Jesus needs rescued, these books, course teaching, and events they sponsor contain a dangerous brew of LGBTQ+ ideology, wokeism, feminism, and gnostic forms of Christianity. Those receiving such training do have an impact on church and society. The internet tells me, and observation would confirm, that "Pittsburgh is widely considered a highly queer-friendly city, scoring a perfect 100 on the Human Rights Campaign’s Municipality Equality Index."
The church and the academy need to recall what B.B. Warfield stated in his small yet important work, The Religious Life of a Theological Student."A minister must be learned, on pain of being utterly incompetent for his work. But before and above being learned, a minister must be godly.” For ungodly ministers create ungodly churches, with the result that our Lord warned the church against. "You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet" (Matt. 5:13).
Conclusion
As our nation remembers its history this weekend, we will hear many leaders and orators boast of America's greatness. Undoubtedly, many renditions of Lee Greenwood's "I'm Proud to be an American" will be played as fireworks go off above gathered crowds. Rainbow flags will be among those proudly waved. Yet will the church faithfully warn as Jeremiah did? "The proud one shall stumble and fall, with none to raise him up, and I will kindle a fire in his cities, and it will devour all that is around him" (Jer. 50:32).
