Why Christians cannot support the pride agenda
The month of June is historically the first full month of summer when families engage in vacations, BBQ, and baseball. However, in recent years, the month has been filled with rainbows and a public embrace of homosexuality. June has now been nicknamed, “Pride Month” in support of the LGBTQA+ agenda. Let’s be clear—there’s a massive agenda funded by corporations and government programs that demand equity.
As we consider what the Bible teaches about pride, there is an acceptable version of pride. As Paul was proud of the church at Corinth (2 Cor 7:4), so should we be proud of our loved ones and fellow believers within our local church without shame? However, the Scripture is abundantly clear in the wisdom literature of the Bible that God hates a sinful and proud heart filled with arrogance and proud speech.
Proverbs 8:13 – “The fear of the LORD is hatred of evil. Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate” (ESV).
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The Christian cannot affirm the LGBTQA+ lifestyle
The Bible is explicitly clear. The text says that the “fear of the LORD is hatred of evil.” What does it mean to fear the LORD? Obviously, we must learn to reverence God with a holy fear that remembers the fact that our God is a consuming fire (Heb 12:29). One of the most practical ways we do that is by submitting to God and following his way. The path of our God is lit by the lamp of God’s Word (Ps 119:105).
The Christian is to love the things that God loves and hate the things that God hates. We know what God loves and what God hates by reading Holy Scripture. We are consistently taught in our culture that we are to affirm and support homosexual and transgender perversion. This has not only led to a massive amount of confusion, it has likewise opened the door to child abuse. A number of years ago, I watched as a parade of homosexuals marched down the streets of a major city in America chanting, “We’re here, we’re queer, and we’re coming after your children.” Today, they are butchering bodies and poisoning children legally in the trans movement.
We live in a time period when opening a Bible on the public school campus and teaching the Scriptures is considered to be an unlawful activity. However, inviting a transgender man with a painted face dressed in sleazy clothing who is pretending to be a woman into a media center and allowing him to read books as he struts his body around before children is viewed as acceptable. It’s not acceptable. It’s child abuse.
The culture around us is promoting the false gospel of social justice with a variety of ideologies such as intersectionality and DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) in order to disciple young people into believing that the LGBTQA+ (and all manner of progressive living) is normal. In order to normalize such devious and depraved lifestyles — the agenda is given a large microphone with colorful rainbow banners to wave before the eyes of people for 30 days every summer in the name of tolerance, acceptance, equity, and love. If you truly want to love your neighbor, you will refuse to support the pride agenda. Martin Luther observes:
“If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at the moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved to be steady … [It] is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point [of attack].”1
God hates the LGBTQA+ agenda
The Scripture makes it clear that God hates prideful hearts and arrogant and perverted speech. Hate is a serious word, but it’s also a Bible word.
Proverbs 8:13 – “The fear of the LORD is hatred of evil. Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate” (ESV).
The pride of self-mutilation, homosexual sex, and arrogant speech that denies the fact that God is the designer of human sexuality, and He sets the boundaries is deplorable. President Biden, on March 29, 2024, issued a proclamation declaring that March 29 is “Transgender Day of Visibility.” He issued the following statement:
“Transgender Americans are part of the fabric of our Nation. Whether serving their communities or in the military, raising families or running businesses, they help America thrive. They deserve, and are entitled to, the same rights and freedoms as every other American, including the most fundamental freedom to be their true selves. But extremists are proposing hundreds of hateful laws that target and terrify transgender kids and their families — silencing teachers; banning books; and even threatening parents, doctors, and nurses with prison for helping parents get care for their children. These bills attack our most basic American values: the freedom to be yourself, the freedom to make your own health care decisions, and even the right to raise your own child.”
Our President occupies the highest office in the land. As a civil magistrate, he is called to rule and lead righteously (Rom 13). President Biden’s support of the butchering of little children in the name of “health care” while referring to faithful pastors and Christians who stand opposed to the LGBTQA+ agenda as “extremists” falls into the category of perverted speech that God hates (Prov 8:13). God hates the speech of President Biden and anyone else who would support this wicked agenda.
While we can show love to homosexuals and those who engage in the transgender lifestyle with gentleness — we must be clear that we cannot support their decisions and their depraved agenda. The most loving thing to do is to explain why it is that God hates their way of living. All humans are created in the image and likeness of God. Any form of homosexuality or transgender practice is a means of deforming that image. It’s a way of denying God by exchanging the image of God for the image of perverted man. This is tragic and the church of Jesus Christ must speak clearly on this subject. This is the loving thing to do — to hate the things that God hates and to point people to their hope in Jesus Christ.
God saves LGBTQA+ sinners
When Paul wrote to the church at Corinth, he made it clear that the church was made up of all sorts of people from a variety of backgrounds. This is the beauty of the Church. Rather than attempting to create a manipulated diversity through the use of cultural ideologies like CRT (critical race theory), when the Gospel is preached faithfully — God calls people out of darkness and depravity into the marvelous light of Christ (1 Peter 1:9).
When addressing the church at Corinth, Paul writes the following in 1 Corinthians 6:9–11:
“Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”2
Notice the fact that as he addressed the church, he made it clear that their former ways of sinful living were in the past rather than the present. Although they were previously engaged in idolatry, adultery, sexual immorality, and homosexuality — they were changed by the power of the Gospel. They had been washed clean and conformed to the image of Christ. That’s what sanctification does in the lives of people. The work of the Holy Spirit shapes people into the image of Christ rather than the image of a depraved world.
As people in Corinth turned to Christ from a life of sin, they didn’t go in search of a church that celebrates adultery, a church that celebrates thievery, or a church that celebrates homosexuality. Instead, they followed Jesus into a true church where they walked away from their sin and submitted themselves to the Word of God under the faithful shepherding of pastors who would care for their souls.
If you are gripped by sinful pride in the LGBTQA+ movement — there is hope for you in Jesus Christ. Repent and turn away from your sin and trust in the work of Jesus’ sacrificial death in your place and you will receive the forgiveness of sin (John 3:16; Romans 1:16-18; Romans 8:1; Romans 10:13).
References
1. Quoted by Francis A. Schaeffer in The Great Evangelical Disaster, Crossway, 1984, p. 50-51.
2. 1 Corinthians 6:9-11.
Originally published at G3 Ministries.
Josh Buice serves as the pastor of Pray’s Mill Baptist Church, a 180-year-old church where G3 Conferences began. Josh is the husband to Kari and father of four children: Karis, John Mark, Kalli, and Judson. He studied at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he earned his MDiv and DMin in expository preaching. He also serves as Assistant Professor of Preaching for Grace Bible Theological Seminary in Conway, Arkansas. Josh has a passion for biblical preaching, missions, church planting, and the local church. In his spare time, he enjoys reading, running, hunting, and spending time with his family.
