You’ll likely already be aware that the month of June has been adopted – and generally accepted – as Pride month. Rainbow flags are to be found everywhere. Reactions to the current celebrations from within the Church have been as fascinating as they are divergent.
Shoot them
A Texas Baptist church pastor has caused outrage after saying that gay people should be “lined up and shot in the back of the head” in a month “when our entire country is celebrating the worst sin in the Bible.” At the other end of the spectrum, a “straight, married, ordained Christian cleric” said that if Jesus was alive, he’d be out there, waving the rainbow flag and marching with the rest of them.
Between these opposing opinions, Christian publishing company, Eerdmans tweeted last week, “Pride month is an important time to take a step back, listen to real stories, and seek to understand” – then provided a link to its Pride month Reading List (since deleted following criticism). Other conservative groups have also been making pro-LGBTI+ statements in recent days, notably Fox News and Guidepost Solutions.
In conflict with faith
Equally, there have been many who have stood up to what they see as the overt LGBTI+ propaganda clearly visible during Pride month. Several Tampa Bay Rays baseball players bravely declined to wear customised uniforms for the team's annual LGBT Pride event two weeks ago, stating the celebration was in conflict with their Christian faith. Elsewhere, ex-LGBT young men and women have been holding open-air events, in attempt to show how Jesus can transform anyone’s life.
There have been many who have stood up to what they see as the overt LGBTI+ propaganda clearly visible during Pride month.
In England, a Synod member has submitted a motion to the General Synod asking the Archbishop’s Council to stop – through legislation – the display of the Pride rainbow flag on church buildings. And The Christian Reformed Church, a small evangelical denomination of US and Canadian churches, has just voted to codify its opposition to homosexual sex by elevating it to the status of declaration of faith.
Back in the UK, concerns have been raised over the overt pro-LGBTI+ leanings of a charismatic church in central London. St Mary’s Marylebone is a Church of England plant. It boasts of having “many LGBTQ+ members, both individuals and couples, who serve and lead in our Sunday services, small groups, worship band, kids and youth teams”. Because same sex marriage is not yet legal in the C of E, the church regrets its inability “to perform marriages for same sex couples”.
Pompous and intolerant
Most believers find Pride events at the least distasteful, and often odious. The pomposity, the sexual innuendos, the narcissism are, to many, stomach-churning, even a deliberate provoking of the Godhead. I confess, that has very much been my own reaction on viewing such processions on TV. Some openly gay people have the same reaction – consider these reflections from Gareth Roberts.
The pomposity, the sexual innuendos, the narcissism are, to many, stomach-churning, like a deliberate provoking of the deity.
Pride marches apart, although few will want to admit it, perhaps we have the gay rights movement to thank for one thing: paving the way for society, and even – albeit belatedly and often begrudgingly – the Church, to actually acknowledge and accept the existence of people with homosexual attractions within their midst.
For until recent times, society largely showed little but scorn and antipathy (even hate) towards gay people. Any Christian discovering he or she had same sex attractions would never consider relating their experience with their pastor, or even with close friends in their fellowship. The fear of rejection, gossip, even excommunication, was very real.
Opportunity for humility
It’s interesting that increasingly, many evangelicals are adopting a more nuanced response to LGBTQ+ people. While insisting that we ought not affirm aspects of their lifestyles that are ungodly, the Gospel Coalition (Australia) urges believers to helpfully interact with them. Not via social media comments, condescension from our loungerooms, pews or pulpits. But by getting to know personally an LGBTQ+ person. Sitting down and having a coffee and getting to know them. Walking alongside them, not as a bystander or critic, but as a friend.
David Bennett is a celibate gay Christian and author of A War of Loves. While there is much to oppose in Pride, Bennett believes this month is an opportunity for Christians to pursue humility, and to seek deliverance from our own pride, which has long motivated the evangelical Church to look on the LGBTQI+ community in less than loving ways. Once that pride is dismantled, a new conversation can open up that will mean the gospel can be heard again, and deeper discipleship can begin.
Until recent decades, society largely showed little but scorn and antipathy (even hate) towards gay people.
Bennett distinguishes between pride that is boastful vanity and pride that is the opposite of shame – magnanimity, or greatness of soul. He supports the ‘pride’ of LGBTQI+ people who have overcome great hurdles to accept themselves.
Equally, he celebrates an even braver group, those who have committed to living for Christ without denying the reality of being gay; those who strove to throw off the oppressive effects of the wrong kind of pride that Jesus calls us to be delivered from.
Without seeking to deny the sin of homosexual practice (as ably put forward in this article by John Piper), let us also be aware of the fault of hasty judgementalism (Matt 7:2; John 8:7). Let us, rather, clothe ourselves with humility, and seek to address the pride that exists in our own lives (Col 3:12; James 4:10).
Top photo - piyamas dulmunsumphun / Alamy
