If anybody is left wondering about the status of biblical Christianity in the American public square, they need to look no further than Pride Month. During June—that’s right, the entire month of June—the LGBTQ+ coalition bombards the airwaves and parties in the streets, celebrating the behaviors and attitudes of people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, queer, intersexual, and asexual.
To be clear, Pride Month isn’t about securing the right to act out their sexuality privately without negative repercussions. Quite the opposite: it is about celebrating their sexual preferences publicly through parades, public parties, and rainbow flags in the streets. What’s more, it’s about pressuring our nation’s governing institutions, universities, sports leagues, brands, and corporations into treating the whole movement as a heroic civil rights exercise.
None of this should be surprising. For nearly a century now, America’s ruling class has conspired to sever American society and culture from its roots in the Judeo-Christian worldview. They’ve largely succeeded. Not only has historic Christianity been firmly displaced from the default position, many Americans view its ethical teachings as backward and bigoted. But it is also now surrounded by a Praetorian guard of competing worldviews, ideologies, and “takes” on life—such as LGBTQ+.
We must be faithful to Christ on every point, including this point, the one upon which our culture is applying the most pressure.
So, here we are. And we should not undermine the victories achieved so far by the secular progressive movement—Pride Month is celebrated, and Christianity is systematically canceled.
Why is Pride Month such a big deal for Christians?
Yet, many secular people and an increasing number of Christians express bafflement that we voice our opposition: “Why are you so ‘up in arms’ about other people’s lifestyles? What’s the big deal?”
The big deal is this: through Scripture, God has revealed that the practices of homosexuality and transgenderism are unnatural. They don’t merely contradict the distinctively Christian ethic outlined in the Bible; they flout the universal moral law, known by all people in all places at all times.
Concerning homosexuality, consider the apostle Paul’s argument to the Roman church. Like all sin, homosexual sin exchanges the glory of God for the glory of man. Unlike many sins, however, homosexuality is unnatural: “Women gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error” (Rom 1:22-27).
Concerning transgenderism, consider the first two chapters of Genesis. God divided the human race into two genders, predetermining who we are as a matter of divinely-given DNA. “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Gen 1:27). Thus, it is a sin for a man to pretend to be a woman, and vice-versa.
Why write an article criticizing the LGBTQ+ movement? Because the world belongs to God, and not to us.
So, homosexuality, transgenderism, and the other “isms” of the LGBTQ+ alphabet are a big deal to God. And they should be a big deal to us, also. We must resist any social pressure to capitulate because our conscience is beholden to God, and his will is being flouted publicly for an entire month by millions of people. We must be faithful to Christ on every point, including this point, the one upon which our culture is applying the most pressure.
How should Christians respond to LGBTQ+ ideology and activism?
Given the Bible’s teaching about LGBTQ+ “isms,” therefore, how should Christians respond to LGBTQ+ ideology and public square activism? In brief, we must resist it. We must not be complicit.
As an ideology, the LGBTQ+ movement is built around the idols of sexual identity and sexual gratification. In other words, it is a false religion whose movement centers on a counterfeit god and a false savior. For many people, Pride Month plays the same role in the annual “worship calendar” that Easter plays for Christians.
By commandeering the month of June and bombarding the public square, the LGBTQ+ movement is consciously seeking to displace the influence of Christianity by taking control of “time” and “space.” Historian Carl Trueman writes:
It is a basic fact of history that if you control time and space, you also control the culture. The early Christians of the fourth century knew that as they slowly but surely claimed space in pagan Roman culture for churches and marked the rhythm of time with the development of the liturgical calendar. And all sides in our current political divisions know this as well. It is why debates about the naming of Columbus Day and the status of Confederate statues and the flag of the Confederacy are such contentious topics. These arguments are not just about the things themselves. They are about who owns time and space. In short, they are about who owns the culture’s memory and imagination.
Indeed. The LGBTQ+ movement and the power brokers, professional agitators, lobbies, and corporations who promote it are experiencing tremendous success, and their victories will continue to weaken and degrade our nation.
We must find ways, practically, of resisting this ideology and its activism. We can resist by casting votes for legislators and presidential candidates who refuse to glorify the LGBTQ+ movement. We can register our consciences by boycotting corporations (e.g., Bud Light, Target) that deify sexual identity and sexual desire. We can protest Drag Queen Story Hours and other campaigns that target children. In sum, we can and must find practical ways to resist the ideology and its activism. There is no room for Christian sympathy regarding a movement that redefines God’s design for gender and sexuality.
We Belong to God
Why write an article criticizing the LGBTQ+ movement? Because the world belongs to God, and not to us. We belong to God; our conscience is captive to him and thus we must speak the truth in love, even when the truth is uncomfortable. We do a great disservice to God, to our nation, and the LGBTQ+ community if we muffle the truth by remaining silent. Let us not be complicit.
