Pride Month
How Christians can still glorify God
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(Photo: via Associated Press)
It’s that time of year again when every company, sports league, person, and logo proudly display their rainbow colors (except in countries that disapprove of homosexuality of course). Sports teams will have pride night and commercials will fill the tv screen promoting pride. Through it all, Christians are still called to glorify God, but what does that look like?
Love Doesn’t Mean Accept
Some Christians will claim that, because God is love, Christians should accept homosexuality as okay because it’s just two people loving each other or the loving thing that a Christian can do is accept people as they are. While it is certainly true that God is love, as 1 John 4:8 makes clear, that also means that God gets to define what love is, not humans. Since God is love, the creation of our own definition of love that does not accurately reflect God is creating an idol. As such, it is vital that we get the definition of love correct.
Fortunately, the Bible has an entire section dedicated to describing what love is. Frequently read at weddings, 1 Corinthians 13 lays out the characteristics of agape love or the divine love of God. Theologians have used much ink writing about these verses so I won’t dissect them, but I do want to point out that acceptance of sin is not included. In fact, nowhere in the Bible is acceptance of sin considered loving.
This is in line with God’s character displayed in salvation. God did not accept us as sinners but loved us and saved us in spite of our sin. Ephesians 2:4-5 says, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved.”
Romans 6 makes it even clearer:
“We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin."
Through the cross, God didn’t accept us as sinners but crucified our old selves with Christ with the explicit purpose of bringing it “to nothing.” God didn’t leave us there though. God “made us into a new creation” as 2 Corinthians 5:17 says. Because God loved us, he didn’t accept us as we were but crucified our old sinful selves with Christ and transformed our nature completely in spite of who we were.
In attempting to reflect the character of God, Christians cannot accept sin, any sin including homosexuality, as okay.
How to Love
With that said, the Bible also makes it clear how Christians should love sinners both in the world and in the church. Going back to 1 Corinthians 13 verses 4-6 say:
“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.”
So often, Christians will say that love does not mean acceptance while also completely ignoring these verses here. They will use “love does not mean acceptance” as an excuse to be complete and total jerks towards any that disagrees with them. In a sense, this is a “christianization” of Ben Shapiro’s “facts don’t care about your feelings” as a way to justify speaking the truth in unwise and unloving ways.
Saying “homosexuality is a sin” is true, but how Christians say it and act towards those that disagree matters as well. The actions and speech of a Christian should be described as “patient,” “kind,” “not arrogant,” and “not rude”, especially in how they speak the truth and treat those who disagree.
Christians shouldn’t just ask themselves “how can I speak the truth?” but also “what is the kindest, least arrogant and rude way that I can speak the truth?” Deliberately being provocative may meet the standard of the first question, but it doesn’t meet the greater standard of the second question that Christians are called to live by.
I want to point out that this applies even when the kindness is not being reciprocated. In fact, this is when being kind, patient, not rude, and not arrogant is vitally important. Jesus himself makes this abundantly clear in Matthew 5:44 when he said, “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” He presses this point further in verse 47 ,“For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?” The Christian response to those that oppose us is love which includes kindness.
This is starkly seen just before Jesus’s crucifixion when he was being beaten and mocked by the Roman soldiers. Rather than proclaim the truth that they were sinners damned to hell, he took the beating and then on the cross asked the Father to “forgive them, for they know not what they do.” If Jesus could do this, then I think Christians in the 21st century can respond to being called a bigot with kindness.
Practically
So far, I have talked in the realm of ideas, so I want to bring it down to earth and talk about what this looks like practically.
Don’t be a Jerk
This should be obvious, but I am afraid that too often it isn’t. Christians (myself included) are guilty of ridiculing and mocking people within the LGBT community. They are quick to speak out against pride month and society’s celebration of it and slow to build relationships with people in the LGBT community. They magnify the wickedness of being LGBT while being silent about the wickedness of heterosexual sex outside of marriage and the prevalence of pornography within the church itself.
Don’t be Surprised
Sinful people do sinful things. Sinful people also believe sinful things. I’m not sure why Christians are surprised when people who do not claim to be Christians act in ways that go against scripture and believes things contrary to scripture. They don’t have their identity in Christ so of course they will find their identity in something else such as their sexuality. They do not have an objective standard of right and wrong so of course anybody with a standard will be viewed as and called a bigot. As the Bible says, they are “dead in sin” and “enemies of the cross of Christ.” If you know this ahead of time, then it won’t come as a surprise and you can set your mind on being kind regardless of the reaction.
Don’t be Afraid
Finally, Christians should be courageous. There are worldly reasons for being afraid of cancellation, being called a bigot, or facing the wrath of the world; however, we are called to have an eternal perspective that values our soul over the approval of others and even our own safety. Accepting homosexuality as okay is a product of the “exchange” that Romans 1:23,25 talks about which leads to death. At the same time, giving in to the passions of anger and hatred in response to those who hate us is also “living according to the flesh” which leads to death. Therefore as Matthew 10:28 says, “do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”
Example
I want to end with an example of how Christians demonstrate love even in the midst of pride month. It comes from a group of Tampa Bay Rays players and their refusal to wear a rainbow-colored patch that celebrated pride. However, it is really the statement that one of the players, Jason Adam, put out that I want to highlight.
Adam’s statement is kind, gracious, not arrogant, nor rude while being full of the truth of scripture.
Then after being harshly criticized by Keith Olbermann, Adam responded with this tweet:
Adam is a wonderful example of what it looks like for Christians to continue to glorify God during pride month.
God Bless,
Hunter Burnett
Really great article