Seven or Eight Thoughts about Pride Month

We strive to be a church that keeps the Gospel—Christ crucified for sinners — at the center of everything. This Gospel is the flag we fly and the colors we paint brightly for all to see. However, Christ crucified and risen has authority over all things — our bodies and our public stances on issues of sexual ethics — and so our church cannot be silent.

With that said, here are seven thoughts I’d like us to ponder during Pride Month. Or, rather, let’s call these “stances” that I encourage all members to take.

Let’s not be ashamed of the Church’s teaching on sexuality. C.S. Lewis once remarked, “Chastity is the most unpopular of the Christian virtues. There is no getting away from it; the old Christian rule is, ‘Either marriage, with complete faithfulness to your partner, or else total abstinence.’ “

If Christian teaching on sexuality was unpopular in the 1940s, then it’s even more unpopular now. However, we need to recognize the beauty and integrity of Scriptural teaching. Christians have two options with regard to sexuality: to be one man and one woman joined together in the lifelong covenant of marriage, or to embrace the call of chaste, single celibacy. Both of these options serve Christ and His church. Marriage is a picture of Christ’s love for His bride, the church (Ephesians 5:22-33). Single celibacy is a bold witness that the love of Christ is greater than any earthly love – a unique and honorable opportunity to serve others (1 Corinthians 7:32-35). Let’s not be ashamed of this teaching. Let’s hold it sacred and honor it without reservation or apology. God’s will for our lives is always good, beautiful, and true.

Let’s pray for people who identify as LGBTQ+ and their families. Pride Month gives us plenty of opportunities to pray. We pray for the baptized who have become entangled in a lifestyle of sexual confusion, that the Holy Spirit would return these lost sheep to the cleansing waters of their baptism, the healing medicine of the Lord’s Supper, and the friendship of Christian community. We often forget that these prayers are answered and all of heaven rejoices. 

We pray for the dear brothers and sisters in Christ who struggle with same-sex attractions or gender dysphoria. We pray that the Lord would comfort them, give them courage, and surround them with Christian friendship and love so that they can fight the good fight of faith, especially since these attractions and dysphoria often persist for life. We pray especially for our young people, who have grown up in a world of competing voices and messages about sexuality, that they would find their true identity in Jesus Christ and not a sexual or gender identity. We pray for the parents and grandparents who deeply love their gay, lesbian, and transgender children and grandchildren, and who need wisdom and grace to navigate the complexities of these relationships in such a way that neither God’s Law nor God’s Gospel is confused. Pride month is a time to pray, pray, pray, dear saints.

Let’s avoid unhelpful extremes. Some churches have reacted to the loudness of Pride Month by talking even louder about God’s Law. This is an unhelpful extreme that places sexual ethics at the center of the Church’s proclamation. Now, don’t misunderstand me. The Church’s teaching on sexual ethics is important, essential, and nonnegotiable. However, it’s not the Gospel. Focusing only on sexual ethics leads to a pride that is blind to other, more grievous sins. It also leads to despair, since the Gospel of Jesus Christ crucified for sinners falls into the background. Let’s not allow Pride Month to run the show. Let’s keep the Gospel at the center. 

However, the other extreme is conflict avoidance—enmeshment with the cultural pressure of Pride Month. We fear backlash, hard conversations, rejection, or being sent to the secular hell of cancel culture—being labeled a “bigot” simply for holding that marriage between a man and a woman is a sacred, unalterable institution upon which the health and future of civilization depends. We need to practice healthy differentiation, in which we don’t lose our convictions while remaining connected and open to others who differ from us. In other words, we’re called to be like Jesus, whose teachings on sex and marriage were also deemed extreme and unpopular (Matthew 19:3-12), but who also welcomed sinners without reservation (Matthew 9:9-13). 

Let’s learn to think carefully. I’m convinced that most people form their convictions about sexual ethics on the basis of feelings and culture rather than careful study, conversation, and prayer. We must avoid the error of believing something simply because it’s the loud, majority opinion. Let’s not form our opinions on the basis of popular media, social media posts, short videos, or memes. Not everyone has time to read 700-page books on sexual ethics. But we do have time to read or listen to helpful books like Sam Alberry’s brief Is God Anti-Gay (Alberry is a pastor who is same-sex attracted), or Kevin DeYoung’s What Does the Bible Really Teach About Homosexuality? In an age where we are often pressured into accepting secular sexual ethics, it’s all the more important that we learn how to think carefully about our beliefs, allowing the truth to take us wherever it leads. 

Let’s remain open to individual people. Part of the collateral damage of Pride Month is that it politicizes issues that are deeply painful, confusing, and personal for actual flesh-and-blood people. As Christians, we’re called to treat each person, in all their beauty and complexity, as an individual person, not an ideology. This is how Jesus treated people. One person at a time. We’re called to do the same. 

Let’s talk to our kids. These issues are front and center in our society, and so parents do not have the luxury of avoiding discussions. How do we talk to our kids about such things? This could be a separate email in and of itself, but I would suggest speaking consistently about the goodness of God’s plan for sexuality in marriage, as well as the fact that sin has disordered the sexual desires of every person, and so we need grace from God to pursue self-control and sacrificial love for others. Let’s also model how to love those who hold to different morals. In particular, let’s have open discussions about how it’s not a contradiction to love others deeply and still disapprove of their actions. True love—God’s love—doesn’t say “yes” to everything. In fact, to do so would be unloving. 

Let’s remember that our confession of faith is public. I am not on social media; however, I would not be surprised if the pressure and propaganda of Pride Month lead some of our members to post on social media in ways that contradict their public confession of faith. This is unfortunate. It communicates that we can hold to a public confession of faith while also contradicting that confession, both privately and publicly. It’s also confusing and demoralizing for our brothers and sisters in Christ. Let’s repent. We can love and care for our family and friends without embracing Pride Month. 

Let’s embrace humility over pride. The Church Fathers taught that pride—self-absorption and self-preoccupation—is the chief sin. All sins flow from this root. Pride is an anti-God state of mind that refuses to listen to God and others. “I know best. I’m in control.” This is why the Church has always taught that humility is the chief virtue. Humility is preoccupied with the glory of God and love for others. During Pride Month, the Church must embrace humility. Humility during Pride Month means many different things. It means that in the midst of a loud and noisy culture, we are “quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (James 1:19-20). It means we’re willing to love people and care deeply about them wherever they are in life. It means we’re humble enough to change our views, patiently listening to the Scriptures and the Church’s witness.