There is a pride that goes before a fall. However, the Bible teaches that there is another kind of pride — good pride, if you will.
There is pride in the quality of honest work: “Nothing is better than that a man should rejoice in his own works” (Ecclesiastes 3:22, NKJV). A child takes pride in her father (Proverbs 17:6). One has pride in the glory of God (2 Chronicles 17:6, cf. Romans 3:27, 2 Corinthians 7:4, 1 Thessalonians 2:19).
But there is that other pride.
The Hebrew word that is translated as “pride” is gaon, which comes from the word for “height.” The New Testament word is hyperephania, meaning “arrogant,” “haughty” or “elevated.” I think of an expression from our rural American South: “Don’t get above your raisin’!”
If you prefer a more theological definition, pride refers to “an unhealthy elevated view of one’s self, abilities, or possessions” (Lexham Theological Dictionary).
Pride is a “gateway sin.” C.S. Lewis captured that insight in “Mere Christianity”: “Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind. … It is Pride which has been the chief cause of misery in every nation and every family since the world began.”
Pride is all the rage these days. We are reminded by every possible form of media that the month of June is now dedicated to pride — from what I can read, “gay pride,” i.e., self-congratulation about one’s practice or approval of homosexuality. Pride is a cause célèbre that is sweeping the Western world.
One could hardly be accused of sensationalism by adding that one of the apparent goals of “pride” month is to normalize the behavior. If so, the strategy is working. There is increased hostility toward any who would question the dedication of a month to something that biblical Christianity, Judaism and Islam condemn as abhorrent.
Yet such widespread advocacy is necessary because Christianity defined Western civilization. “Gay pride” month exists because of Christianity. The Lord Jesus Christ and His disciples revolutionized Western civilization, establishing a moral bedrock as its foundation.
This foundation will need to be excavated — blown up, to use a more accurate metaphor — to create a new moral (or amoral) order. However, the foundation, eroded as it may be, is still discernible and, in many places, still resilient. Thus the advocacy.
We need not repeat chapter and verse, but whether from St. Paul or Moses, the biblical teaching on human sexuality is indisputable. Attempts to muddy the clear teaching of Scripture remain unconvincing. Homosexuality, like adultery, fornication and other deviations in the domain of human sexuality, is, to employ an antiquated but inconveniently appropriate term, sin.
So, from the White House to the clubhouse, from businesses to nonprofits, postmodern virtue enforcers are shaming Christians and others who call it immoral. Now, it seems, anyone needing to send regrets to the fêtes is subject to being called a bigot.
So why not just stay quiet? “Let adults do as they please.” Their “pride” notwithstanding, who’s getting hurt? Well, that is the issue for one who is a minister of the gospel.
I want to quickly add that I don’t own a Puritan black hat, and I can’t remember my last witch burning. And unlike the old Scottish Presbyterian elder, I don’t advocate the whipping post for smiling on Sundays.
Yet, despite the bad rap, our Founding Fathers, at Plymouth and Jamestown, practiced public theology. Public theology is speaking and applying the truths of Scripture in the public square. “So they could show how righteous they were?” Au contraire! Christian ministers, then and now, speak biblical truth for the honor and glory of God and, in obedience to Him, with the goal of human flourishing.
“Gay pride” is pride in that which diminishes our humanity. The celebration of the heretofore unspeakable is the tragically logical outcome of an earlier deadly move: willful unbelief.
To deny God is to seek to deface Him. To deface God is to distort His image. Because we are made in the image of God, to distort God’s image is to defile humanity. And to defile humanity is to destroy ourselves.
Put it another way. The Uncreated One is not an image and never can be. He is the Real. The image, i.e., the reflection of the Real — mankind, male and female — is necessarily and wholly dependent on the Uncreated One for being and identity.
When humans turn away from God, declare Him “dead” or irrelevant, or reinterpret His Word so that they feel free to go their own way, they (we) inaugurate the doomsday clock. All the pride in the world — even covered in the beautiful colors of the rainbow, God’s covenant sign from an earlier attempt to deface the Creator — will not stop the self-imposed punishment.
On June 5, President Joe Biden proclaimed his unequivocal support for “pride” month and declared, “When one group’s dignity and equality are threatened, we all suffer.” We agree, but with pride notwithstanding, will there be equal concern for Bible-believing Christians?
There is a compassionate Savior who welcomes all, even sinners like me. To turn away from the faceless masks of self-delusion and toward the face of God, who came to us in our Lord Jesus Christ, is to stop the terrible ticking of the timer of judgment. Repentance and faith restore the reflection of divinity, the essence of being human.
And that is something to be proud of.
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