Pride in What? Sick of the Barrage

INTRODUCTION:

It’s that time of year when we begin to get blitzed with a bunch of rainbow flags and ads that makes you think the seasonal flu hit early this year. Pride Month! I keep asking myself here of late the same nagging question… Pride over what? What are we supposed to be celebrating? What is it that we are being called (i.e., commanded, told) to recognize? Not recognition in the sense of acknowledgment—that is, “I acknowledge that there are those types of individuals that enjoy such practices”—but in the sense of acceptance; that is, approval.

When I was a kid growing up you never heard of such a thing. Now, if you are a kid being raised in the West you cannot avoid it. It has become the desire of certain groups to groom and/or indoctrinate our youth in the celebration and acceptance of perverted practices and/or a mindset.

The byproduct of cowardice…

Too long we have slumbered. Too long we have grown accustomed to hiding in our particular niche. We have grown comfortable and lazy, this is true, but it is worse than that… we have played the part of cowards. And, what has our cowardice gotten us? It has allowed the tables to be turned upon us. Refusing to fight—here I speak in the sense of ideology, not physical warfare—we have allowed a certain sector of society (a minority) to gain control and promote lies.

The day has now dawned where we are being corned by thought police. Our rights and freedoms are being squelched. Our ability to provide a living for our loved ones are ever so slowly being eradicated. Even now, I suppose there will be someone that will stumble upon this article and find its contents inflammatory. I do not care.

The intended target…

In a debate between two opposing parties one should not expect their opposition to submit. The goal in a debate is not the conversion of the arguers, rather it is the enlightenment of the audience who is a witness to the debate. This does not mean that the changing of an opponents mind is impossible, it happens, but it is not the norm. In debates that’s not where the focus lies. The audience is the target. I say this to inform the reader, whomever you may be, that I am not trying to reach the opposition. Rather, I am speaking to the one who claims to hold the same worldview as I do. The Christian. The body of Christ. Those called brethren within the household of God. Men and women who state their faith in and upon the Word of God, the written and the Living, The Bible and its proclaimed Christ—Jesus. The only sure foundation that promises a good and blessed state to those who take God—the Triune Creator—at His Word, without faltering.

We must recognize our current state of affairs for what it is: a time of war. Pride month is nothing more than an outward clarion call of war against the household of faith. It is a war against the individual, the family, the Church, and the civil sphere (where society and culture mesh). The declaration of “Pride” in light of a person’s sexual preferences (rightly called, perversions) is a trumpet blast. They have sounded the alarm. It has been ringing for sometime. And in our slumber, our enemy has infiltrated many aspects of our lives.

Principle of biblical warfare…

In speaking of physical warfare R. J. Rushdoony offers some helpful insight. He writes,

The principle of warfare is the suppression and/or the destruction of evil. Period. While peace is desired, Rushdoony points out that

“…the offer of peace cannot be an offer to compromise. The cause, if it be just, must be maintained; the enemy must yield to gain peace (Deut. 23: 9-14).”²

Do you wonder how this relates to the current cultural conflict that now has its spotlights glaring and media trumpets blaring? We are given a few historical examples that we might turn to (Sodom and Gomorrah, and the Canaanite conquest). Here I refer to the zero tolerance policy that the Lord has against such behaviors, not the physical manner in which those wars were waged. He did not compromise. Two different times HE made a public statement that those perverted practices were nothing to boast about. Quite the opposite. It was their boasting, witnessed through the public proliferation of such activities in the civil sphere, that brought about their destruction (cf. Rom 1.32). Again, we see some insight given by Rushdoony regarding such matters:

“…warfare is not child’s play. It is a grim and ugly if necessary matter. The Canaanites against whom Israel waged war were under judicial sentence of death by God. They were spiritually and morally degenerate. Virtually every kind of perversion was a religious act: and large classes of sacred male and female prostitutes were a routine part of the holy places. Thus, God ordered all the Canaanites to be killed (Deut. 2:34; 3:6; 20:15-18; Josh. 11:14), both because they were under God’s death sentence, and to avoid the contamination of Israel.”³

Warring under the New Covenant…

I realize that many might misunderstand the citations of Rushdoony provided above. I am not advocating for physical warfare; rather, applying the principles of the past given through those physical wars in waging spiritual warfare. Take for example the charge given by the apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 where he writes,

“For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculation and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ” (NASB).

Though the battle being waged is “in the flesh” for that is where we “walk” (that is, we are physical beings), our warfare is not practiced against our enemies (ideologically/theologically speaking) with “weapons… of the flesh”—i.e., physical weaponry. Rather our sights are focused deeper than the flesh or beyond physical realities but in the realm of thought. It is the thoughts of others where the battle is being waged. Every “speculation [or] lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God” is what we are tasked with attacking (destroying; Grk. καθαιρέω; tear down).

The knowledge of God; His determination…

God has determined that there are only two genders (male and female). He has declared that marriage is between a man and a woman. He has therefore already named the human species and defined its categorical limits from the beginning (cf. Gen 1.27; 2.18, 21-24; Matt 19.4; Mark 10.6); including the boundary markers for sexual relationships (Gen 1.28; 2.24; cf. Lev 18.22-23; Rom 1.26-27). So sacred were the named boundaries between male and female there was even a law given regarding where the close of the opposite gender; an abomination (Deut 22.5).

Seeking to undermine the Lord’s determination…

The task of Pride-month and its supporters is to engender support for their renaming of reality. Like Adam in naming the animals they desire to express their dominion. And, like Adam they want to be the arbiters of what is good and evil in opposition to their Creator. This is where the battle line is drawn. The enemy is deceptive. The fight is clothed in terminology that has meaning for others, but a meaning that is twisted from its original. For example, marriage, the objective markers that determine whether you are male or female, the purpose of sex, of love, of rearing children. All of these things have been redefined to fit a paradigm (i.e., worldview) that is antagonistically opposed to the Christian/biblical worldview.

There is no question that they have been successful so far in the war being waged. This is due to Christians refusal (by-and-large) to enter into the debate and name the evil in our midst for what it is. We are guilty of compromise. Fear is a strong motivator. Fear of reprisal keeps pastors silent in their pulpits and parishioners silent in their pews. It keeps people of faith from taking a stand in the public sector for losing face before their peers, or possible consequences in school or work.

I’ve went a bit longer in this article than I originally intended. I’m just fed up with the constant barrage of this garbage. I hope that other Christians will realize that they are too. We need to speak up. If speaking up didn’t work, then why has it worked so well for our enemy? It worked so well for them, because words are powerful. The right words can cut through marrow and spirit (Heb 4.12). We need to start using our words with conviction, and I think you’ll find that a lot more people are willing to listen than you may suppose. Why else do you think that they have so eagerly sought to silence opposition on this issue and so many others. The recent boycotts are evidence of this truth. Your voice will be heard when you determine to use it. I want to close with a sage reminder from the late Gary North,

“Christians must stop worrying about Satan’s power, and start working to undermine his kingdom.”⁴

ENDNOTES:

1R. J. Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law (P&R Publishing, 1973), 277.

2Ibid, 279.

3Ibid, 279.

4Gary North, Backward Christian Soldiers? An Action Manual for Christian Reconstruction (Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics, 1984), 48. PDF e-book. This was the example given to believers in the biblical record.