Some Parting Shots at Pride Month

Pride and the Rainbow

Six months ago we moved to beautiful North Idaho. So far, I have seen two spectacular rainbows arching over the woods in front of our house. I am not a great photographer, but many of my neighbors are. Our most recent rainbow made many encore appearances on Facebook.

What compelled me to stand on my porch and gawk? What moved my neighbors to share picture after picture? Science tells us that rainbows are not physical objects, but optical phenomenon, merely light refracted through water droplets. Yet they have a mysterious power to command our attention.

The heavens declare the glory of God (Psalm 19:1). When I see God’s bow in the sky, my heart immediately responds. I recognize the majesty of the Creator, his power to write in the clouds, his pleasure in beauty. I remember his care and compassion for all creatures, his eternal covenant with all flesh on the earth (Genesis 9:17).

All of this makes me feel quite small. “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” (Psalm 8:3-4).

But feeling small also feels good. I have so little control over my life, but that's OK. In the words of the children’s song, “My God is so Big, so Strong and so Mighty there’s nothing my God cannot do.” This includes painting the sky in technicolor rings.

Rainbows evoke many emotions: awe, gratitude, even wistful longing. “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” The one emotion I do not feel, I cannot feel, is pride. What is there to be proud of? I did not make the rain, or the sunlight, or the rules of refraction. I did not schedule the rainbow, it simply appeared. My very eyes that see the bow are also a miracle, not of my own design.

Yet somehow, in our culture's demented minds, the rainbow has become a symbol of Pride. This is not pride in genuine achievement. This is the Pride of Lucifer, who wanted to become like God (Isaiah 14:12-15). This Pride corrupts creation order, denies God’s obvious design for man and wife. This Pride proffers the lie that forbidden fruit does not lead to death.

I find it interesting that the LGBTQ+ movement does not use pictures of real rainbows in their promotional material. Instead, they use a stylized, cartoon version, a rectangular flag with no curved bow at all. The most recent “Progress Pride flag” looks even less like a rainbow (although still flown at NASA headquarters for Pride month). The Progress Pride flag sports a garish chevron of white, pink, baby blue, brown, and black – colors completely absent from God’s original.

Perhaps the LGBTQ+ movement cannot bear to display actual rainbows. Perhaps the voiceless voice of the rainbow is too loud. Perhaps if more of us stopped to look, stopped to listen, there would be no more Pride.

Sex Monkeys at the CDC

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) – a tax-supported government health organization – has created guidelines for sexual activity during a Monkeypox outbreak. It appears that Monkeypox is transmitted sexually, and men who have sex with multiple men are especially at risk. This is somewhat ironic timing, given Pride Month celebrations.

A return to Biblical sexual norms would, of course, solve this problem completely. Sex was created by God as the joyful joining of man and wife, in order to fill the earth with God’s image-bearers. In God’s good plan, pleasure and procreation go hand-in-hand. Husband and wife become one flesh, bonding for life, raising up the next generation of worshippers together as father and mother, grandfather and grandmother. As a side benefit, faithful obedience to Biblical sexual norms eliminates the transmission of sexual diseases.

Yet we have separated what God has joined together. The birth control pill removed (or claimed to remove) procreation from the equation, enabling sex for pleasure only. The test tube embryo further distanced childbearing from the sexual act, making children a bespoke commodity. Today, our world sees no difference between the glory of marital sex and the debauchery of masturbation, whether to porn or with some generic “partner.”

Exhibit A, the CDC guidelines.

Some CDC bureaucrat – probably more than one – took it upon themselves to spell out this redefinition of sex, masquerading as “health guidelines.” To clarify that they are not talking about Biblical sexual norms, the CDC guidelines include a picture of several people of indeterminate gender (beards are no longer a tell) waiving rainbow flags. The CDC tells us that sex includes include “virtual sex,” masturbating together (?) at a distance of 6 feet, sex with clothes on and/or without kissing, sex with washed “hands, fetish gear, sex toys, and any fabrics,” and sex with a “limited” number of partners. All of these, according to the CDC, will lower your risk of contracting Monkeypox.

No mention is made of returning to Biblical sexual norms, not even as a “safer” sex alternative. Rather than encourage Americans toward sexual responsibility, which is foundational to a healthy and fruitful society, the CDC treats us all as animals, enslaved to our libidos. As no better than monkeys.

And that is what we are, what we were without Christ. Only Christ can save us from slavery to sin, sexual or otherwise. Only the blood of Christ purchased our forgiveness, reconciling us to God. And only the Holy Spirit, poured out on God's people, enables us to live up to the standard of faithful, Biblical marriage.

Meanwhile, in light of the above, I suggest guidance from the CDC be given its appropriate weight. Perhaps similar to the weight one might give lies from the pit of hell.

Photo Credit- www.cbc. ca www.ncbwashington.com