On June 1, World Magazine published Carl Trueman’s article, “Welcome to Pride Month, Christian.” Trueman concludes his opinion piece with this paragraph.
And so surely the Christian cause of this month should be opposing Pride Month and its flag in as public and strident a way as many have opposed racism and its symbols. Let us have many blog posts and tweets on the topic. And may we even have pointed op-eds and major articles slamming Pride by those Christians privileged enough to have access to the pages of The Atlantic and The New York Times. Social justice surely demands it. And I, for one, am looking forward to reading them all.
I heartily endorse Trueman’s right and moral appeal to speak out in clear and unequivocal opposition and denouncement of Pride Month and its rainbow flag. These, of course, are symbols of the wickedness celebrated this month of June. However, these are not mere symbols, as if symbols were insignificant and inconsequential. The Creator embedded symbols into his orderly creation, whether in the physical universe or in its orderly functions. Thus, for example, from the beginning, God established the heavenly bodies not only to cast light upon the earth during the night hours but also to function as “signs and for seasons, and for days and years” (Genesis 1:14).
The blatant despising of God’s appointed symbols is tantamount to despising God himself. If possible, worse yet is the reassignment of God’s appointed symbols for God-despising evil behavior. This is precisely what wicked humans have done with God’s covenant sign, the rainbow. This calls for some historical reflection, first about God’s covenant rainbow in the sky and then about sinful humanity’s rainbow-festooned parade banner defiantly pointed heavenward.
God’s Covenant Rainbow
God established the rainbow as the covenant symbol of his covenant that he would never again destroy the earth and all its inhabitants with flood waters.
“Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark; it is for every beast of the earth. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth” (Genesis 9:9-17).
Why did God destroy with a massive flood the entire earth and all land-dwelling creatures except those spared such a death in the ark? God’s Word makes it clear: “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5). Because of the wickedness of all humans except for Noah and his family God destroyed the earth and all land-dwelling animals. Thus, when God set the rainbow in the clouds as a covenant symbol, he did so to remind us of his great mercy, that he would never again wipe out all wicked humans with a universal flood. The majestic rainbow, which appears in the heavens in conjunction with rainstorms, preaches God’s mercy and restraint universally to all humans, whether righteous or wicked.
The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words,
whose voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world (Psalm 19:1-4).
Given this brief recitation concerning God’s ownership of the rainbow as his covenant sign that preaches his kindness and forbearance toward evil humans, what vileness it is to reassign God’s covenant sign as the standard under which humans who parade their perverting of the sex act. Yes, women who exchange natural relations to engage in sex acts with other females and males likewise who commit shameless sex acts with other males flaunt their behavior under their rainbow flag. They lift their rallying standard emblazoned with their hijacked rainbow heavenward poking their banner into the eyes of God whose rainbow in the clouds reminds all of his great mercy that followed his devastating anger against humans who were no more wicked than modern earth-dwellers whose every intention of heart and thought is only evil continually.
Satan’s Counterfeit Kingdom
We must not be so naïve as to think that there is no deliberate exploitation of God’s covenant rainbow to promote neither society’s forbearance nor acceptance of same-sex sexual behavior and bastardization of marriage but the full endorsement of both. To this end, the Apostle Paul admonishes us lest we “be outwitted by Satan,” for “we are not ignorant of his schemes” (2 Corinthians 2:11).
In the same vein, Abraham Kuyper rightly argues that we need not hunt long to uncover the conspiratorial mind that directs the otherwise seemingly disparate schemes and machinations of sinful humans. That mastermind is the Devil. Satan is the anti-creator whose sinful forces lack any creative ideas of their own, so they plagiarize God’s ideas by putting “the stamp of God’s image on its counterfeit currency” and by abusing “its God-given powers to imitate God’s activity” (Kuyper, “Uniformity,” 22). Satan advances his kingdom of darkness by twisted mimicry. He craftily allures the willing human masses with a counterfeit kingdom modeled after God’s Kingdom. Unlike the Creator who transforms his subjects from within until we all truly become “conformed to the image of his Son,” the Kingdom of Darkness advances through tyranny, enforcing conformity to his own image by manipulating fear to differ from the crowd. Thus, in 1869, Kuyper observed many males sauntering along streets exhibiting “a softening, an emasculation, a feminization in our men” (“Uniformity,” 28). Likewise, Kuyper states,
The ancient fable of the Amazons is fast turning into a prophecy that is rushing with impetuous urgency to its fulfillment. Something heroic, something manly, something high-spirited had better emanate from our young beauties if they are not to be dismissed as household drudges or staid old crones. The modesty and diffidence that formerly adorned our young maidens no longer fit the robust woman of our age (“Uniformity,” 28).
Sinful Humanity’s Rainbow-Colored Flag
Now, consider the blatant God-despising symbols of same-sex bastardizing of the Creator’s gift to humans, the sexual union of the male (husband) and female (wife).
When same-sex sexual relations were still deemed both immoral and illegal, New York City police would occasionally raid known bars frequented by same-sex sexually active or attracted individuals. Greenwich Village’s Stonewall Inn was among the more popular of those bars. It had been raided by the police, but on June 28, 1969, many in attendance began to protest against raids, a demonstration that endured for several days. From that date forward, they gained the upper hand against police raids. This was the birthing of June as “Pride Month” which was first celebrated the following year, 1970.
The rainbow has been implemented if not exploited by many for a variety of causes—social, political, cultural, and religious. In 1969, Fred Hampton of the Black Panther Party was joined by two other groups to form the Rainbow Coalition. They selected the rainbow to represent their anti-racist, anti-class, multiculture-promoting political movement. Birthed from the Black Panther Party, the coalition consisted of radical socialist groups. With Hampton’s assassination in December 1969, the coalition began to disintegrate.
Jesse Jackson co-opted the name, “Rainbow Coalition,” when he formed his own somewhat more moderate coalition with the same name following his initial presidential campaign in 1984. In 1996 the Rainbow Coalition and Operation PUSH (People United to Serve Humanity) united. However, since 1999, Jackson’s Rainbow/Push Coalition has been overshadowed if not displaced. That year, in the wake of his sinful, extramarital sexual activity in the White House, President Clinton boosted the normalization of same-sex sexual evil by declaring June “Gay and Lesbian Pride Month.” With that presidential endorsement, the “Pride Month” movement became mainstream with its rainbow flag. Thus, exploitation of the rainbow has come to be a ubiquitous symbol of virtue signaling by individuals, institutions, organizations, and corporations, especially during June of each year.
Only thirteen years after “Pride Month” received presidential affirmation, President Obama, who publicly professed to oppose “same-sex ‘marriage’”, finally succumbed to mounting pressure from his Democratic Party base when Vice-President Biden outmaneuvered the President, forcing his hand during an interview with David Gregory of NBC News’ “Meet the Press” on May 6, 2012. Three days later, upstaged as he was, during an interview with Robin Roberts on ABC TV’s “Good Morning America, President Obama announced that his beliefs had “evolved” so that he could now declare, “I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.” That evening, the Obama Administration officially posted the President’s declaration into White House records and defiled the White House structure with the Pride Month colors.
Three days following this turn of events, Peter Jones of truthXchange rightly published “May 09, 2012: The Official End of Christendom?” With candor he grieved:
May 9, 2012 was indeed an historic moment. Though President Obama bathed his decision in Christian principles: “…our faith…is not only Christ sacrificing himself on our behalf but it’s also the golden rule…treat others the way you’d want to be treated…” For the first time ever, a sitting US president, considered the most powerful political leader in the world, has endorsed a marital arrangement that formally constitutes the pagan “worship of the creation rather than worship of the Creator” (Romans 1:25).
Concerning same-sex “marriage,” the other governmental shoe dropped three years later, on June 26, 2015, with the announcement of the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision. Though the Supreme Court has no constitutional authority to establish federal laws, as with other legal decisions, most notoriously the Roe v. Wade decision, with celebration and revelry, politicians, lawyers, and citizens alike declared, “Same-sex marriage is now the law of the land.”
The Counterfeit of God’s Covenant Rainbow
The first “Pride Month” rainbow flag featured eight colors. Each color was assigned a different meaning: hot pink represented sex, red for life, orange for healing, yellow signifying sunlight, green for nature, turquoise to represent art, indigo for harmony, and violet for spirit. Eventually, designers eliminated two of the flag’s original colors, pink and violet. Thus, from the beginning until now, though they confiscate God’s Covenant Rainbow and exploit it as the standard in their shameless, defiant parades, they do so by counterfeiting the design of God’s true rainbow.
Ponder God’s protracted longsuffering. He put the bow in the clouds as a covenant symbol to signify that never again would he flood the whole earth to wipe out all humans who daily engage in evil thoughts continually. As rainstorms come with regularity the Lord God features his covenant sign in the clouds, an generous show of kindness and forbearance that he designs to preach the need for repentance (Romans 2:1-4). Instead of repenting, they persist in celebrating their defiance of the Creator even as they presume to invoke God’s blessing, aided and abetted by a former Christian publishing company. Same-sex practitioners and their endorsers set aside the whole of June as “Pride Month,” intimidating the masses not merely to acknowledge their ubiquitous presence but to endorse their vile behavior.
Call for Action
So, here we are in the so-called “Pride Month.” Carl Trueman called for articles and blog posts to oppose same-sex haughtiness and defiance of the Creator who made humans male and female and to have sexual unions between husbands and wives. Here is my contribution to this holy cause. With all my might I repudiate the wickedness celebrated during “Pride Month.” With equal passion and might, I heartily and faithfully endorse and support God’s Covenant Sign, the rainbow, the sign of the Noahic Covenant. For the sign of the rainbow in the sky signifies (1) God’s patient forbearance with sinful humanity, (2) warns against the Day of God’s impending wrath against sinners, and (3) anticipates the Day of God’s glorious salvation for all the righteous, who like Noah found salvation in obeying the Lord God.
So, along with Carl Trueman, look forward to reading many more articles and blogs that do the same.
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Citations from Abraham Kuyper derive from his 1869 essay, “Uniformity: The Curse of Modern Life,” in Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader, ed. James D. Bratt (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 19-44.