Well, it’s that time of year again… We find ourselves nearly in the middle of June and, as such, thoroughly entrenched in National Dairy Month, Adopt-a-Cat Month, Safety Awareness Month, and Accordion Awareness Month. We also are (supposedly) to rally together in June to promote camping, candy, roses, and vegetables (https://nationaldaycalendar.com/june-monthly-observations/). However, while I bet very few of us are out marching in celebration of accordions and roses, I am sure everybody is aware that June is also LGBTQIA awareness month. Namely, June has become Pride Month and the rainbow flags are flying thick.
Now – aside from the obvious injustice that accordions are not receiving their proper attention – Pride Month poses as a particular challenge to many, myself included. I am faced with this enormous question: How am I, as a follower of Christ, to interact with Pride Month 2018?
So many will be quick to speak for biblical – and, I believe – moral, truth. They will declaim any sexual relationships and attractions other than those commended in scripture. However, often these comments are hurtful, unhelpful, or hypocritical.
The other tendency is to lean toward affirmation. However, to praise a lifestyle that we believe to be immoral is to lie to ourselves and others. We cannot tell people celebrating Pride that we are happy for them if we believe they are on a path toward destruction. And, if we genuinely believe this, it does them no kindness to affirm them on their path.
It is better to say nothing than to be wrongfully affirming and better to say nothing than to be purposefully abrasive. My proposal for those who, like myself, are unsure of how to interact with Pride is that we neither falsely affirm nor seek to attack. Rather, we as Believers ought to use Pride Month to be convicted of our own struggles and then to engage in honest conversation with each other.
“What struggles?” you might ask, although I hope you don’t. If you are the type of person who can honestly be baffled as to whether or not you are battling sin, then I fear you have already lost the war. Whether straight or LGBT or questioning, we are all living in a fallen world and our hearts desire that which is not good. The difference is that Christ has overcome these struggles and, in Him, we too might be conquerors, putting to death the flesh and living by the Spirit (Romans 8:12-13).
Ironically, the main problem for all of us is, I believe, pride. This makes June a perfect month to reflect on our struggles. Everywhere we look, rainbows and catchy slogans and personal testimonies are demanding that we celebrate Pride. However, pride is the very problem.
Pride by definition is the state of deriving pleasure or satisfaction from a possession, quality, achievement, or relationship. The dilemma is that this pride becomes a self-focused and temporal source of identity. Possessions are lost or used up. We change our minds, loves, and habits. Someone will always achieve more than us. Even the best relationships will inevitably let us down. Pride Month reminds us that we are, as humans, prone to find our worth – our very identities – in what we are proud of and this becomes dangerous. Rather than immediately celebrating or condemning, though, we ought to find this convicting.
Paul warns of this in Galatians 6:11-14, telling Christians that our physical characteristics and/or our heritage (circumcision or lack thereof) do not have any bearing on our true identity as Christians. Rather, the only worthwhile boast is in Christ, for, as Lord and Savior, He is the perfection of the qualities, accomplishments, and relationships that we seek so desperately.
Furthermore, this passage reveals that not only are we not to take pride in earthly circumstances, but that they are to be dead to us. We are crucified with Christ and the world crucified to us, therefore, any earthbound identity must be forsaken. Any relationship, quality, goal, etc. (i.e. any source of pride) that is not in accordance with the “new creation” of Christ’s death and resurrection must be abandoned, and, any of these that are permitted by scripture must be pursued within the context of a Christian walk (Galatians 6:15).
In short, pride is focused on the self; it is placing one’s sense of identity and worth in a temporal relationship, role, accomplishment, or characteristic. It is not lasting and it cannot save. As Christians, we are to exchange pride in self for boast in Christ.
Christians, I fear that during Pride Month, we may find ourselves succumbing to a worse pride than a wayward heart, that of self-righteousness. We might look on those celebrating and feel somehow as if we are smarter or better because of our “traditional” morality. Beloved reader, this we cannot do! We must fight to the last of our strength to resist the allure of self-righteousness, which is simply pride gilded in religion. We cannot honestly scorn those exalting their personal attractions if we are so absorbed in our own righteousness as though it were something we had earned.
The answer, again, is to view pride with a heart of conviction. We are also Pride. We might not be dancing in celebration or changing our Twitter handles to include rainbow flags, but we too demand affirmation. We too cling to what feels right even in the face of what we claim as moral truth. We too seek to justify ourselves and find ways to feel satisfaction in who we are as individuals.
Dear reader, we must recognize that we are all characterized by pride, not that we might all celebrate, but that we might all be convicted.
June is a month where daily we must ask ourselves: Where does my identity come from? Is there an aspect of myself without which I would not know who I am? What is it that I desire and how am I pursuing it?
I know these questions are enough to send just about anyone into an existential crisis and honestly I have been feeling that lately. What would I be if I were not a musician? Not a writer? Not a runner or a reader or a quirky blonde with a knack for puns? Even with all these things, am I more than the sum of my parts?
Let me give you an example.
I am a runner and I often plan my entire day around squeezing in a run. A solid percentage of my Instagram is comprised of snapshots from cool trails. Before I began running, I was an anxiety-ridden teenager battling an eating disorder and, after discovering running, I was happier, not only in the activity, but in the identity it brought with it; the running community is supportive and fun, I like how I feel after a good run, and it gives me a chance to explore new places.
However, this habit-turned-identity became a double-edged sword. I did not run this morning and my first thought was “Well, this day might as well be a lazy one.” Why? Because I have stacked my identity on top of the pillar of being a runner and, more broadly, an achiever. Being an achiever is who I am: It is a part of me that I cannot escape.
But this is not right. If skipping a single run (or failing to practice to my best standard or not writing something blog-worthy) can derail my whole day, something is wrong with the hierarchy of my identity. What if I were unable to do these things at all? Where would I find the pride of achievement? Who would I be without this pride?
Reader, I am sure you have felt similar fears. And, if not, I am sorry if my post has inspired them in your dear heart. But, in facing our fears, we might find our true identity much better than in running to temporal roles and relationships. And, I am convinced, we will find a greater sense of satisfaction, patience, and joy in rightful temporal roles and relationships once we free ourselves to live fully into the enduring, lasting identity we are promised in Christ.
Running is not immoral, but as soon as it becomes a point of pride, it no longer is an identity in communion with Christ. But, when I use it as an active reminder that I am running the race, pursuing the prize of the upward call, then it becomes subject to my identity as redeemed and beloved by Christ (Philippians 3:14). We must abandon those identities that cannot be reconciled to Christ and find those that can all the more precious for their roots in Him.
Throughout this month, I want to challenge you to be convicted of your own idolized identities and grow in compassion for those who are seeking affirmation and love where it can only be found on earth. Dear heart, we are dead to the identities that will one day fade, but we are oh so alive in the resurrection of Christ. Look to the love and righteousness promised in Him and recall from whence you were saved. Pride does indeed go before the fall, but from the deepest of wells, the light of the stars can best be seen, and we find our enduring and truest boast when we are most humbled (paraphrase from “The Valley of Vision”).
One more thought: rainbows. In Genesis 8-9, after the worldwide flood, God places a bow in the sky to be a sign of His promise to Noah (and mankind). My heart aches to see this symbol of divine mercy turned into a banner for desires and relationships contrary to His design. However, it gives me hope to remember that when God sealed His covenant, He promised faithfulness despite the wayward heart of man. As we find ourselves facing countless rainbow emojis, we might reflect on God’s grace in the face of our fallenness; a symbol of God’s used wrongly by man is yet God’s to use for good (Genesis 50:20). Man will fail, desires disappoint, but God is faithful. Let us find our identity in our Savior and glorify our God even and especially during this month of pride.
We boast in no other love than that of Christ our Lord, born and crucified and raised to life that we might be saved to an enduring relationship with and identity in Him.
If children were to read the classic tale of Hansel and Gretel as merely a story that could not possibly have any truth to it, the preserving concept of “stranger danger” loses its impact. We cannot read this story to children without explaining its moral and begging them to heed its lesson.
In The Giver by Lois Lowery, another YA dystopian novel, babies who are not up to standards are “released.” I remember my friends and I crying over this chapter in elementary school. Yet now so many former young readers champion the killing of the pre-born because of detected health problems, special needs, or simply because the child is unwanted. How can we justly promote in reality the things of which we once read with sorrow?
Fahrenheit 451 is fairly explicit in its message (Bradbury makes no attempt at subtlety -bless him). Yet while we read of the death of literature, we retreat without a thought into cheap entertainment as soon as we finish the book. Worse, we ignore his clear warnings and are happy to glean our information through soundbites and social media blurbs rather than through thorough reading, considerate conversations, and serious thought. Are we, too, mindlessly “watching our stories” without discernment or contemplation?
Perhaps the most shocking dystopian novel I’ve read is Brave New World (Aldous Huxley). At least, it was shocking when I read it four years ago. Now, it feels rather ordinary. (Has the world really fallen so far in four years? Perhaps I am simply older and sorrowfully wiser.) As I read this book, I was horrified at the unrestrained sexuality of it; most characters sought only their own pleasure, cared nothing for relationships, and procreation was a thing of the distant past. But is this so far different from today? We find ourselves living in a generation that boldly protects promiscuity and demands consequence-free pleasure while conservative approaches to relationships are scorned as old-fashioned.
Ayn Rand’s Anthem centers on a character called “Equality 7-2521.” Everyone is equal, but, ironically, no one is free; every member of the society is equal to the extreme that none of them may differ from others. Today, are we perhaps striving for a dangerous equality like that of Anthem? We must certainly protect and value all people equally; however, Anthem warns against forcing equality of thought. Although we read this warning, do we follow it? The minute someone expresses an idea that we consider offensive, are we quick to aggressively silence him or her rather than admit that we all have the right to think freely?