It's 'pride month': Thinking more about the world's problem of pride and the how the church needs to do more to address our human hunger for honour.

photo credit - screenshot

It's the end of June….

…when much of the world has been awash in 'Pride month'….. meaning 'Gay Pride' — to promote anything related to those who identify as LGBTIQ+. 

This year, even large mainline shops such as Target in the USA and Woolworths in the UK and South Africa have chosen to stock a whole range of clothing promoting the month and put huge posters on walls of their stores to promote it. At first glance it is sickening, and at a deeper look it is evil…since evil is the opposite of good, and this is the opposite of good. Here in Africa it is a hotly debated issue since Uganda has recently made homosexuality a punishable crime, yet Botswana recently de-criminalised homosexuality. But many Africans are voicing their concerns on platforms like TikTok that the whole LGBTIQ+ push is a modern Western colonisation attempt to destroy African culture (which traditionally doesn't allow homosexuality) and as an effort to curb reproduction and reduce the African population. 

And in the midst of it all, my heart is just sad for all those walking a road of soul destruction. Any lifestyles that flout God's design, cheat the person of abundant life now, and blind them to the need for, and surpassing joy of, eternal life forever.

BUT 

…the issues of this year's 'pride month' have not arrived overnight  but it seems to have finally 'awoken' some Christians at least to another more subtle but sinister underlying problem in our world….regarding the use of the word 'pride.

What do you think of when you hear the word 'pride'?  How do you use the word 'pride'?

Have you ever said to your child 'I'm proud of you'  or maybe 'you should take pride in your work'?

Or have you ever heard someone speak of school, family, cultural, or national pride?

THE PROBLEM OF PRIDE

Christina Fox, writing over at the Ligonier blog has this month raised this issue of the word 'pride'.  She says:

While our culture might view pride on a continuum, in the Bible, it is equated with sin.

Biblical Counsellor and Psychologist Ed Welch has also raised the issue in a CCEF blog post back in 2020, noting that:

Pride might help us feel strong and attractive in our own eyes, at least for a moment. But in reality, it is a gross violation of our created design.

He goes on to say in the same blogpost that:

Pride is one of the foremost ways of describing sin. It is wrong. It is against God and other people. 

C.S. Lewis has said in his book Mere Christianity that Pride is the great sin:

According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere flea bites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: 

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

This is not a new way to think of pride as the great 1st Century theologian, Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (in present day Algeria),  points out…

"Pride is a great evil; it is even the foremost evil, the beginning, root and cause of all sin. It was pride that overthrew the angel and made the devil. And even when overthrown, he passed on the cup of pride to upright humanity. He aroused pride in the human being who had been created in the image of God, and that pride made humanity shameful. The devil entered humanity and persuaded Eve to defy God's law and use her own power. … 'If you eat, he said, you will be like gods' (Gen 3:5). Consider, then, whether it was not pride that persuaded her. The two who had been created human wanted to be gods. They assumed what they were not and lost what they were; they did not lose their human nature, but they lost blessedness, both present and future. They lost the place to which they were to be raised, deceived by the one who had been thrown down from there"

  

In commenting on 'pride month', Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis highlighted in a blogpost a short while ago, that the prophet Ezekiel pronounced pride as the root of all sin when he said the kingdom of Judah had sinned like the people of Sodom and that the first sin of Sodom was pride. I also recently heard Martyn Iles of 'Answers in Genesis' raising this problem of pride being a promoted idea yet in Scripture is clearly sin. 

BUT mostly, the fact that 'having pride' is accepted in the world as ok and yet in Scripture it is sinful, has somehow flown 'under the radar'. It was in 2019, after being concerned about this for several years that I raised the issue in a blog post  I've often talked to people about it, but the response I get seems to be more in the range of 'oh I think you might be taking that too far, people don't mean anything bad by it'.

Maybe the reason we have been more concerned with the homosexuality (and other associated sexual 'orientations') than the pride label that is attached to it in our 21st century world, is that we have not addressed our prior cultural mis-use of the word. Furthermore, it has been in a context where we have not well-addressed the honour issue that sits underneath the pride issue.

We are apt to use the word 'pride' because the culture uses it in place of the word 'honour'. 

And we in the 21st century church have not well understood what our Bible says about honour, nor have we developed a biblically robust, theology of honour. We have sadly taken a mis-step in letting the world shape our vocabulary and our thinking.

Pride has now gained a foothold in our globalised world as being understood as something 'good' and positive to achieve, and even 'needed' for being human. Yet Scripture says something different and the church didn't really notice. Somehow Satan managed to use a word that the Christians overlooked and even used themselves. Maybe we stand guilty of Romans 1:21-23?

Now that June 'pride month' is suddenly in everyone's faces because of places like Target and Woolworths, we have been forced to notice.

Some gays and lesbians would argue that they don't want the issue of their sexual lifestyle linked to the issue of identity or even of 'pride' parades or 'pride' month, but the problem of 'pride' in our global Western influenced society is emerging as inextricably linked to issues of identity and dignity. And this puts us in danger of another mis-step.

Our problem is to think that because 'pride is wrong', then 'identity' is wrong because the world is obsessed with pride of identity. And in our modern world the two words and issues are tightly held together.

However, I believe, what we have maybe failed to do as 21st century Christians, is recognise that while a desire for pride is wrong and is the product of a sinful heart, the desire for honour is not. Psalm 8 tells us that humans as created by God, have been given a unique level of honour and glory, thus we are meant to desire and find our satisfaction and fulfilment of honour in God. John Piper talks at length about this in his book Desiring God. 

Pride is simply (but yes also fatally), a mis-placed desire for honour. 

Thus, as Christians, in our zeal to confront pride as sinful, we are at risk of being understood by the society as opposing honour and dignity. 

This has led us to say that because the world has linked pride with identity, then a desire for identity is also wrong. We are at risk of not realising that desire for identity is not wrong, but is also mis-placed as part of a mis-placed desire for honour. It is trying to find our sense of self and worth in the creature (us or others around us), rather than in the Creator. As Christians, we may then also get busy wanting to confront the desire for identity and thus be mis-understood by others (whether consciously or not) as eroding or being against a person's most fundamental human honour and dignity.

THE HUMAN HUNGER FOR HONOUR

We recoil in the horror of blatant sexual sin and the hopeless obsessions with false identity and now the prominent positive use of the word 'pride', but I fear we may be still missing the underlying cries of the lost sinner's heart. The desire for honour and efforts to gain and maintain it, fill our world. In fact British gay political commentator and author Douglas Murray has said that the whole problem of businesses trying to look visible in their gay pride support, started after the financial disaster of 2008 in the effort of banks and corporations—who he says should have been on the line for almost completely destroying the world economy—discovered the 'cheaper and easier way to improve their image' was to go 'big on all the identity politics stuff'. 

In other words they were trying to do what I would call some 'honour compensation diversionary tactics' in another area, in the hope it would make up for the honour they believed they lost.

The further problem, is that we observe all this, and then think that the answer and correction to pride is simply to teach humility. It is true that humility is in a way the opposite of pride. But maybe we need to look at it like this:

Pride is the way of a lie as to how to gain honour.

Humility is the way of the Truth as to how to gain honour.

You see, separate of the use of the word 'pride' in 'gay pride', maybe over recent decades or more, the church in its zealousness to biblically oppose pride has focused on being humble. But the only reason we can promote humility is that as Christians we already have a confidence in our God-given honour as his firstly created and then redeemed people, and that God has already taught us that the way to true honour is via the road of humility as Proverbs 18:12 says:

'Before destruction a man's heart is haughty, but humility comes before honor'

I fear we may have rightly understood humility as being God's way to live and the opposite to pride being the world's way, but we have done so without understanding that such an understanding is only part of the story. Even if we are ready to recognise that pride is related to a desire for honour, we may not be alert to realise that Scripture also holds out to us the desire and hunger for honour, in order to motivate us to pursue humility. 

Even the warning that 'pride comes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall' assumes a person will not want destruction and a fall (Proverbs 16:18) and would rather have honour of success than shame of failure (fall). No-one wants to 'fall from grace'…in other words, lose honour. When Jesus, during the Sermon on the Mount, says 'blessed are the poor in spirit', there is an assumption that people will want to be in a state of blessing, which is a state of favour and honour, and will thus be challenged that it is worth being 'poor in spirit' in order to find blessing (Matthew 5:3).

The challenge to lose our life so as to find it….assumes a person has a desire to first want to 'find' life (Matthew 10:39).

At its core, the anticipation of rewards and crowns in eternity has the assumption that we will actually desire to have rewards and crowns (Matthew 6:5-6, 2 Timothy 4:8). The Apostle Paul presses on so as to obtain the prize (Philippians 3:14) and seeks to be faithful so as to not disqualify himself from the prize (1 Corinthians 9:27).

We talk about this and read these verses and yet somehow miss the connection between what Scripture is saying and our own human desires. Many evangelical Christians may feel uncomfortable with such a concept. We have been taught to seek humility and that any desire for honour is wrong. Yet, we can only truly embrace humility if we have first embraced right honour. 

The biblical challenge is that God offers us right and true and satisfying honour which will bring us deeper happiness than anything the world offers, but that it sits in the irony of only becoming ours when we first let go of our own efforts and ideas of how to achieve it and our our efforts of keeping it to ourselves. Honour that we seek our way, for self-satisfaction, ignores God and deprives others and ultimately keeps us in the bondage and pressure of forever trying but never fully achieving, a gaining and maintaining of that honour. Honour that we seek God's way, for His glory, acknowledges God and blesses others, and also in the end satisfies us…and gives us that satisfaction and rest and peace and joy and happiness in abundance.

The road to true honour is humility, not pride, and thus the road to true identity is not via finding something by which we can gain 'pride' in ourselves, but finding that we have the offer of honour given to us that comes via humility not pride. And thus this issue of 'identity' that pastor and author the late Tim Keller has said is the 'core' of our culture.

And as we think about this, the reason the world is searching for identity in the hope they will find it in sexuality, race, or gender, is the result of:

A SLIDE….

That began with….

A Western world in recent centuries in which a majority claimed to be Christians and found their ascribed and achieved and associated honour in God (ascribed/inherent honour in being created by God, their achieved and associated honour not in their own achievement but in Christ's redemption and then through His Spirit's gifting and sanctification enabling them to live for God's glory which in turn further gave them the honour of growing more and more into the people that God designed and desired them to be).

Then...

We had a Western world that began to think they existed physically apart from God….via evolution, and could function emotionally apart from God psychologically….while still thinking they could 'acknowledge' God's existence and hope for his benefits.

Then... 

We had a Western world that began to gain their main sense of honour, not from God, but from their own personal achievements. Alongside this, culturally America didn't want any sense of ascribed/inherited/inherent honour such as exemplified in the British Monarchy and so further emphasised and rewarded those who did bigger and better in their achievements. Honour of identity had shifted to obtaining it through human achievement of wealth or position.

But...

Deep down this couldn't last because it would not satisfy. It was realised that achievement actually wasn't the road to assureness of life satisfaction and identity or dignity. Yes, you will have noticed that the word dignity has started popping up in all kinds of ways in our modern world…'dying with dignity' is just one of those ways. But because achievement is not satisfying an honour hunger that people live by but don't recognise what it is…..they have gone looking beneath the 'achievement' inately knowing there is something deeper to life than just acheivement.  And they are right…who they 'are' is more important than what they 'do' and we were never meant to gain our identity by what we 'do'. What we 'do' has always meant to be a result of who we 'are'.

So...

Our current world is desperately searching for the water that will quench a thirst for who they 'are'…their identity. With their life compass no longer set toward God and just flailing all over the place…they are totally vulnerable lies from the Father of Lies and in their own separation from God and unrestrained pleasing of self and reliance on self. So no wonder they are trying to find their identity in such warped and wicked ways as we are seeing…ways that will  delude them and ultimately destroy them….Unless they find

THE SOLUTION 

I once had someone attending a seminar I was teaching, challenge me to further explain a statement that I made that our hunger for honour and avoidance of shame lies at the very core of every human being. Such a statement had felt to them as a bit of a bold statement.

Yet, if pride is the core or root of all sin, and pride is a mis-placed hunger for honour, then it stands to reason that it is the hunger for honour that is actually at the core and root of all sin.

Christians need to understand what is going on and learn how to bring biblical good news to the core problem of the lost souls of our world who are wandering aimlessly, looking for something they sense but have no clue as to how to find the true answer. 

But while we need to recognise the broken cisterns of dirty, muddy, putrid, death-delivering water they are drinking from, and the lies that abound which make them believe it is life-giving water….the greater need is for us to actually realise what they are looking for and to help them see that rather than God being quiet on their deepest longings, God says a lot about his right way to find what they are looking for. They need to discover that Jesus himself is their source of identity, dignity and honour. Yes, his road (both commanded and exemplified) to the fulfilment of those longings requires us to first do what humanly seems the opposite, and let go of our honour and pursue humility. 

BUT, if a mis-placed honour yearning is the core of all sin, a rightly placed honour hunger and thirst (for righteousness  found only in Christ and not ourselves) is then the core of all that will please God and satisfy us…..because ….by Jesus Christ we were made, and by him we can be re-made, born again to a new satisfying identity and honour.

Developing vs Disintegrating!

African nations are often categorised as 'developing' nations.

So does the West exemplify the 'developed' nations?  Maybe we should instead categorise the West as 'disintegrating'!....or maybe even 'self-destructing'!

'Developing' is a bit of an ambiguous word in many ways anyhow - after all, into what is Africa supposed to be developing?  

I sincerely hope Africa doesn't want to develop into what the West is becoming.

I think of the image of a water-slide, where it is easy to slide down with gathering momentum, but getting back up to the starting platform takes the hard slow slog of climbing the stairs one by one.

Africa is trying hard to climb the stairs to get to the levels of success that it saw the West having....meanwhile the West is sliding down at a speed and momentum that is hard to even keep up with!

And sadly the slide is not down into refreshing water.....the West are propelling themselves further toward a mirage! 

And the reality once they get to the logical end is not even an empty dry desert, but a slimy, poisonous, foul sewer.

Not only is it only a couple of weeks since the USA Supreme Court decided to redefine marriage to include same-sex marriage but.....

In the last 48 hours a video was released as the culmination of an undercover investigation, revealing that the organisation Planned Parenthood in the USA has been participating in selling aborted fetuses or parts of a fetus, specifically teaching abortion doctors how to avoid damaging certain body parts such as the liver, heart and head when they kill the unborn baby in the womb!

On the other hand, also in the last 48hours I learnt that the UN has just passed a resolution that re-affirms the importance of the traditional family.  But that resolution didn't pass because the West voted for it, but because Africa and other nations did.  The USA and various other Western nations actually opposed it!!!

President Obama is soon to visit Kenya, but Kenyan leaders have warned Obama not to raise the issue of same-sex marriage during his visit.  Christianity Today magazine reported that Kenyan church leaders have very strongly come out to clearly state that as Africans and as Christians they are totally opposed to such a thing.

Many Africans are not happy about the USA Supreme Court's ruling on same-sex marriage.

Once upon a time the West called Africa the 'dark continent' and called people here 'savages' or 'heathen'.  I think Africa just about has the right to now call the West 'heathen' and 'savages' don't you?

But although it is Christian Africans who are standing boldly on God's truth about marriage, African culture also takes a strong stand against homosexuality.  Why?

Because it halts procreation and the ability for humanity to continue on. 

And in the African context it disables your tribe from continuing on, which would be the ultimate dishonouring of the elders, ancestors, tribe, family and life itself.

As one African spokesman in the article mentioned above said, if two men are the only ones on a deserted island, no children will result.  It's as simple as that.

Although it might be a mis-placed honour toward cultural elders and one's earthly tribe, that drives some of their intense reaction, it is a better reflection of the mandate God gave Adam and Eve to 'multiply and fill the earth' than what the West is now promoting, both in most parts of secular society and in many areas of 'church' society.

The West (whether it be the secular area or the church) is flying in the face of one of the only two commandments God gave Adam and Eve in Genesis.  There is a blatant disregard for the laws of God and his commands and total disregard for God Himself as the giver of those laws.

Only two commands were given in Genesis to Adam and Eve - one positive 'do' and one negative 'do not'. 

Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over [it], was the 'do' command. -  Genesis 1:28

Do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, was the 'do not' command. - Genesis 2:17

They disobeyed the one 'do not'.  

We might point the finger at Adam and Eve and say 'how could they have done what they did and put the whole human race under the curse of sin?'

But we are now disobeying the only other command given - if anything this is a very clear example of no reason to blame Adam and Eve for their choice to dishonour the Creator's rulership and disobey his command.  We are doing the same.

Here the West is openly and speedily going further and further from this one positive command - the USA (and many other Western nations) is not only further condoning and promoting relationships that don't have any possibility of procreation, but they are also killing thousands and thousands - millions - of unborn children.  And as if  that isn't bad enough, they are now trying to go even further into the sewer of sin, by trafficking the body parts!!

Pray with us that those in Africa will be bold enough to stay strong in standing up to the bullying and ever worsening example of the West, and press on in their efforts to climb step by step.....but that the climb won't just be to 'be like the west', but to develop into the nations, tribes, families and people who God wants them to be.

Pray that Africa will not seek to gain their honour first on an earthly scale in the eyes of other nations, but will come to know the honour God wants to give them if they will give Him the Highest Honour above all.

Two observations on the USA Supreme Court ruling on Same-sex marriage from a Cross-cultural Missions perspective

- MARRIAGE -

Last Friday marked a sad milestone in the Western world as the Supreme Court of the USA ruled that same-sex couples are not to be denied the right to 'marriage'.

Various leaders and groups within the USA have already commented on their websites and blogs.  Within hours of the ruling we had emails tumble into our inbox from many such places.

Here are some links if you want to read further what some Christian leaders are saying:

Al Mohler has a special edition of The Briefing to talk it through. John Piper shared a lamentation. The Ethics & Religious Liberties Commission released Here We Stand, a statement of dissent signed by a whole series of Christian leaders. CBMW released an official response. Living Waters made comment and advertised their DVD.

Two things stand out to me from the perspective of 'looking in' from an outside cross-cultural perspective.

1. Marriage has been re-defined by the culture - but that doesn't change God's definition of marriage according to the Creator's design.  Life around us here in Africa is full of mis-defined  and mis-understood concepts.  I've lost count as to how many times I have been told by the lady who assists in our home, that from a biblical perspective, Africans have no idea what marriage is.  The mis-placed beliefs have to be replaced. We always need to be alert to where a 'cultural' meaning is eroding or in conflict with a biblical meaning of a concept. Even heterosexual 'marriages' can be a far cry from God's idea of marriage.  We need to seek a personally ever deepening knowledge of the truth on marriage and pro-atively teach it wherever we can.

2. This ruling was more about honour, not the law - As I listened to Albert Mohler's 20 minute radio comment on the ruling, he referred again and again to how the Chief Justice of the USA (who himself is pro-gay-marriage) was a dissenter on the ruling because he saw this was a ruling based on the personal moral views of the people making the ruling, not an upholding of the law.  This was not just about equal 'rights' in daily living but more about a desire for equal dignity - in other words 'honour'.  In fact the conclusion of the document states : "They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law".  

As Al Mohler mentioned, this was about a desire for gay couples to feel like they were of equal worth and 'belonged'.

I find it rather interesting that in quite an unplanned way,  my previous blogpost was all about whether the USA/the West is 'allergic to honour' or not.  My conclusion was 'not', but that we might be allergic to the 'word' honour even though the concept is influencing daily life all the time.  This ruling is a significant 'case in point'.  It is astonishingly clear in this document just how much the concept of 'honour' (in various terminology) is growing in Western society especially the USA, and how much it is influencing the Western worldview.

The arguments used in the ruling were cased in honour terminology such as:

gay marriage should be approved so children of gay-couples don't have to live with the 'stigma' of being looked on as 'less' and suffer 'humiliation'

exact wording: "children suffer the stigma of knowing their families are somehow lesser.......marriage laws at issue here thus harm and humiliate the children of same-sex couples".

"Same sex couples are denied benefits afforded opposite sex couples and are barred from exercising a fundamental right. Especially against a long history of dis-approval of their relationships, this denial works a grave and continuing harm serving to disrespect and subordinate gays and lesbians"

"Men and women suffered pain and humiliation"

"It is demeaning to lock same-sex couples out"

"The lifelong union of a man and a woman always has promised nobility and dignity to all persons, without regard to their station in life"

"Far from seeking to devalue marriage, the petitioners seek it for themselves because of their respect and need for its privilages and responsibilities"

"The state must accord them its respect"

"Many who deem same-sex marriage to be wrong reach that conclusion based on decent and honorable religious or philosophical premises  and neither they nor their beliefs are disparaged here.."

"Same-sex couples seek in marriage the same legal treatment as opposite sex couples and it would disparage their choices and diminish their personhood to deny them this right"

Words like 'dignity' or 'humiliation' or 'respect' were recurring throughout the documented ruling and in fact occurred 4 times just in the last few lines summary of the document.

The document did not emphasise 'justice' in the eyes of the law, but 'dignity' in the eyes of the law.  This is not a legal emphasis language but an honour emphasis language. This was not just about equal 'rights' in daily living but more about a desire for equal dignity - in other words 'honour'.  In fact the conclusion of the document states : "They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law".  

So what's my point?  Although our research was initially with the purpose of better reaching Africa it may well be used on a different continent......as I've said before....if the West wants to reach the Post-modern West with the gospel that will be heard at a heart level, it MUST factor in the reality of 'honour'.  

People must come to understand true honour in Christ if they are ever going to be willing to put aside a desire for honour in the eyes of the world around them.

Gay

"I'm Gay" once meant a person was telling you her name.  Now it means something totally different. Now it means a person's same-sex sexual orientation.

Homosexuality, whether it be gay or lesbian is in the forefront of the media wherever you look.

Yes even in Botswana, although it is deemed illegal, there is a support group who was recently awarded by the courts the right to be an officially registered organisation.  Some see it as a victory and some see it as the opposite.

I hear that, in Australia, there is yet another gay marriage push in the Federal Parliament.

In the UK, we have friends who have experienced a nightmare in recent years in relation to their young son because the official position of the country is to allow gay marriage and so what is being taught in schools is in line with that...and if a parent is found to contradict it, they face problems.

Some friends here have a young adult daughter who is in a lesbian relationship and a teenage son living in the UK who has announced he is in a gay relationship.

But  we see the response of Christians around the world generally polarised - either they are vehemently and verbally opposed or else totally accepting of it as 'normal'.

However, a cause of rejoicing is that there are many in the evangelical churches that are seeing a need to respond in truth and in love.  There is also a willingness of some of those who have struggled (or still struggle) with same sex attraction or have in the past been in a same-sex relationship, to share their story and God's grace in enabling them to overcome and live according to God's good plan for sex.

We would like to recommend a particular article that has just come 'across our desk' called 'Seven Things I Wish My Pastor Knew About My Homosexuality', as well as a video of a sermon by Kevin DeYoung based on his new book 'What does the Bible really teach about homosexuality' and the follow-on superb panel discussion featuring Jackie Hill Perry who prior to coming to Christ was in a lesbian relationship, but is now married and a mother.

.....and if you want another good book to read on the matter, 'The Secret thoughts of an Unlikely Convert' which is the autobiography of Rosaia Butterfield is highly recommended or 'What some of you were' published by Matthias Media or links to other good and helpful articles and books here

This is not a matter that Christians should be silent on, but what we say and how we say it is vital to whether the truth is heard and people understand truly what God says about the subject and the hope God has for those in the midst of it.