As God’s Word teaches over and over, you, and all lost sinners, are called to recognize your sinful condition before God, acknowledge it, and repent by turning from it, and accepting the only remedy He has provided to deliver you from eternal death: the gift of eternal life. The saving remedy God provided was to send His Son Jesus Christ to this earth to live a sinless life and then to die in our place on the cross to atone for our sins.

LGBTQ pride is defined by the Left as the positive stance toward, and promotion of, lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, and transgender people as a social group.

“Pride” is all about sex and gender, with the characteristic of having a sexual or gender identity that does NOT correspond to established norms of sexuality and gender, especially heterosexual norms. The term queer is used by both right and left to describe proponents of non-normative sexual identities, but with opposite meanings.

Queerness is an umbrella term, used by the Left, to include people who are not heterosexual or are not cisgender, i.e., all those who embrace LGBTQism. Originally meaning ‘strange,’ ‘odd,’ or ‘peculiar,’ queer gained a connotation of sexual deviance and came to be used pejoratively against those with same-sex desires or relationships. This is how the word is still used by the Right.

More recently, queer activists, have tried to redefine the word as a deliberately provocative and politically radical term, and queer has become increasingly used to describe a broad spectrum of non-normative sexual or gender identities. Being queer to the Left is now viewed positively and is proudly included under their banner of “Pride.”

There is very much a dark side to Pride that springs from the extreme culture of sexual freedom that they have created, in which anything goes, sexually speaking. One of the big areas of concern is physical health. Think of diseases like AIDS and Monkeypox that particularly affect gay men. The Atlantic recently carried an article with the provocative headline: Gay Men Need a Specific Warning About Monkeypox.

There are many negative concerns with Pride beyond health, but my main concern with it is not physical, but spiritual and moral. In short, I believe the whole Pride agenda is wrong and profoundly immoral. Pride neither is nor has anything to be proud of.

Queer activists may retort, “How can you say that, Ostien; who are you to judge? Millions upon millions of people believe ardently in Pride and all it stands for. Look at the rainbow flags flying everywhere. The President of the United States is an strong supporter (despite being a ‘devout’ Catholic).”

You’re right, who am I to judge? But it isn’t I who is judging. My authority for calling Pride wrong and immoral is not from me. The authority for saying such is directly from the Word of the living God who created both you and me. He is there and He is not silent (Schaeffer). He didn’t just fill His Word with nice sayings and pleasant stories. He gave us commandments and law. He told us in no uncertain terms to keep his commandments, or suffer serious consequences.

His Word on sexual matters is particularly straight forward and clear, and it’s unequivocally condemnatory to all things Pride. Listen to the Apostle Paul in Romans 1:22-32:

Claiming to be wise, they became fools [i.e., those who suppress the truth], and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. … Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

This passage calls out negatively many practices touted by Pride devotees; v. 22 makes clear that such people may claim to be wise but instead have become fools.

Verse 32 presents your precarious position before God, if you approve or practice the sorts of sinful practices that Pride stands for, listed in the passage. The death spoken of there is not just physical death, which we all experience, but eternal death separated from God in hell.

If you are among the sinful followers and practitioners of Pride, you will die that second, eternal death, because God says in His Word that the wages of sin is death. However, all is not yet lost for you. You don’t have to remain in that fearful condition of facing eternal doom in hell.

As God’s Word teaches over and over, you, and all lost sinners, are called to recognize your sinful condition before God, acknowledge it, and repent by turning from it, and accepting the only remedy He has provided to deliver you from eternal death: the gift of eternal life.

The saving remedy God provided was to send His Son Jesus Christ to this earth to live a sinless life and then to die in our place on the cross to atone for our sins. He rose again and is now in heaven preparing a place for His people to dwell eternally with Him.

But note, that great privilege is only for His people, not for all people in the world. That raises the all-important question, how do you become one of God’s people? What must you do to be saved?

“Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31). 

“To all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12).

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God” (John 3:16-18).

Believe in Christ now and your condemnation will be removed and you will be saved.

Douglas Ostien is a member of Chestnut Mountain Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) in Chestnut Mountain, Ga.