Pride and the Dissident Prophetic Voice
Calendars Form Culture
If you have an iPhone you are probably aware that its default calendar app comes pre-loaded with various holidays that our culture has come to celebrate. This includes a pluralist collection of religious and political holidays. A brief survey of the calendar gives us a picture of the current cultural conflict between pluralism and the biblical worldview. What has Easter to do with Ramadan or the Hindu celebration of Holi? Or what has Pride Month to do with Christmas?
One of the features of this default calendar is that you are unable to edit it. So, unless you remove the default calendar and find another calendar to subscribe to, you will be confronted everyJune 1st with the proclamation that this month is about celebrating the LGBTQ+ holiday season of Pride.
This is not inconsequential. Christian philosopher Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy claimed that “Calendars are rhythmic forms of memory and cycles of worship.”1 As such they are the liturgies of a people meant to both recount important doctrines as well as form a people according to those doctrines. If we take this claim seriously, we can see that the calendar is another way that the idolatrous religion of LGBTQ+ideology is aggressively seeking to form our culture, and every iPhone user, by its doctrines.
When Idolatrous Culture is Normalized
What happens in the long-term when a culture begins to formalize idolatrous doctrines in this way? Herbert Scholssberg in his fantastic book Idols for Destruction explains that;
"Idols are hard to identify after they have been part of the society for a time. It became ‘normal’ for the people of Jerusalem to worship Molech in the temple, and it seemed odd that people calling themselves prophets should denounce the practice. Molech was part of the establishment religious scene, one that had directed the national cult throughout living memory. The idol was supported by all the ‘best’ elements of society, the political, economic, and religious power structure.2"
And this is what made the prophets so unpopular. They were denouncing what had become “normal”, acceptable, and celebrated. They were seen as “troublers of Israel”.
This is why true prophets were rejected in favor of the false prophets who said “Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace.” (Jeremiah6:14). When idolatry becomes normal, the people exchange a proper shame for sin for pride. As we read further in Jeremiah, “Were they ashamed when they committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed; they did not know how to blush.” (Jeremiah 6:15)
This is the impact of normalized and cultivated idolatry.The people forget how to blush and the voices of the prophets are criticized as extreme and fundamentalist. In our context, anyone who speaks out against Pride month is denounced as“homophobic”, “transphobic”, un-American, or bigoted - while at the same time notions of “neutrality”are abandoned and tax dollars are used to erect non-neutral ideological/religious pride flags contradicting the beliefs of tax-payers. Meanwhile any protest against is labeled as “hate speech”.
How Must the Church Respond?
What about the Church? Even once evangelical church leaders have a softer version of this where they denounce any within their own fold who disturb the “peace” of the normalized idolatry as “pharisees”, “arrogant”, or not being “winsome.” In reality these denunciations serve the proliferation of the idolatrous ideology. Worst of all, this posture teaches those who have been rescued from the grip of this idolatry to censor themselves from sharing publicly any praise for God for their redemption. Sharing how God saved them from the damning lie of the LGBTQ+ ideology is too offensive to our neighbors because it repudiates their ideology as something to be saved from.
We need to learn how to approach this situation from the true prophets of scripture. In their humility before the Lord they did not celebrate the sinful pride of the idolatrous, but rather denounced it. So also leaders of the Church today ought to denounce today’s idolatry. We must also know that for such a stand , the true prophets were scorned and reviled by the culture that had normalized idolatry. So also a faithful church must understand that this is the cost of true discipleship and worship. To return to Schlossberg on the subject:
In a society in which idolatry runs rampant, a church that is not iconoclastic is a travesty.
"In a society in which idolatry runs rampant, a church that is not iconoclastic is a travesty. If it is not against the idols it is with them…people tend to be unaware that their Sunday worship service, from beginning to end, repudiates the culture that they daily uphold as their way of life’...instead of exposing the modern idols, they promote and serve them.They are counterparts of the of Molech in the temple at Jerusalem." 3
We must not partner with the priestly servants of the LBGTQ+ ideology in this way. During our times, and especially during June when the idolatrous voice is loudest, the Church needs to reclaim their prophetic voice of dissidence. To that end, here are several ways this can be applied today.
1. Support your pastors when they address these issues, especially when they come underfire for doing so.
2. Make your voice heard where possible so that the normalized voice of idolatry is not made culturally absolute and uncontested. This can happen online or in private conversation, and in city council meetings, public school board meetings, and letters to representatives.
3. When making your voice heard, do so clearly, calmly, and respectfully but with determination and persistence. Just because they call you a “hater”or an “extremist” does not mean you should give them any needless excuse for doing so.
4. Celebrate God’s good design of sexuality and honor what God says is “very good”. Celebrate and praise God for his work of rescuing sinners from the lie of LGBTQ+ ideology and encourage those who have been rescued from it to praise God for his mighty work in their life.
1 Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, The ChristianFuture, 207
2 HerbertSchlossberg, Idols for Destruction, 254
3 HerbertSchlossberg, Idols for Destruction, 254-255