Debauchery: The Truth in “Pride Month”

article censored for telling the truth about homosexuality

Censored!

Normally, the articles in this substack have been published elsewhere. But this article wasn’t published. It was censored. When I wrote a weekly column for a local newspaper, an earlier version of this article was censored because the editor didn’t want anything negative about homosexuality. Our cultural gate-keepers now suppress anything that tells the truth about sexual perversion.

Some sins today that we’re encouraged to celebrate, especially during “pride month,” are called, in the Bible, an “abomination,” in the old-fashioned language, “detestable” in newer language.

“You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.” (Leviticus 18:22)

Now, people today will say that they are “born that way”, that that is their “orientation.” But I don’t think that is even an argument worth having. Even if they do find that some people have a natural inclination to some sins, that would be no different than finding that some people are inclined toward stealing or drunkenness or violence. Just because some people may have a weakness toward a certain sin, doesn’t mean that for them that is not a sin any more. It just means that they have to strive to fight and overcome it, not feel “pride” about it. A man who keeps having affairs is probably not going to get very far with his wife by insisting that he just has the “roving eye” gene.

In Romans 1 when people stop trying to over-come their self-centered approach to life and start living as if their pleasures were all that mattered, when they shut their minds to what nature plainly reveals, then God “gives them up” to what they want. The sin itself becomes the punishment.

“Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, . . . For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. . . God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.” (Romans 1:24, 26, 28.)

In Genesis 19, the famous chapter in which Sodom and Gomorrah is portrayed and destroyed, where we get the term “sodomy,” the key sin for the mob of men is their refusal to be restrained. It’s not just that they had homosexual inclinations — an orientation — but that they refused to control themselves. In Genesis 19:9, as Lot was trying to deter them by telling them their actions were “wicked,” they wouldn’t be restrained. They were proud of their sin. No one could tell them what not to do. At the heart of this sin is a self-centered hatred of authority, the same thing at the garden of Eden when our first parents thought they could become “like God,” deciding for ourselves what is right or wrong. At the heart of sin is me hating anyone who tells me “no.” So we have the perversity of June dedicated to feeling “pride” in what God calls debauchery.

“Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.” (Jude 7.)

Both in Genesis 19 and Romans 1, homosexuality really is not the “root sin,” as though if we reformed this everything would be alright. No, let’s understand clearly, we could suppress sexual immorality again – through shame and laws – but still we could be worse off than Sodom and Gomorrah if by our unbelief we reject Jesus as our Lord, if we choose to be content with our traditional religion and morality, and tell the real Jesus, “We don’t need your miracle working power.”

If we think we can just avoid the most outrageous sins, we’ll be alright, we’ve missed the point. The point is that it’s not just the sins they demonstrated that lead to the devastation. It’s the arrogant, rebellious heart that can lead a life that looks debauched . . . or that looks decent. Sometimes the decent people are the hardest to reach because they think their decency is enough. But Jesus says, “It will be more tolerable for Sodom than for you” (Matthew 11:24). Only Lot and his family were delivered and only because the Lord’s angel took him by the hand.

So, the warning -- “It will be more tolerable for Sodom than for you” – those words should shake us to our core, bring us to our knees, break-through our sentimental love for the familiar, destroy our nostalgia for an old-time religion that told us we were okay even if we lived in rebellion against Jesus the King and judge – and that warning, that it will be worse for us than these people should finally bring us to look squarely at who we are in our sins and who the Lord is, unleashing devastation. We realize finally that it’s not our decency that delivers us from disaster. Our “pride” in our sin still doesn’t make that sin any less sinful. So, what are we to do? Except hold out empty hands that the Lord may mercifully take us by them and lead us to safety.

John B. Carpenter, Ph.D., is pastor of Covenant Reformed Baptist Church, in Danville, VA. and the author of Seven Pillars of a Biblical Church (Wipf and Stock, 2022).