Pride
By George “Chip” Hammond
Pride. It’s all around us. We have Proud Boy and Pride Month. Pride is global.
A British born Canadian citizen started the Proud Boys in 2016. The organization advocates for and endorses violence to achieve its political ends. The group has been designated as a terrorist organization by Canada and New Zealand and has been studied and tracked by the International Centre on Counterterrorism at the Hague. In 2022 four leaders of the Proud Boys were convicted on charges ranging from assault to seditious conspiracy for their role in the Jan. 16, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and Congress.
Pride Month (June) began as “Gay Pride” with parades to commemorate and celebrate the riots and destruction that followed the closing of a gay bar in Greenwich Village, New York in 1969. Originally organized to push for the decriminalization of men who have sex with men, it has been expanded now to include advocacy for any kind of sexual expression and behavior (designated by LGBTQ+). It includes the rights of “transgender children” to medically and chemically transition their gender without the consent or approval of their parents, and it advocates for the legitimacy of minor attracted persons (MAPs, those who desire the decriminalization of sex with children). This movement has become so powerful that this year it was celebrated and lauded by the President of the United States.
Pride is not new, but it is contagious. In 1933 Adolph Hitler embarked on a campaign to engender nationalistic pride aimed at returning Germany to its former greatness after the disastrous consequences of the Treaty of Versailles. Pride became so strong that many churches in Germany were swallowed up by it, and churches that opposed it became the targets of popular and government recriminations.
Given that pride is celebrated, paraded, and lauded we might naturally think that pride is a good thing. In fact, however, the Bible has nothing at all good so say about pride.
“The LORD preserves the faithful but abundantly repays the one who acts in pride” (Psalm 31:23).
“Blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD, who does not look to the proud, to those who turn aside to false gods” (Psalm 40:4).
“Rise up, Judge of the earth; pay back the proud what they deserve” (Psalm 94:2).
“The LORD detests all the proud of heart” (Proverbs 16:5).
And David begins Psalm 131 with the words, “My heart is not proud, LORD, my eyes are not haughty” (Psalm 131:1).
This is only a small sampling of the Bible’s often repeated condemnation of pride. Why is pride seen as a uniformly evil attribute? There are at least three reasons.
First, pride is self-satisfied and self-sufficient. Pride sees the self (individually or collectively) as ultimate. Pride causes a person to measure the world and other people by the standard of his own desires and goals. “When they measure themselves by themselves, and compare themselves with themselves, they are without understanding” (2 Corinthians 10:12).
Secondly, pride is contagious and leads people to places they otherwise would not go. Many people were caught up in the Nazi movement in Germany. Many of those present at the U.S. Capital on Jan. 6 were caught up in the Proud Boys’ rhetoric and action and were emboldened to do things they later said they knew were wrong. Psalm 73 indicates the contagion of pride:
Pride is their necklace; they clothe themselves with violence. From their callous hearts comes iniquity; their evil imaginations have no limits. They scoff and speak with malice; with arrogance they threaten oppression. Their mouths lay claim to heaven, and their tongues take possession of the earth. Therefore, people turn to them and drink it up like water
(Psam 73:6-10).
Thirdly, those who are proud are wise in their own eyes. No one can reason with them. Their goals are ultimate, their cause “righteous,” and they are unconcerned with true right or wrong. Even what God says means nothing to them. “They say, ‘How can God know? Does the Most High have knowledge?’” (Psalm 73:11). Proverbs 26:12 says, “Do you see a man who is wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.”
Pride is what makes people disregard the rule of the law, disregard courts, and disregard God’s perspective on matters. Pride was behind the atrocities committed in Germany in the 1940s. Pride was behind the attack on the U.S. Capital in January 2021. And pride is what is behind the celebrations going on in the month of June even in the highest echelons of government.
Pride is powerful. It causes evil to succeed and flourish for a time. But it is only ever for a time. To gain a full perspective on what you see today, open your Bible and read Psalm 73 in its entirety. God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble.
