Teaching Our Children the Truth About Rainbows and Pride

It was the middle of the month of June. As we know, June in recent years is the month America is supposed to celebrate “pride” about sexual sin. Flags with counterfeit rainbows wave from porches in peaceful neighborhoods. Banners drape around store merchandise, icons pepper home pages. Until students are dismissed for the summer, our schools will often infuse this deception into classrooms, confusing the innocent.

A semi-hopeless malaise is my usual June mindset. But as God often works in our hearts, that dismay led my hands this year to start typing as I put together a column about how Christians might talk to our children about “pride” and explain the theft of the rainbow.

Educating our young is critical. The reason phony rainbows and “pride” have achieved their current level of respectability in many circles is largely due to Christian silence. Few churches are equipping their congregations to honor God’s Word and feel empowered to stand up against homosexual and gender confusion propaganda. Those pastors who bravely tackle this are a tiny minority. For most congregations on most Sundays, the sin of Sodom is a subject that never comes up.

So into that vacuum has rushed the deception that’s tearing young lives apart.

After I published this article, my friends at the wonderful ministry, Lighthouse Trails, suggested expanding this topic for a children's book. So I put together the first draft and they proposed a workbook format.

The result is What’s Really True About Rainbows and Pride: A Workbook for Kids. How many of our adolescents have ever read the Scriptures about homosexuality, or the biblical account of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah? How many understand God’s gift of the rainbow compared to its decadent misuse today? How many have been taught about God’s design of males and females as two distinctly human types? How many know the specific directions given by Jesus about marriage between one man and one woman? These are all covered in my book.

This book grew out of my experience through thirty years of ministry as president of Mission America. I became a believer after turning from agnosticism and progressive beliefs to join God’s people instead. After decades of monitoring and reporting the “gay” movement (now joined by “LB” and “TQ”), I am more convinced than ever about the imminent danger posed by homosexual/transgender behavior and our society’s accommodation. The threat is not just to individual salvation, but to Western civilization itself.

I have scratched my head over the church’s comfortable dodging away from homosexuality. What are pastors afraid of? “The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear?” (Psalm 27)

But the rainbow mob is not afraid. After decades of victim posturing about bullying and discrimination, public policy deference, and uniformly one-sided media support, “LGBTQ” advocates are comfortable not only in secular culture but in much of the church. The Presbyterian Church USA, the United Church of Christ, the United Methodist Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and the Episcopal Church USA all welcome open, proud homosexuals and transgenders, in clear defiance of God’s Word. How did that happen? Because adherents did not remain vigilant to protect the integrity of the gospel.

And the children raised in those churches have been thoroughly indoctrinated to disbelieve the pertinent Scriptures and believe the world of “drag queens” and June “pride” parades instead.

Biblically-based churches, in contrast, do not outright dismiss Genesis 19, Leviticus 18:22, Romans 1:26-27, or 1 Corinthians 6:9-11. But with hands over their ears, many pastors shut out the noise of the culture, pretending these Scriptures do not need intentional exposition.

Meanwhile, the army rages outside the church doors, and at times, invades.

The rise of para-church ministries like mine has become necessary for the remnant who are trying to address the intense battles in America that the church is not adequately addressing.

In my new book, I include a page that I think expresses my heart over this abandoned responsibility. We must speak the truth, but in love ( Ephesians 4:15). “Can you think of a way to be a good witness when the topic of homosexuality comes up?” we ask the child reader. These readers will be mostly middle school students, and they see what’s being shouted in the streets, on TV, in films, in school hallways. They know that “gay” or “trans” behavior is out there, and they usually discern that it’s shameful.

But how many churches understand that these current issues being deliberately avoided (and that includes abortion) are opportunities to witness?

This is what my book is trying to convey. “Fear not” and “Speak the truth in love.”

My hope is that parents, grandparents, children’s ministries, and youth groups will tackle these issues, being faithful to God’s Word, and if my new book helps, please use it.