The London Pride parade held on June 28th in the centre of the capital is as good a barometer as any for illustrating the spiritual and moral condition of contemporary Britain. This writer and a small group of ministers and other Christians in support from all around the UK endeavoured to make a stand for Biblical truth and preach the gospel, as the centre of our capital was given over to a celebration of the trashing God’s eternal moral law. The 32,000 people in the parade, and the many more thousands of members of the public cheering it on, were in reality engaged in a blatant anti-Christian and anti-God demonstration.
One would have thought that by now, having achieved all their objectives, the LGBT activists would be content with their victories of having won over society to their cause and of having redefined marriage in British law. Nevertheless, they still seem to have to take on the role of victim and campaigners against alleged inequality, despite having heaped upon the fulsome praise of the establishment.
The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, led the parade. He stated, “This incredible event is a shining light for LGBTQI+ rights and shows why our city is a beacon for openness and inclusion – a place where you are embraced and celebrated for who you are”. One wonders then if Bible-believing Christians who consider homosexuality to be sinful are also embraced and celebrated for who they are. From the behaviour towards them at the parade one could only conclude, Most definitely not!
Illustrating just how mainstream and establishment this event is, there follows is a random list of some of the parade participants : Hewlett Packard, Heathrow Express, the London Fire Brigade, Siemens, Tesco, the Institute of Biomedical Science, Cambridge University, London University, Coca-Cola, Transport for London, Historic Royal Palaces, The Army, the Royal Navy, the Royal Air Force, the Scouts, the National Grid, the Bank of England, the Financial Ombudsman Service and M&S.
As the witnessing Christians held up relevant Bible verses, so many younger people walked by contemptuously laughing, leading this writer each time to ask them, Why are you laughing at the Bible?, why are you mocking the word of God?; are you wiser than the God who gives you your daily breath? One wonders if they would be willing publicly to mock the Qur’an?
If there was one particular phenomenon which this event demonstrated, it was the complete failure of the mainstream churches in the last 50 or 60 years to proclaim what the Bible actually teaches. It exposes the churches’ utter unwillingness to confront head-on the fashionable trends in society for fear of not being seen to move with the times. It is as if the Biblical injunction, “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) had never been written.
Repeatedly the witnessing Christians were told, “Jesus never judges anyone”. Vast numbers of young people evidently believe that the Christian faith is nothing more than a replication of 1960s hippie culture and of the Beatles creed of ‘all you need is love’. Have they never read, for example, the Lord’s words in Luke 13:3, “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish”?
Many parade supporters also shouted out, “Jesus loves everyone”, and so they were asked in response, Does that mean that everyone without exception ends up in heaven, no matter what they have done in their lives? Are you really arguing that the Son of God, to whom the Father has assigned the role of Judge (John 5:22), never actually will judge, and will always overlook and condone all sin? Must we now abandon the Apostles’ Creed which says of the Lord Jesus Christ, “He is seated at the right hand of the Father, and He will come to judge the living and the dead”.
As the day progressed, it became increasingly apparent how the word ‘love’ is one of the most abused words in the English language. The mantra of ‘love is love’ was frequently chanted, but what does this expression actually mean? Does it mean that all types of love must be valid, such as, for example, adulterous love or fornication outside of marriage? What this parade made blindingly obvious was the complete absence of love, indeed the outright hostility and contempt, within the LGBT movement towards those who dare to challenge on Biblical grounds their worldview.
For those who would argue that the presence at the parade of Christians preaching about repentance also demonstrated an absence of love towards homosexual and trans people, our response is this : it is an aspect of profound love to one’s neighbour, if one sees him in danger, to warn him and to show him the means of escaping the danger, and to point him also to the means of receiving abundant blessing.
This parade was such a depressing snapshot of a collapsing civilisation. Sexual acts between men were simulated in front of the Christians as a means of expressing contempt for their presence. Young children were amongst the crowds watching this enormous event as men in scanty underwear, dressed in skirts, or in leather and as dogs, paraded through the streets. How tragic it was to see so many young people seemingly incapable of any valid response to a declaration of Biblical morality other than to make vulgar hand gestures, swear at and insult those whom they disagreed. Every time that they did this, this writer told them that he had just won the argument, because of the ad hominem nature of their response, devoid of actual substance.
The preachers endeavoured to explain to the many thousands of parade supporters that their conduct was exposing an utter susceptibility to the dictates of majority thinking. They were revealing their captivity to the spirit of the age. They are the conformists, the establishment, the mainstream, whereas to follow the Lord Jesus Christ is to come apart and be separate from the ways of this world. May the God of grace and mercy, who is also a terrifying Judge if there is no repentance, speak powerfully to their hearts.
Pastor Peter Simpson, Penn Free Methodist Church