The “Inclusive” Rainbow

We have entered upon the high holy month of Pride. As such, we will inevitably be inundated with rainbows, rituals, and the rhythms of slogans and mantras designed to serve the unholy liturgy of modern paganism’s holiest month. It is not enough for Pride’s parishioners that we tolerate their constant sermonizing and evangelistic fervor. In 2023, Pride demands that we convert or die. She requires not tolerance but celebration. She will have us genuflect before her flag, baptize our children in her colors, catechize our families, and lie prostrate in humble submission before her priests. She will accept nothing less from us. There can be no compromise, for this goddess will not share her glory with another. Those who oppose her worship are threatened, their livelihoods imperiled, and their reputations ruined. The promise of inclusivism and acceptance is contingent upon one thing: our humble submission and worship.

I hardly exaggerate the situation of our culture. Christians should understand clearly the challenge that confronts the Church today. The question before us is not one of the ethics of alternate sexual behaviors. The challenge is nothing short of religious. An alternative worldview confronts us; it is a different way of seeing reality. The religion is paganism, with its own doctrines, liturgy, catechism, and ethic. Worldviews and religions are by nature, exclusive. The claim to inclusivism is a lie, and so is the claim to democratic tolerance. This being so, it is no surprise that this new religion has co-opted the language and symbolism of its only real rival, Christianity. It is a well-known fact that Christian missionaries have done this very thing historically as they sought to find ways to contextualize the gospel among pagans outside of the Roman Empire and in the Americas. This is what the evangelists of the new pagan religion have been doing right under our noses for decades.

One of the most glaring usurpations is the blasphemous redefinition of the rainbow. The rainbow in the Bible is a symbol of God’s covenant. It is no small irony that the reason for the flood was the wickedness and rebellion of mankind. Genesis 6:5 says, “The lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Because of this, God was grieved that he made mankind and proposed to destroy them. Only Noah found favor in his eyes (Gen. 6:6–8). After the flood, God gives Noah the sign of the rainbow in the sky. He tells him (Gen. 9:12–17):

This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you for all future generations: I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”

In just six verses, God states five times that the rainbow is his covenant sign made between him, mankind, and the earth itself. God's covenant promise with his creation is that he would never again destroy all living creatures with a flood. It is an inclusive sign of God’s patience and mercy toward his creation. The rainbow is also a sign of God’s glory. When Ezekiel sees a vision of God, he says that “like the appearance of the bow that is in the clouds in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness all around” (Ezekiel 1:28). Revelation describes God’s throne as enveloped by a rainbow with the appearance of an emerald. The rainbow in Revelation 4 reminds us of Ezekiel and Genesis. It represents God’s glory and his mercy in judgment. It also is the harbinger of a renewed creation, just as after the flood. For Christians, the rainbow looks back to God’s mercy amid terrifying judgment upon sin; it looks to God’s present forbearance and patience that all his people might be saved and not come to judgment; and it looks forward to the renewal of all things and the conversation of the nations.

The rainbow is an inclusive sign of an inclusive covenant. It means that God is not pouring out his full wrath on human rebellion and sin. He is waiting that sinners might be saved. He is doing this for the whole world. The Pride religion mocks God’s patience. It scornes his mercy and it tarnishes his glorious image in man. The great irony is that the very symbol of this generation’s rebellion is the symbol of their only hope. As Christians, we must remind all men of this. We must be very clear about the truth of God’s word and his gospel. We must point them to the crucified and risen Christ who gave himself for the world that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life (Jn. 3:16). We must point them to the real meaning of the rainbow before he comes again in judgment wrapped in a cloud, with a rainbow over his head, with a face like the sun and legs are like pillars of fire (Rev. 10:1).

The only hope for this wicked and perverse generation will come as Christians refuse to worship at the altar of Pride and reject her pagan lies. The only hope is worshiping the true and living God and his Son, Jesus Christ. The rainbow reminds us that no matter rough the storm, all hope is not lost. But they will not know that hope if we compromise with the demands of the goddess Pride. Never was the saying truer that the Church does the least good for the world the more she is like her. We must not capitulate to this new religion but must hold forth the hope of the gospel.

This month certainly presents us with challenges, but it also affords us a genuine opportunity to herald the word of the covenant of life, the God whose heavenly throne is enveloped in the sign of his mercy, that sinners might “turn to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come” (1 Thess. 9b–10).