When Pride Turns Deadly

 Below is my column for today's edition of the Grand Haven Tribune.

A few weeks ago, someone once again stole the Pride flag that hangs in front of my church. Like clockwork, the incident sparked a familiar conversation online: “How can a church celebrate Pride Month,” people asked, “when pride is clearly a sin?”

The answer lies in language. When Christians through the centuries condemned “pride,” they weren’t talking about the joy of LGBTQIA+ people embracing their identity (like they weren’t talking about being proud to be an American). They meant arrogance – thinking of yourself as more important than others. The Greek word hyperiphaneia means self-overestimation; the Latin superbia means an inflated sense of self.

Ironically, condemning Pride Month actually commits the very sin Scripture warns against: placing your own identity and way of life above others. To insist that only heterosexual or cisgender identity is “normal,” and that others must conform, is to place yourself above your neighbor. It is to live out superbia.

That doesn’t mean pride is always harmless. The Bible repeatedly warns that arrogance leads to calamity: “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall” (Prov. 16:18). Pride blinds us to our dependence on God, narrows our world to ourselves, and eventually produces violence.

Which brings us to today. We live in a culture that exalts personal rights over communal responsibility, that elevates comfort over children’s safety, that clings to “my way of life” even when others are dying as a result. That is pride. And its fruits are on daily display.

This past week, in Minneapolis, a person with legally purchased guns walked up to a Catholic church during morning Mass and shattered a sanctuary with bullets. Two children – 8-year-old Fletcher and 10-year-old Harper – were killed as they prayed, and nearly 20 others, mostly children, were wounded. One student, who was shot in the back, was using his body to protect another child.

Some headlines emphasized that the shooter was a transgender woman. But the overwhelming majority of mass shootings are committed by cisgender men. To make this horror about her identity is to miss the reality staring us in the face: our nation’s epidemic of violence knows no single political party, no gender identity, no neat ideological box. What makes this possible – again and again – is the sheer availability of guns, and our collective refusal to enact even the most basic forms of gun safety.

Investigators recovered more than 100 spent rifle casings, several shotgun shells, and a handgun that jammed. Four magazines had been emptied, with more ammunition ready. To say that restricting certain firearms or limiting magazine capacity would make no difference is to ignore the facts.

And yet, again and again, we refuse reform. That refusal is not neutrality. It is pride – pride that insists a person’s right to own any weapon they want outweighs a child’s right to live. Gun violence is now the leading cause of death for children and teenagers in America – it surpassed motor vehicle accidents in 2020 and we did nothing. Seven children die every single day. We argue on social media, or we just become numb.

Nor is Ottawa County immune. Our local party has attacked Grand Haven’s Pride Festival, calling drag shows “adult entertainment” and portraying queer joy as dangerous for children. Commissioners have relaxed rules around guns on county property, one even carrying a handgun onto a campus that prohibited them. Hostility toward difference combined with lax gun laws is exactly the recipe Scripture warns against.

But Christ offers another way. Jesus taught that true life is found not in scrambling for power but in humility – recognizing others as just as beloved as ourselves. To affirm LGBTQ dignity is not to exalt one group; it is to reject the lie that some lives matter less. To support responsible gun reform is not to trample on freedom; it is to insist that freedom without responsibility is no freedom at all.

The choice is stark. We can cling to deadly pride while children bleed in sanctuaries. Or we can walk in humility – laying down idols of violence, listening across divides, building a society where every child can grow up safe and free.

The God that many of us worship is not indifferent. This is the God who hears the cries of parents in Minneapolis, who weeps with children crying while they hide under pews, the God who stands beside every queer and trans teenager told they are unworthy. This is the God who bears in Christ’s wounded body the cost of our violence – and still calls us to another way.

That way is possible. But only if we are willing to let go of our pride.

The Rev. Dr. Jared C. Cramer serves as rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven. Information about his parish can be found at www.sjegh.com.