In 1978, San Francisco artist Gilbert Baker popularized the rainbow flag and it was first used in the San Francisco Pride Parade that same year. Now, the rainbow flag had been used previously for various reasons. In 1925, the International Cooperative Alliance adopted the rainbow flag in 1925. An international peace flag has been popular in Italy since 1961. Now, in the 1990s, the rainbow flag was moved to represent the LGBTQIA+ community.

Yet, biblically, the rainbow is connected with a promise–a promise that God made to humanity, to the animals, and to the earth: he would never destroy the earth via a flood ever again. While the flag is not identical to the rainbow (the rainbow has seven colors while the Pride flag has six), it seems in our culture that the rainbow automatically brings up “pride,” not the promise. The rainbow, in fact, is a promise that humbles us–and humility is the opposite of pride.

Recently, I preached on this in fuller form.