Pornography
EVERY WEDNESDAY night, Sam’s youth group met in a darkened gymnasium dressed up as a rock concert: decorative fabrics, professional sound equipment, and a light show. A thin, attractive youth pastor with a soul patch and skinny jeans would deliver a message about the evils of sex, drugs, and alcohol.
In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” This was a favorite verse of Sam’s youth pastors, who wielded it to warn kids against even thinking about sex. If lusting after a woman was just as bad as committing adultery, their logic held, then even thinking about sex is a sin.
“The weird thing,” Sam told me, “was that it wasn’t date rape or sexual harassment or even treating people disrespectfully that they were worried about. It was ‘impure thoughts’ and lust.”
There are two problems that I see here: One, these were teenagers, whose bodies are designed by God to become sexual, and two, the Greek word for lust, epithymia, is about general desire, not thinking sexual thoughts. If epithymia was a term for sexual desire, it would make some other things Jesus said super weird. (For example, Luke 22:15: “And he said to them, I have had sexual thoughts about eating this Passover with you before I suffer.”)
Stormy Daniels is interviewed by Anderson Cooper. CBSNews/60 MINUTES/via REUTERS
At the time, authors like conservative political activists Tim and Beverly LaHaye and Focus on the Family founder James Dobson acknowledged that porn was a problem that Christians (almost always men but on occasion women) faced. Their writing focused on how pornography harmed marital relationships and personal well-being. At the same time, however, it described how devout Christians may be pornography consumers.
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Naming it “corrosive” and a “dark” sign of contemporary American culture, the U.S. Catholic bishops approved a document this week condemning the production and use of pornography as a mortal sin.
Reaction from the bishops’ critics didn’t take long. Some said the bishops themselves have very serious problems with pornography; others pointed out the not-so-distant sex abuse crisis. The upshot was that the bishops ought to have different priorities.
One could be forgiven for confusing this disagreement with one from the 1980s. Didn’t it play out over a generation ago — with the result that our culture basically accepts porn as part of sexual liberation?
Pope Francis on his flight from Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, to Rome on June 6, 2015. Photo via REUTERS/Luca Zennaro/Pool/RNS
Pope Francis has decried the “filth” of online pornography and warned people against wasting time on their computers.
Speaking aboard the papal plane after his visit on June 6 to Bosnia-Herzegovina’s capital of Sarajevo, the pontiff took a two-pronged approach to modern technology.
“There are two different elements here: method and content,” he said, according to Vatican Radio.
“Regarding the method or way of doing things, there is one that is bad for the soul, and that is being too attached to the computer.”
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The film adaptation of Fifty Shades of Grey, which opens in theaters on Feb. 13, has movie morality guardians armed and heading for battle.
The Catholic bishop of Buffalo, N.Y., has warned fellow prelates to step up preaching on the true beauty of sex-within-male-female-marriage — and do it pronto.
“Remind the faithful of the beauty of the Church’s teaching on the gift of sexual intimacy in marriage, the great dignity of women, and the moral reprehensibility of all domestic violence and sexual exploitation,” wrote Bishop Richard Malone, in a letter Feb. 4 to fellow clergy at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
His letter came with multiple links to resources, some 15 to 20 years old, showing the church’s consistent stand against domestic violence and pornography.
The Catholic clergymen could be facing a juggernaut: Fandango reports box-office pre-sale numbers are soaring, particularly in the Bible Belt and the Midwest.
The Fifty Shades books by British writer E.L. James have sold more than 100 million copies.
But the movie trailer — and a Super Bowl ad scrubbed of anything very sexual — sent opposition to the film into high gear.
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For Christians, it’s sometimes hard to admit believing in the supernatural, the legitimacy of miracles, an afterlife, and following an ancient text written thousands of years ago by numerous authors that have been divinely inspired by an all-knowing, all-powerful, and omnipresent God.
At first glance, Christianity seems at odds with an increasingly “secular” culture that views spirituality as old-fashioned and irrelevant, but our society reveals that everything — and everyone — is spiritual on some level.
At first glance, Christianity seems at odds with an increasingly “secular” culture that views spirituality as old-fashioned and irrelevant, but our society reveals that everything — and everyone — is spiritual on some level.
1. The Religion of Sport
Few people pray more fervently, earnestly, and passionately than when their favorite sports teams — and athletes — are competing.
With arms outstretched, they wildly clap, cheer, chant, cry, and scream at the top of their lungs. Wearing costumes, jerseys, and following
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Eight years ago I left my dorm room, humming the hook to “Till I Collapse” on my walk to the bathroom. When I returned a new song was playing on my laptop. Ludacris’ “P-Poppin’” pierced through the thin walls and echoed down the hallway. I bobbed my head along and then sat down to finish my homework. I looked at the screen, and I thought I saw my sister.
One of the women on the screen in the strip club swinging around a pole trying to seduce Ludacris looked like Jennifer – my older sister.
And something began to shift.
PRAY for freedom for the 27 million people enslaved today.
MENTOR local youth who may be at risk of exploitation by traffickers.
PARTNER with an anti-slavery organization such as Free the Slaves, International Justice Mission, Love146, Made In A Free World, Not For Sale, or The A21 Campaign.
WRITE a letter to your elected officials, calling on Congress to act.
Seven deadly sins, © RTimages / Shutterstock.com
The seven deadly sins have new partners in crime.
Lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride still attract a lot of attention. But as the Internet and other media invade American life, our vices have also gone virtual, according to a new study.
Nearly half of Americans say they are tempted to idle the hours away on the Internet, video games and television, according to Barna Group, a California-based Christian research organization.
RNS photo courtesy Random House UK
Ask Kelley Taylor, a Southern Baptist college student, if she's opened the steamy pages of Fifty Shades of Grey, and she has a ready response.
"Some of my friends have read it but I decided not to because I just heard about the content and didn't think it was something I should be reading," said the North Carolina State University senior, who is majoring in wildlife biology. "I think that it's kind of contrary to what the Bible says about fleeing from sexual lust and temptation."
Taylor is not alone. Many evangelical women say they wouldn't touch the best-selling book, often described as "mommy porn" because of its escapist appeal to working mothers and suburban housewives. But evangelical leaders also realize that some members of their churches and Bible studies can't resist.
"I've personally backed off from direct political involvement," Robertson said. "I've been there, done that. The truth of the matter is politics is not going to change our world. It's really not going to make that much of a difference."
Glenn Beck says Christians should leave churches that use the word "social justice." He says social justice is a code word for communism and Nazism.
How can a Christian tick off both porn filmmakers and religious conservatives? Ask youth pastors Mike Foster and Craig Gross, who created xxxchurch.com, "the #1 Christian Porn Site" on the Internet, calling children and adults to
There has always been crossover from Saturday night to Sunday morning, but a Christian porn site?
Get out the garlic! Hef is back. That was the gist of a series of articles last summer and fall chronicling the return to the limelight of Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner.
In the early days of the Gulf war, ABC's Nightline took a break from round-the-clock coverage of lit-up skies and talking dignitaries and shifted its attention to MTV...