chapter 3
a theology of pornographic lust
As a new Christian in college, I remember having a conversation with another young Christian who frequently viewed pornography and told me that it was okay because he had examined the Bible thoroughly and never saw the word "pornography." But, he conveniently missed the mountain of verses that speak about lust. This is typical among men who, as Paul says, want to suppress the truth so they can keep on sinning sexually (Rom. 1:18–24).
The purpose of pornography is clearly lust. And, lust for anyone but your wife is condemned by God as a grievous evil repeatedly throughout both the Old and New Testament (e.g., Prov. 6:25; Job 31:1; Matt. 5:28; Col. 3:5; 1 Thess. 4:5; 1 Pet. 4:3). The act of lusting after the unclothed body of a woman is not a sin. The issue is which woman's unclothed body you are lusting after. If she is your bride, then you are simply making the Song of Songs sing again to God's glory and your joy. If she is not your bride, then you are simply sinning.
It was God who clothed our mother Eve after her sin, and it is Eve's daughters who undress themselves for the camera in violation of God's desire that the female bodies he formed be seen only in their full glory by their husbands. Pornography is so enticing for men because there is a biological connection between a man's eyes and his genitals that causes men to be easily stimulated visually. Pornography has the sad effect of objectifying people into objects with parts, thereby divorcing a person from their body and consequently diminishing their dignity. One example of this are the frequent references by Tom Leykis, America's most popular talk radio show host for young men, to women as "toilets" where men go to leave their fluid.
Defining pornography is terribly difficult, as evidenced by the inability of our nation's Supreme Court to clearly articulate exactly what it is. For the purposes of our study, I do not necessarily include as pornographic such things as nude works of art or a romantic scene in a movie but acknowledge that a major-league pervert can get turned on by anything, as evidenced by the weirdo I knew who got off on the mating scenes of a nature channel. I do include such things as porno movies, magazines, web sites, online filthy sexual chat, trashy romance novels, phone sex with paid operators, explicit movies, lingerie catalogs, and even the swimsuit issues of sports magazines, anything else I have forgotten that some son of Adam finds titillating, and the increasingly base men's and women's magazines that show more skin than pornographic magazines did just a few generations ago.
The inclusion of these mainstream magazines may seem extreme in light of our crass culture. Still, we must remember that, in the early 1950s, no stores carried soft pornography; in the 1960s, Playboy was made available out of sight behind the counter; in the 1970s, Penthouse made it next to Playboy on the shelf; and today's decline has soft and hard pornography available on the magazine rack for perusing by children and adults who pick it up. In our increasingly brazen and desensitized culture, we have to be careful to not define pornography in terms of only harder forms while neglecting the softer forms. As an example, on an international flight I once took, movies with full nudity and sex scenes played on the headrest televisions around me while bored young children looked on. My point? Our culture is becoming increasingly sexualized and it has taken forty years to go from one dirty magazine under the counter at the local convenience store to today where it is expected that junior high boys have at least one nude shot of their junior high girlfriend on their cell phone.
The Bible is emphatically clear that God's men should abstain from certain sins that war against their souls. First, God's men should not commit adultery (Ex. 20:14). Second, God's men should not covet their neighbor's wife, even if her clothes leave little to the imagination (Ex. 20:17). Third, God's men should not participate with prostitutes who use their bodies as a commodity to be rented for a good time or a good photo (Prov. 23:26–27; 1 Cor. 6:15–16). Fourth, God's men should not be polygamous, because their father Adam and Head Jesus each had one bride (Eve and the Church). Fifth, God's men should not be fornicators who slide their hands, which God made to lift up in prayer (1 Tim. 2:8), up the shirt of their girlfriend, even if she asks (1 Cor. 6:9–13).
However, throughout history men have been prone to obey the letter of the law on these matters, while violating the spirit. The spirit of these Scriptures forbidding sinful sexual practices includes the sins of the mind where men amass a harem rivaling Solomon's but only in their imaginations.
So, Jesus wisely taught that sexual sins are committed not only in what we do but also in what we think. For example, in Matthew 5:27–28, he taught, "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 lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart." Also, in Mark 7:21–23, Jesus said, "For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person."
Thus, sexual sins are not "out there" in the media, strip club, or gal with low-rise jeans and hi-rise thong. Truly, the problem is "in you." It is from the sinfulness of your heart that lust and sin proceed like sewage from a culvert. This is the painful, unvarnished truth.
The proliferation of modern counseling is ample evidence that there is much wrong with the human condition. There is an ongoing debate in our age regarding what qualifies as "normal" and "abnormal" behavior, diagnosing why some people behave "abnormally," and prescribing a "cure" for those abnormalities. Speculative causes for "abnormal" behavior include the unconscious mind filled with primal urges (Sigmund Freud), a collective unconsciousness from our racial history (Carl Jung), our environmental (emotional and physical) conditioning, and lack of self-awareness of our inner goodness (Carl Rogers). All of this, however, is simply a more formalized attempt to, like our father Adam, blame someone or something else for our sin rather than owning it and repenting by having a change of mind that leads to a change of behavior.
In Scripture, however, Jesus is normal and the rest of us are abnormal sinners with indwelling sin. Our individual lives and the corresponding collective lives we call culture are simply the outward reflection of the inner condition of our hearts. The heart is the seat and center of our identities, the essence of our total inner selves that expresses itself outwardly in word and deed. This concept is central to the teachings of Scripture and "heart" and its various forms (e.g., "hearts," "hard-hearted") occur over nine hundred times. Practically, this all means that only you and God truly know your heart and, rather than trying to obey legalistic rules, you must be honest about the lusts in your heart and reduce those triggers that stimulate you.
