Fifty Ways Porn Might Be Sneaking into Your Church

"Thanks to St Augustine and the Church, guilt over the most natural of human proclivities was inculcated into generation after generation of humanity – an irrational and morbid guilt no less present among "believers" in the twenty first century as it was in the second or third century."

Editor's Note: The popularity of the book Fifty Shades of Grey is growing as more women (and men) pull it off the shelves this summer. Dannah Gresh is a sought-after speaker and author who has studied sexuality in the Bible for more than fifteen years. In this bold article, Gresh shares her concern and wisdom to help ministry leaders approach the book with biblical savvy. 

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I’m not reading Fifty Shades of Grey.

I wasn’t planning to announce this, but I can’t help myself. I told my husband, Bob, that I didn’t really want to get involved. But then, I found out my girlfriend’s 70-year-old mom has her name on a long wait list at the library to borrow Fifty Shades of Grey. And then my mom told me that a relative I love and respect for her strong faith had already devoured the book. She regretfully “can’t get the images out of her head.”

So here I am. In an attempt to keep the images out of yours, I’d like to explain to you why I’m not reading Fifty Shades of Grey.

Reason #1:

Let’s start with the facts. Fifty Shades of Grey is classified as erotic fiction. According to one online dictionary, this genre of literature is defined as that which has “no literary or artistic value other than to stimulate sexual desire.” I’ve been studying what God says about sexuality for fifteen years. According to Him, there is only one who should stimulate sexual desire in me: my husband. Since that’s God’s plan for my sexual desire, anything other than my husband creating arousal in me would be missing the mark of God’s intention. (Translation: it is sin.)

Jesus said it this way: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” The same is true of a woman looking at or reading about a man.

Reason #1? I believe reading erotica is sinful.

I guess I could stop there, but it won’t be enough for some of you. So let’s go to reason number two.

Reason #2:

The Bible has said for thousands of years that lust is hurtful and harmful.

Guess what? Biopsychologists and others are studying the effects of lust, pornography, and erotica on the brain and the body. They are finding that the Bible was, in fact, right. Over time, your body becomes conditioned to self-stimulation and gratification. It’s not just a preference. It’s physiological.

The lust cuts a literal pathway in your brain tissue that’s kind of like a rut. A rut you better be prepared to get stuck in. While at first a little bit of erotica might give you a taste for your spouse, overtime that rut reminds you how great you are at self-stimulation and how powerful your imagination can be.

You’ll become less interested in real sex with your husband. (Both SELF magazine and The New Yorker ran articles on this phenomenon in recent years. They both suggested that if you want to have a great sex life, you better push pause on porn!)

The fact is erotica robs you of real sex. It’s not good for your marriage or future marriage.

Reason #3:

OK, we’re girls. And sadly, a few of our guys have looked at porn. How’d that work for ya? How’d it make you feel? Did it cross your mind that you could never compare to the perfection created by lights, camera, and Photoshop? Well, he can’t compare to a plasticized, vanilla interpretation of manhood either.

Reason #4:

Do you know what BDSM is? Bondage, dominance, sadism, and masochism. If you don’t know what those words mean, be glad. If you do know, you should understand that the most damaging part ofFifty Shades of Grey is that God created sex to be a partnership that’s fueled by love and self-giving, not pain and humiliation.

It’s not just that this book misuses sex; it redefines it into something evil and transgressive as the lead character dominates in a hurtful manner. How women can enjoy that, I can’t understand! But I do have a theory. It seems to me that in our emasculating culture there is a hunger so great for strong men that women will stoop to bondage, dominance, sadism, and masochism for just a taste. Do yourself a favor, don’t!

You might be wondering if I’ve read the book. I haven’t. I don’t need to. There are many things in this world I need not partake in to discern that they are going to be harmful to me.

God has given me more than fifty shades of truth in His Word and when just one of them is in conflict with my entertainment choices, I choose to pass! To be clear: I wouldn’t drive my Envoy into the front of an oncoming semi-truck any more than I would open the pages of Fifty Shades of Grey. I love my marriage, my God, and myself too much.

If your heart resonates with mine, please take a moment today to post these words on Facebook or Twitter: “I’m not reading Fifty Shades of Grey.” If you have friends who need help understanding why, send them to this blog. I’d be happy to explain!

The Christians devise Bigger, Deadlier Sins ...

Judaism had had its sin but at least it allowed for the occasional appearance of men of "righteousness". In the sacred text, these paragons appeared from time to time to berate their fellow tribesmen.

But Christianity went further. In the demented mind of the Christian theologians, sin became more obnoxious than it had ever been. As Christianity developed so too did sin. No longer was sin just an action (Romans 1:32); transgression could occur in word (e.g. Matthew 5.22), or thought (e.g. 1 John 3.15) – "Thought Crime" would accompany the arrival of Church totalitarianism.

The natural self, with carnal instincts, had to be denied. The guilt that any transgression engendered, even for the tiniest infraction, fed the psychosis upon which Christianity flourished. Sins became cardinal or deadly. Deliberate disobedience of the known will of God required the harshest punishment – death and the torments of hell. Rebellion against God’s law was far worse than the calamitous behaviour of princes that merely produced distress, sorrow and suffering.

Empowered by the authority of the Roman state, the fanatics of Christ were more proactive than Jewish scribes had ever been. It became their sacred duty to hunt out and punish sinners.

Sex-obsessed old men define doctrine

Early Church fathers, of the 2nd and 3rd centuries, made allusions to a doctrine of an "original sin." Tertullian, perhaps influenced by stoicism and the belief in the essential unity of matter and spirit, thought the soul to be physical, passed on by parents in the act of procreation. (He gives an account of a Montanist prophetess, who professed to have seen a soul and attempted to describe its appearance!).

Tertullian taught when a parent sinned, this physical taint of the soul was passed on to children.

Origen, a more speculative theorist, argued for a preexistence of the soul. He felt sure all men had sinned and had fallen in this former existence. Fallen man had been banished by God into material bodies to be disciplined and purified. Origen, like Augustine after him, supposed that there was an inherent pollution and sinfulness in sexual union, the means by which sin entered the world. A woman's pains in childbirth were in themselves clear evidence of the sinfulness of the original act!

Augustine (known as the 'Great Sinner' after the candour of his Confessions) was obsessed with the lust of procreation – undoubtedly a reflection of his own dysfunctional sexuality. Wildly promiscuous in his early life, he had abandoned two mistresses, one with his child, and the illicit affairs had filled him with guilt. In later years, he did not trust himself to be left alone with a woman. In his City of God, Augustine considers the conjecture that:

"Since it is possible for humans to control the movement of soft flesh (he instances their mouths and faces, and even knows people who are able to wiggle an ear), it may have been that, prior to the fall, Adam was able to have intercourse without an erection. It is the involuntary movement of the male member which so alarms him."
– Daphne Hampson, After Christianity, p188.

The most significant feature of sex, said Augustine, was this "involuntariness" of the male erection (sometimes absent when you want it; sometimes present when you don't!). He concluded that the 'concupiscent' impulse belonged to "nature" (natura vitiata), not to the spirit. Painfully misogynistic, Augustine decided that because male "nature" was uncontrollable it was women who had to be constrained. In his Confessions IX,9 he praises his mother's complete subordination to her violent husband.

Says Augustine,

"Nothing is so powerful in drawing the spirit of man downwards as the caress of a woman and that physical intercourse which is part of marriage."

– Soliloquies.

In Augustine's judgement – and subsequently that of the Church – sexual desire and gratification ("lust") had to be controlled, limited and confined. Libido was stigmatised as a sin, detracting us from God. In contrast, celibacy, chastity and virginity were lauded as being far closer to the perfection of god and were to be the choices of preference. Centuries of misery – sexual and psychological – were the consequence as millions became celibates or fought their own nature. Since such precepts severely threatened the continuance of the human race, passionless, matrimonial intercourse solely for the procreation of children remained permissible, though even this was a 'venial' sin. Premarital and extramarital sex clearly were sins, as was sex during pregnancy or after childbearing age. Even the harmless release of masturbation became a grave sin, the crime of 'Onanism'.

Thanks to St Augustine and the Church, guilt over the most natural of human proclivities was inculcated into generation after generation of humanity – an irrational and morbid guilt no less present among "believers" in the twenty first century as it was in the second or third century.

source: [1] http://www.churchleaders.com/pastors/pastor-articles/161740-dannah_gresh_im_not_reading_fifty_shades_of_grey.html?print