A friend of mine chatted me up on Facebook the other night, and sent me a link to a rather controversial “Christian” website. I don’t want to link to it because I don’t want to send any additional traffic its way, but please allow me to summarize its assertions:
- It is possible to create pornography that caters to a Christian market.
- It is possible to engage in certain sexual acts without sinning.
The website claims to provide Biblical evidence for several sexual aberrations, including threesomes, pornography, fisting, and anal/oral sex as acceptable premarital sexual activity. Going through the material, I have to say the writers make compelling arguments for their case, but any self-respecting Christian would never accept these assertions as gospel truths, so to speak.
In my opinion, there are two integral flaws to the arguments behind this website.
First, the arguments provide Christians with a legalistic way to justify certain actions that otherwise are clearly not in line with what God wants for us, sexually speaking.
For instance, I cannot accept the argument for anal and oral sex being perfectly acceptable premarital sexual activity. Just because it isn’t sex in the strictest sense of the word doesn’t mean it is acceptable to Christ. We are called to keep ourselves pure, and at least, in my opinion, purity is an all-or-nothing affair. You can’t be 98% pure. You’re 100% or not at all.
Second, the idea of Christian pornography is reprehensible. I know myself and my flesh enough to know that if I were to watch porn, I wouldn’t be focusing on how “educational” it is. Clearly, the Bible tells us, “whatever is good, whatever is lovely, whatever is pure… think about such things.” Porn is porn; its very essence is based on the premise that people’s lusts are inflamed by the material contained therein.
The Bible says, “if a man looks at a woman lustfully, he has committed adultery with her in his heart.” I am of the belief that no matter how “educational” pornographic material may be, if for a second, a viewer “forgets” that it is “educational,” and allows himself or herself to get lost in the lust of it all, s/he will have sinned, and that is a temptation into which no Christian should willingly get himself.
God gave husbands and wives time to communicate; the key to a fantastic sex life isn’t a film or book. It’s communication. If we communicate and know what works for our spouse, that’s all we’ll need, and all we can hope for. The real sex organ isn’t the one between the legs; it’s the one between one’s ears.
In my opinion, this kind of material is misleading and insidious, and has no place in a Christian home.
