Christians and porn: the fear of the Lord

This is the second in a series which aims to address the issues of pornography and our sexuality in a frank and open manner. I know that there are people who do not want me to talk about this. I know that there are people with their heads in the sand and think that this is not an issue; that there is no connection between Christians and porn; that is a problem only for those who do not call Jesus, “Lord”. I also know that there are many within the church who struggle with it. This is an issue about which we have been silent about for far too long.

In chapter 2 of Mark Driscoll’s e-book Porn-again Christian he reminds us that wisdom comes from walking with God (please note that this book is aimed mostly at men and is written in a very frank manner, read his intro before any other part of the book).

Wisdom is living you life in congruence with the will of God by walking in grace with him. Wisdom begins with fearing God (Prov. 1:7).

Fear does not mean trembling before some massive, extremely angry, supernatural giant ready to smash us to pieces. Fear means giving the proper respect and honour to someone who is entitled to it. Fearing God means recognising his glory, his weight, his authority in our lives. Wisdom comes from recognising that God has authority over our lives.

Simply, until you fear God and weigh him most heavily in your life, you will remain an undisciplined fool.

None of us truly want to be recognised as undisciplined. We know deep down that we have to be able to control our urges. I think it would be hard to find someone who actually believes that everyone ought to be able to follow their own desires whenever, and however they wish.

But here is the problem. We do not want others to have such liberty, but we want it for ourselves. We do not want others; our spouses, our children, our parents, friends, pastors, to be looking at porn, but it is all right if we do it; or at least that is what our actions seem to say.

Driscoll provides a list of verses which he intends to “simply scare you into seeing God in his holiness.” The scriptures tell us time and time again that the sexual perversion in which the pagans participate is not to be condoned by those who follow Christ. We need to see just how wrong our broken sexuality is.

Paul writes to the Corinthians, a group of people living in an extremely sex saturated culture, telling them to take sexual sins seriously within the community.

In 1 Corinthians 5:9-11, Paul says, “I wrote to you in my letter not to associate wiht sexually immoral people–not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or the idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he us guilty of sexual immorality … not even to eat with such a one.” Simply, any man who claims to be a Christian but lives in habitual, unrepentant sexual immorality is not fit for Christian friendship and community unless he repents, because he is defiling his friends and their church with his perversion.

God does not take it lightly when we use the bodies he has given us, and in which he dwells, in ways which denigrate and destroy. He does not appreciate it when we fill our heads with images and stories that destroy the relationships he has given us to enjoy.

My single point with all of these warnings from scripture is to implore you to take any sexual sin you may have as seriously as your God does.