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The Gnostic Disconnect and Evangelical
Immorality By Jay Wegter A conference on the sexual body should address the global epidemic of cyber-porn. Addiction to internet porn is growing exponentially. My recent years in men’s ministry have brought me into contact with scores of Christian men who have been viewing internet porn and who need help. The premise featured in my talk is incorporated into its title. My proposition is that a divided view of reality, which has it origin in Gnosticism, is a major contributor to sexual immorality among Evangelicals. The Source of the Disconnect—the Rise of
neo-Gnosticism The present
manifestation of ‘Gnosticism’ is not identical to the heresy of the same name
which plagued the Early in church history the libertine Gnostics maintained the attitude that spiritual knowledge meant having the freedom to participate in all sorts of indulgences. “Since they had received divine knowledge and were enlightened, it didn’t matter how they lived in the body.”[1] Antinomian Gnosticism takes the implications of radical dualism in the opposite direction [of Ascetic Gnosticism].[2] “[A]scetic Gnosticism attempts to escape the material world, antinomian Gnosticism recognizes the impossibility of such a task. . . [and concludes that] the un-spirituality of the material realm is not . . . problematic, rather [it is] . . . without consequence. Therefore, whatever one does in the body doesn’t matter; hence anything goes—sexual immorality, whatever.”[3] Modern antinomian Gnostics place a low level of significance upon our “embodiedness,” and our “enculturedness.” Their approach that “the heart only matters” is part of the “grand divorce” that justifies severing personal behavior from absolute standards of truth, beauty, and morality. (EXAMPLE: Perhaps when visiting churches you have witnessed this “heart only matters” perspective manifested by worship teams: an immodesty clad female gyrates sensuously during the praise song, apparently blind to appropriate norms in the area of modesty—worshipping “from the heart” justified the inappropriate dress and movements.) A present manifestation of the new Gnosticism is the hatred of limits (a sentiment in postmodernity). The Gnostic mindset suggests that “to be limited is sin—rather than a condition of the creation.” “The hatred of limits informed the first lie in the Garden, and the hatred of limits informed Gnosticism.” The divinely imposed values of self-control, delayed gratification, and the indirect pursuit of pleasure are colliding head on with the values of boundless self-expression. Our calling as “image bearers [is] to thrive within limits. This [limit-filled] circumstance of creation is very good.” As creatures made in God’s image “we are regents, stewards who are bounded.” “The Fall is the story of abandonment of boundaries and limits in the name of freedom.”[4] Our present culture is increasingly a dehumanized society in which respect, neighborliness, accountability, and self-subordination are waning. This is taking place because “we have tried to define freedom as an escape from all restraint. The desire for limitlessness is devilish.” By contrast, biblical theism “shatters the selfish context of the individual life and forces consideration of what human beings are, and what they ought to be.”[5]
Though evangelicals stressed personal faith and piety, evangelicals also began to divide (bifurcate) God’s role—they saw Him as active in redemption; but allowed science to define the creation. And we all accept this as benign as long as we have Jesus in our hearts. But the fallout is deadly serious.[7] When one allows the Bible to describe salvation and science to comprehensively describe the creation; it produces a tear, or rend, in our thinking. The reason why is the salvation-science dichotomy pictures God as having two radically different faces—the side of God that dealt with creation was far less personal than the side of God that dealt with salvation. As a consequence, the Jesus of salvation became very other worldly and sentimental. Darwinian humanism tended to remove from man’s thinking “the proper constraint of creature before [his sovereign] Creator.” Once you convince men that life is a coincidence (or even a divinely guided coincidence)—a result of random processes, then “our existence as a toss of the dice becomes engrained in them.” God, as the source of our creaturely dignity, honor, and meaning, becomes remote. The greatest goal then becomes, what’s good for me—nothing more than me—because there is no transcendent meaning remaining.[8] This has become our existential situation in the West.
How does this divided view of reality manifest itself in evangelicalism? Redemption tends to be viewed as a private, subjective, personal, preference without an objective basis. Salvation exists in the mind and the heart—as if concrete reality is the physical universe and salvation belongs to the private and the subjective (salvation is less real than the physical elements of the universe). Evangelicalism’s
accommodation to the modern, or divided view of truth, has pushed redemption
further into the ‘upper story.’
Christians are living in a state of détente with an open ‘gash’ between objective and subjective truth.
Consequently the majority of professing Christians have lost the
cosmological foundation for redemption. The resultant attitude in much of
evangelicalism could be stated as follows: “Facts in the created realm
shouldn’t get in the way of bringing people to Jesus.” I refer to the cause of this “gash” as growing up without biblical cosmology.
Growing up without Biblical Cosmology—the Phenomenon
of being Christian, yet Metaphysically Lost We’re dealing with the phenomenon of a rising Christian generation that is metaphysically lost. Of course there is hyperbole (overstatement) in my phrase “metaphysically lost.” A person who knows Christ has been metaphysically found—he or she has come to know Him who upholds the reality. My reason for suggesting that they are “metaphysically lost” is to indicate that it is common for professing believers today to live as if biblical cosmology is non-existent. These young people have received their Christian truth devotionally, like a syrup-y drink—it has been sanitized of the life-giving nutrients of cosmology and theology. Our young people have been left ill-equipped for the battle for the mind. Without the sure-footing of theology, the rising generation tends to listen to Christian truth through a totalizing worldview filter of popular culture. The absolute truth of cosmology is essential in interpreting the universe.[9] “Cosmology” is that branch of philosophy which deals with the origin and structure of the universe. At the heart of biblical cosmology are the Creator-creature distinction, and the creation of male and female as the image of God. God’s relation to the creation is the ordering principle of the universe and of reality. Because God is the sustainer and definer of all that He has made; there is no such thing as a reality greater than God—or a reality apart from God, or a reality in which God is but a component. Thus, biblical cosmology is the sole vantage point ‘high enough’ to provide the foundation for a unified cohesive worldview. Cosmology alone provides a wide angle lens broad enough to see man’s place in the universe. Biblical cosmology is a totally unified ordering principle—without it, worldview has no foundation. In the study of biblical cosmology, we learn that the Creator has set forth His ‘blueprint’ for His creation. His blueprint is not only our moral map; but also our ‘metaphysic.’ In other words, God’s relation to what He has made is our fixed point of reference which provides our understanding of the nature of reality (Ps 96). Only by what God has said in His infallible Word do we know what is true, real, right and wrong.[10] As we mentioned
earlier, Darwinism has deepened the divided view of reality. In this fragmented view of reality, quantifiable (measureable) things such
as time, space, and mass are considered more real than the transcendentals of truth;
beauty; love; morality; dignity; justice; and rationality.[11] We may accurately say that today’s divided
view reality, which places the objective in the lower story and the subjective
in the upper story, has a blinding affect—people find their view of the sacred
canopy obscured. Truth, beauty, love and
morality are placed in a subjective category and are treated as less real than
the phenomenon measureable by science. Biblical
cosmology corrects this misconception by teaching us that the creation is made
up of both physical order and moral order.
In the present state of affairs, it is most common for Christians to begin with soteriology instead of cosmology. As a result, the doctrine of salvation is easily privatized (reduced to something inward, personal, and pietistic). Without the unifying foundation of cosmology, the rising generation hears biblical principles as disassociated bits and pieces of moral truth—instead of seeing God’s moral blueprint and creation structures as reality grounded in the character of God. Without cosmology, we cannot see God’s moral blueprint as the ontologically real structure of reality (the very furniture of the universe). Instead, “It’s your preference for that part of the moral code that works for you.” In the present state of affairs, human sexuality is being redefined—taken out of its moral context and removed from framework of divine design. As sexuality is redefined according to the worldview of popular culture, we are seeing a new definition of freedom joined to it. In pop culture it is freedom from design—in the biblical worldview it is freedom to design (or freedom in God’s design). The worldview shift which characterizes modern man’s rebellion is characterized by defining freedom and happiness as breaking free from divine teleology. Is it any wonder that the rising generation must hear biblical truth through the perspective of biblical worldview—only then will they have the totalizing picture that puts the universe together. They desperately need their worldview strengthened so that they understand the seriousness of the implications of worshipping created things.
The Human Body—‘Commuter Vehicle’ or Locus of Personality and Moral Volition A fragmented worldview without a biblical cosmology will ultimately affect the way one views the human body. Author Randy Alcorn has coined a term for the spiritual-physical disconnect life view—it is “christo-platonism” (a spirit-body dichotomy patterned after Plato’s philosophy, but incorporated into Christianity). In his book titled, Heaven, Alcorn notes that a dichotomized view of the spiritual world and material world is prevalent among Americans. He states that among Americans who believe in the resurrection, two thirds believe we won’t have bodies after the resurrection (to have bodies that eat and walk in a physical paradise just sounds so unspiritual).[12] Christo-platonism
views the material realm with its experiences, blessings, and human relationships
as “God’s competitors, rather than as instruments that communicate His love and
character.”[13] One
woman who read Alcorn’s book, Heaven,
describes her christo-platonism, “Because I believed that my spirit was really
all that mattered to God, I didn’t let my body matter to me.”[14] The culture’s wrong-headed
ideas about spirituality (which are closely related to the rise of
neo-Gnosticism) are contributing to students’ misunderstanding of the body. Says James Herrick, “[as a consequence they
see it] either as debased and valueless, or as separate from the personality—the
locus of moral decisions. The disconnect between body and moral
personhood is part of the problem, as are an inadequate valuing of the body and
a very weak sense of personal identity.”[15] The devaluing of
the human body among professing Christians is a symptom of “christo-platonism”
says Alcorn. “From the christo-platonism
perspective, our souls merely occupy our bodies like a hermit crab inhabits a
seashell. And [once those bodies are
sloughed off,] our souls could naturally, even ideally live in a disembodied
state.”[16] Needless to say, a Christian holding to this
view will won’t live a spiritually holistic life. (EXAMPLE: In my contact with believing college students,
I find that there is a substantial hunger for a unified Christian experience in
one’s life—one that is not characterized by false dichotomies.) The biblical
doctrine of the soul-body unity preserves the truth that the human body was
created to be the vehicle of human personality. It is biblical to say that the human form was
created for an interactive relationship with God. To abandon this unified view of human nature
is to jeopardize the nature of true spirituality. The Gnostic view regards spirituality as
something wholly inward—but that is to divorce the use of the body from its
role in true spirituality—that role of course expressing itself in the vast
dimension of social corporate relational spirituality.[17] In Romans 12:1-2ff. we are to present our bodies as a living sacrifice. The order is: present your bodies—then you
will find your place in the Body of Christ.
Life as a living sacrifice immediately translates into the discovery of
your contribution to the body in service. It is common in
Evangelicalism to “view the human body as merely physical; a mere mechanical
device.” But that perspective is a
“platonic imposition” upon the biblical view of the personality of man.[18] Some well-meaning believers have sought to
comfort the bereaved by saying, “Only his body is gone.” I like Pearl Buck’s response to that would-be
solace of “Only his body is gone.” James Herrick is immensely helpful in providing insight into the Gnostic view of the human body:
The Gnostic view of the body and physical existence runs consistently against the grain of the Revealed Word, a spiritual outlook that elevates both. According to the Word, a personal God intentionally created the physical universe, and it was from the beginning essentially good. Human physical existence—our embodiment—is purposeful and meaningful, not a cosmic accident. People have a body . . . that we might have at our disposal the resources that would allow us to be persons in fellowship and cooperation with a personal God.” The other spirituality’s relative disregard for physical experience challenges this view of the body, as well as the possibility of the individual’s “fellowship and cooperation with a personal God.”[20] Herrick has helped us see that Gnosticism in both its ancient and modern manifestations “questions the goodness, often even the reality, of physical existence.” “The soul is depicted as evolving, but the body is merely a vessel of entrapment to be escaped by means of the secrets of spiritual ascent.”[21] The Apostle Paul’s desire to enter glory and be delivered from his outward decaying man was not a desire to be delivered from a bodily existence; but from corruption and decay. He longed for his resurrection body (2 Cor 4:16-5:4ff.). By contrast, the “Gnostic impulse elevates a spiritual elite, who through secret spiritual knowledge is enabled to transcend time, the body, and conventional morality.” “Gnosticism tends to shake off the restraints of the Revealed Word of God thinking and restrictive personal morality.”[22] This author is suggesting that the epidemic of cyber-porn among Evangelicals is not merely attributable to technical advances which have increased both availability and anonymity. It is this author’s premise that the spirit-body dichotomy contributes to the disconnect between faith and practice found in the lives of so many believers. If one lives with the spirit-body dichotomy, he or she is much more likely to let down the ‘drawbridge’ of the heart—and allow the perimeter around the soul to be breached by pornography. The Ethical Symptoms of Disconnect—the ‘Pornification’
of a Generation The epidemic of Evangelicals viewing pornography may be the most telling index, or symptom, of the Gnostic disconnect. Internet pornography is the unexamined “crime scene”—it is a substantial, and traceable, contributor to countless devastated lives; dysfunctional families; and divorced couples (as well as contributing to spousal abuse and child molestation). Pornography use by evangelicals has become the proverbial elephant in the living room that church leaders are hesitant to talk about. Al Mohler has warned that “the pervasive plague of pornography represents one of the greatest moral challenges faced by the Christian church in the postmodern age.” Says Mohler, “Eroticism has been woven into the very heart of the culture.” And, concerning its breadth of impact upon our culture and our perceptions, he says, “It is virtually impossible to escape the pervasive influence of pornography because it has been mainstreamed through commercial images and entertainment.”[23] “The effects of the sin of pornography extend to almost every area of a person’s life.” “Instead of pointing the sex drive to covenant fidelity in marriage, it degrades that drive into a sinful passion that robs God of His glory.” By yanking God’s gift of sexual intimacy from its context of marriage covenant it is changed into something idolatrous.[24] “For the first time in human history, a teenager in his bedroom has access to an innumerable array of pornographic websites, catering to every imaginable sexual passion, perversion, and pleasure.” “Pornography represents one of the most insidious attacks upon the sanctity of marriage and the goodness of sex within the one-flesh relationship. “It is the celebration of debauchery rather than purity, and it leads to incalculable harm because it subverts marriage and the marriage bond.”[25] By removing sexual relations from their place in Christian worldview, pornography declares war on God’s great purpose of glorifying Himself through the marriage bond. Mohler rightly notes: [For] marriage is not merely the [lawful] arena of sexual activity, it is presented in Scripture as the divinely-designed arena for the display of God’s glory on earth as a man and a wife come together in a one-flesh relationship within the marriage covenant. Rightly understood and rightly ordered, marriage is a picture of God’s covenant faithfulness. Marriage is to display God’s glory, reveal God’s good gifts to His creatures, and protect human beings from the inevitable disaster that follows when sexual passions are divorced from their rightful place.[26] “God’s gift of sexuality is designed to pull us out of ourselves” and our self-occupied concerns and desires and “toward our spouse.” The man committed to sexual purity is living in a state of sexual integrity toward his wife. In order to pursue their mutual pleasure in the marriage bed, the husband “is careful to live, to talk, to lead, and to love in such a way that his wife finds her fulfillment in giving herself to him in love.” Their marital relations then become “the fulfillment of the entire relationship, and not an isolated physical act that is merely self-centered personal pleasure.” “[T]his man can be confident that he is fulfilling his responsibilities both as a male and as a man. . . His sexual desires are being directed toward the one-flesh relationship that is the perfect paradigm of God’s intention in creation.” This is significant for how we are to understand the unity of God’s plan for husband and wife. Marital relations, as God designed them, are character—building and culture-making. These relations are character-building because a man brings his entire lifestyle of masculine responsibility to the marriage bed. And, marital relations are culture-making because emotional and spiritual bonding takes place—essential to the building up the family environment in which children are nurtured and instructed so as to develop the ability to shape culture.[27] Now, by way of radical contrast, consider another man who uses his sex drive as a dynamo of lust—as he turns to pornography, his desires are not turned toward a spouse; but are turned inward. His arousal through illicit images is tantamount to the seduction of the imagination and the corruption of his soul.[28] This self-directed misuse of sexual desire becomes a ‘tutorial’ in selfishness. We are warned in 2 Peter 2:14 that by habitually sowing to lust it is possible to develop “a heart trained in greed.” Mohler chides his disobedient readers with the following admonition: Pornography is a slander against the goodness of God’s creation and a corruption of this good gift God has given His creatures out of His own self-giving love. To abuse this gift is to weaken, not only the institution of marriage, but the fabric of civilization itself. To choose lust over love is to debase humanity and to worship the false god Priapus in the most brazen form of idolatry. The deliberate use of pornography is nothing less than the willful invitation of illicit lovers and objectified sex objects. . . The damage to a man’s heart is beyond measure, and the cost in human misery will only be made clear on the Day of Judgment. . . In this society, we are called to be nothing less that a corps of the mutually accountable amidst a world that lives as if it will never be accountable.[29] When discipling men who are struggling with pornography, I often use the following example: The first the series of Alien movies has a memorable scene. The astronauts are seated for dinner. One begins screaming and writhing. As his friends seek to restrain him, the alien life form bursts from the man’s chest in an explosion of blood and gore which ruins the dinner. The alien creature then flees to other parts of the space craft to ambush its next prey. I mention to the men I work with that, like the alien who has taken up residence in the astronaut’s chest cavity, porn also secretly feeds on a man’s faculties of soul. The problem is that we need these faculties of soul for kindness; gentleness; self-control; empathy; mercy; and agape love. In
Kevin Scott’s book, “The Porning of “Internet porn plays a part in an increasing number of divorce cases.” Author, Ross Douthat has gleaned this fact from a survey of matrimonial lawyers. This has prompted Douthat to pose the question, “Is pornography use a form of adultery [for a married man]?” The author ‘“suggests that we should . . . regard infidelity as a continuum of betrayal.’” In other words, ‘“The internet era has ratcheted the experience of pornography much closer to adultery than I suspect most porn users would like to admit.’”[31] To defiantly step over the traces of God’s design for human sexuality is to be “as free a dolphin on a hot sandy beach” (it is death disguised as liberty). Our culture’s convincing disguise of its spiritual and moral rebellion has the West at the edge of a precipice. The energy required to change directions ideologically and morally is monumental—picture the power necessary to stop a 10 mile long runaway freight train, and then back it up over the Canadian Rockies. When counseling men, I frequently exhort them to select their accountability partners carefully. “Don’t select men who are also ensnared. The tendency will be to trivialize your rebellion by calling it weakness. Get into accountability structures with men who have consistent victory in this area.” Our Christian
young people are at particular risk because the totalizing biblical worldview necessary
to discern deception is for the most part absent. The following accounts by several Christian
college professors underscore the depth of the problem. Grant Horner of The Master’s
College made the following observation, “Our young Christian adults have been ‘hyper-sexualized’
by popular culture and have little idea what to do about it.” “They are pumped up on ‘philosophical Viagra’—most
are wrenched, up tight.” They
either seek self control in a legalistic fashion (policing everybody), stay up
tight and private, or just live loosely.
All three approaches are wrong.
They are living with a post-Cartesian mind-body duality. Few young believers understand the biblical
passage, “a vessel fit for the Master’s use”[32]
(2 Tim Horner’s colleague Jo Suzuki offers a closely related insight about students, “Their motivations for sexual purity are often flow from external sources of restraint alone (i.e., the desire to stay out of trouble and to protect personal and family reputation).” According to God’s Word, these are inadequate motivations for holiness. And, when inadequate incentives for righteousness meet compelling sensual temptation, often an outbreak of sexual truancy is the result. Our hi-tech culture now provides everything necessary to experience illicit sexual pleasures while ensuring privacy and anonymity. Cell phones and internet easily allow for secret liaisons and private porn sessions. What is lacking in the lives of these young believers is a motivation for purity that stems from love—from the “religious affections” as Edwards would say.[33] “Students live with a neo-Gnostic divide within which spirituality is placed in an esoteric compartment or category.” The sacred-secular dichotomy shows up in the fact that “they disassociate Bible study from movies and activities with friends.” A palpable lack of discernment dominates their lives—their compartmentalization has raised such a formidable partition between spirituality and culture, “they cannot see the interrelatedness of Bible study and daily experience.” Professor Suzuki offers the following warning, “When the sin nature is restrained merely by a legalistic, or an external coercive structure, the sin nature will become truant when the structure is not there.” “Many students live a life of pretend spirituality as long as the coercive structure is in place. But countless students fall from the faith once the coercive structure is absent.” This is really about the difference between legalistic Christianity as a straitjacket and biblical Christianity as a relationship imparted in which the spiritual life is animated by reflexive love. The former is the story of “the devastation of legalism.” How opposite is the gospel. In regeneration new affections are implanted—a new savor for the things of God is bestowed—a new vision of God’s glory if given. Only then will a person’s life take a whole new direction. A very powerful set of new motivations will be there as a result of regeneration. Suzuki tells his students, “If you have little relish and savor for the things of God—then don’t kid yourself, something is deeply wrong in your life.”[34] The Disconnect is widening—broadened by
Techno-Consumer Culture Today’s consumers are blinded by an ideology which suggests that freedom is the absence of limits and self control. Everything is being reduced to a product to be consumed. Even spirituality has become a “commodity.” In the culture of self, the narcissistic romantic ideal of spirituality dominates. Instead of spirituality resting upon our ongoing transformation by God’s Revealed Word, spirituality is viewed as individualistic, immediate, and inward. This false ideal of spirituality meshes all too well with the commodification of spirituality—Americans are intoxicated with the idea that they may find truth in themselves.
Author David Wells also warns of this shift happening in Evangelicalism. He notes that selfism goes hand in hand with a psychologizing of religious faith—as that takes place, there is a radical loss of focus on transcendent Bible truth. “Bodies, psyches, and sexuality are idolized; they become a substitute for God.”[35] “The Creator-creature distinction is in
trouble,” says Wells. “The traditional
biblical theism of God external instead of internal is falling apart.” Because our culture suffuses experience with
the divine—it is conferring divinity on the self. Dependence upon the awe of God is lost, and the
“otherness” of God is domesticated; He is reduced to harmless. God is understood as to no longer standing
outside the sinner, summoning him to repentance.[36] Like the
proverbial “frog in the kettle,” Now combine this with computer screen culture and you have the ingredients for a perfect storm—the accelerated deconstruction of biblical sexuality.
Preoccupation with self and consumerism meet at the computer screen. In a book by Ed Mayo, Consumer Kids, the author cautions parents about the dangers of “relentless marketing to children through websites ad other media, saying that it is an intrusion into privacy and is destroying family life. . . . Parents have no concept of how business grooms their children for profit.” “On average British children spend five hours and 18 minutes watching television, playing computer games or online each day. The total of 2000 hours a year compares with 900 hours in class and 1270 hours with their parents.”[38] In describing the dominance of the media on children’s lives, Ed Mayo notes, “[The screen] is a whole electronic world in which they are immersed and which is underpinned firmly and securely by as profit motive. The conventional paradigm of childhood as a stage that evolves around family and schools has had to change. It’s the commercial world that dominates the time of today’s children.”[39] What will the long range consequences be of allowing
“economic Horner opines that “the screen has been framed as the real world—we have gone from Windows as a ‘window’ to the world—to Windows is the world. The screen has become the world.” The screen is moving ever closer to the brain. The fighter pilot of previous wars looked out of his windscreen at the enemy. Now the display is often on the canopy of the cockpit—and the latest technology offers the pilot a computer screen display on special contact lenses. All this to say that the screen “presents a limited visual space that [increasingly stands for] our entire visual plane. . . The screen is more than a window on the world—the screen is the world, as it is.”[40] Life in front of a computer screen has plunged us into “a far more ‘immersive’ state of consciousness than working in a factory or on a farm. . .” Says Horner, “The screen has become the visual space, visuality itself.”[41] The “pornification of culture” is shaping the way in which this society approaches sexual curiosity and the way in which it invents itself sexually. Foucault’s vision of freedom without truth has radically descralized the body and sent the message of no consequence sex. The result is a generation immersed in erotica—with mangled lives to show for it.[42] Auto-eroticism in front of a computer screen is sucking the life out of professing Christian men. The sexual compromise of internet porn makes a man “mute” for Christ. It makes his sword of truth inactive—corroding it to its scabbard where it sits useless and idle. As a pastor involved in men’s ministry, this author has first hand experience discipling and counseling many Christian men who are caught up in internet pornography. A recent conversation with a Christian college student revealed a shocking perception which is becoming more common. What the student shared is as follows, “I see no difference between entertaining a lustful thought and looking at pornography on the internet.” I was horrified by his statement. I immediately corrected his error, explaining to him that, if for the purpose of arousal—one chooses to view illicit images of real people who have real names—and who are daughters with real parents—it is indeed a violation of the command not to look at a woman to lust after her (Matt 5:28). I also shared with him that a pastor who wrestles with occasional thoughts of lust is worlds apart from a minister with pornography on his computer. The second man should be fired and perhaps may never preach again. The young man’s
response was, “thank you for telling me this, no one ever told me that there
was a difference between what a person sees on the computer screen and what he
sees in his imagination.” I continue to
be shocked that this student saw no ethical distance between the contents of
his imagination and the real life hard core porn images in cyberspace. Perhaps this student’s misguided sentiment is
a telling symptom that as the screen increasingly replicates the world, we may
see an ever less definitive boundary between the real world and the digital
world—and between our own memory and computer memory.[43] Sexual Sin—misplaced Drive or Dysfunctional Worship? When sex is taken out of its good, God-given context; it becomes a false integration point which fragments the person. Sex in its proper context, as said earlier is a God-honoring celebration of our respective masculinity and femininity in covenant. Marital relations are meant by God to deepen a man’s character and godly masculinity—and there is very clear reason for this. The marriage bed is to be the consummation or expression of a man’s whole life godly masculinity toward his wife. In that sense marital relations are unifying for the married couple. When we bow before God’s good, wise, and just creation structures, it strengthens and enhances our humanity—because we are functioning according to our design—according to divine teleology. By contrast, viewing illicit pornographic images fragments a man and leaves him with sexual brokenness. Here is the reason why. Pornography is a kind of theft—it involves taking what is not ours. It short circuits character-building by allowing a man to serve the idol of pleasure and to experience a rush of endorphins—there is a momentary pleasure payoff; but without the character-building price of service, leadership, communication, love, and self-denial. Direct self-focused self-gratification brings the fallout of personal shame. It corrupts the soul because it enslaves and degrades—debasing a man to operate on the level of animal passions.
Sexual sin is actually a dysfunction in worship. Sexual idolatry is the activity of seeking integration by means of a substitute god. “Sexual healing requires that we be trained again in the proper worship of God. A heart trained in delight in God finds the promises of sin unimpressive.”[44] God has a glorious “greater vision” for sexual relations. “When we give sex the greater vision God has for it, its sinful imitation loses it luster.” This is foundational to the healing of sexual brokenness and sexual addiction. There is healing in Christ for sexually shattered lives; and that healing involves praise and affirmation for God’s design of male and female in a covenant of spiritual oneness. Believers trapped in patterns of sexual lust need a biblical strategy that is holistic. This proactive strategy for victory must include: retraining in worship; rebuilding the biblical view of sexuality; and reclaiming the truth that our body is a chief spiritual resource. In his book, The God of Sex, Peter Jones has established clearly that pornography deconstructs sexuality. Therefore, any ministry dedicated to freeing believers from sexual brokenness must reconstruct sexuality biblically.[45] A weak grasp of God’s vision for male and female is symptomatic of the fact that contemporary Christianity is starving for cosmology. Too many professing believers have “added God to their lives.” In a narcissistic fashion they have asked, “Where does God fit into my life?” They should be asking the cosmological question, “Where does my life fit into this great story of God’s mission?” The Bible is “the real story of reality to which we are called to conform ourselves.”[46] That biblical vision for life has the power to blast us out of our false dichotomies. Christians need to hear what a spiritual resource their bodies are. The Human Body—‘Beast of Burden,’ or Spiritual
Resource? When we use our bodies for the spiritual ends for which we were saved, we are cooperating with the Holy Spirit’s goal. When I as a believer consecrate myself to God, I must be aware that “surrender of self is inseparable from giving up my body to Him in such a way that it can serve both Him and me as a common abode, as John 14:23, 1 Corinthians 6:15-20, and Ephesians 2:22 testify.”[47] Because it is so common for believers to contemplate salvation apart from creation (biblical cosmology); it is also common for believers to buy into an “other worldly” brand of spirituality that is inward, private, and compartmentalized. This is one of the key factors in producing a disconnect between body and spirit in the mind of a believer. When the doctrine of salvation is not anchored in cosmology, it opens the door to esoteric spirituality with its mind-body dichotomy. Central to the “cure” for the disconnect (with its faulty view of spirituality and the body) is a hearty willingness to embrace God’s great blueprint and comprehensive plan for our whole existence.[48] Scripture
calls believers to regard their bodies as a great spiritual resource. The divine purpose of the human body
is central to biblical worldview.
Scripture tells us that “the body is for the Lord,” and that through the
reality of organic living union with Christ, we are “members of Christ” (1 Cor To view the body as a spiritual resource is to live the Christian life holistically. That mindset is in touch with the reality that true spirituality involves a huge corporate, social dimension in which one’s body is used in Christian fellowship. The body is made available to Christ as we exercise our spiritual gifts—others are edified and served in the process.[50] This is of course the outcome of offering one’s body back to God as a “living sacrifice” (Rom 12:1-2). The result is not acceleration in private piety; but a lifestyle of consecration characterized by interrelatedness with other believers. It is the dedication of our bodies so that we enjoy fulfilling our part in the life of the corporate body—when we employ that mentality we are cognizant that our gifts function in a complementary manner, and collectively we make up the body of Christ (12:4-6ff.). The rising generation of believers has been so indoctrinated with disconnect ideology; they need constant reminders that the body is the battlefield of worldview. The Apostle Paul uses language to evoke powerful imagery in Romans 6:13—he calls the members of our bodies, “weapons” to be used for righteousness. So paramount is the concept of body as instrument of righteousness that the principle of presentation (to righteousness or to unrighteousness) is cast as an “either-or” proposition. Believers are to yield, or present, the members of their bodies. If Christians do regard their bodies to be a resource of spiritual life as God intends, then they will despise their bodies.[51] A “de-sacralization” of the body will be a natural consequence. By “desacralize” is simply meant to discount the role of the body in our “spiritual service of worship.” Desacralization of the body often means that the believer regards his or her body to be a hindrance to true spirituality; rather than a pivotal resource to true spirituality. The spirit-body
dichotomy inherent in the “Gnostic impulse” stands in stark contrast to Paul’s
reasoning—the Apostle made it his ambition to be pleasing to the Lord that he
might stand before Christ and have a favorable judgment (5:9-10ff.). Paul constantly affirmed that the body was
for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body (1 Cor
The rising generation has been poorly taught concerning the necessity and priority of transformation by God’s truth. Our young people have received salvation truths that are disconnected from cosmology—disconnected from the transcendence. As a consequence they lack the transcendent cause necessary to order, animate, and constrain their lives.[52] Is it any wonder that our young people so often greet Christian precepts with apathy? If their perceived identity is drawn from culture instead of the Creator, then we shouldn’t be surprised that they yawn at the moral mandates of Scripture. One’s worldview is not merely a set of ideas about the world; it is also foundational to one’s functional identity. We may accurately say that a person will “live out his or her perceived identity.” Without the doctrine of transcendence, salvation truths are thrust into an upper story subjective category, divorced from the divine blueprint found in biblical cosmology. A disconnect follows which is characterized by distancing spiritual truth from the everyday decisions of life. One of the most common ways young people respond to this disconnect is by seeking an identity based upon the development of self through consumption; rather than upon the Creator’s story. What also suffers due to this disconnect is the proper perception of their bodies—they tend NOT to regard their bodies as a spiritual resource. It is precisely at this juncture that pornography may find an unguarded entry point into the believer’s life. Reuniting Reality—by worshipping the Lord of Reality Christ does what Plato and the Greek philosophers could not do; He unifies all reality. He links visible and invisible reality; He reconciles singularity and plurality. He gives harmony, unity, and order to the cosmos. “The Son connects the realms of being (permanence) and becoming (change).” This is intensely significant that Christ unifies all reality in Himself. According to Colossians 1:15-20, Christ has “first place” in every realm; visible and invisible. There is no dichotomy. As Christians “we locate truth in the Person of Jesus Christ.” The great implication drawn from His epistemic lordship is that He promises and threatens is immutable.[53] He will make good on His promises.” Therefore, “for the Christian truth has the character and element of trust.”[54] This is highly important in our postmodern culture of distrust which tends to throw reliance back upon self. Truth has no existence independent of God. “Disembodied truth is an unbiblical concept—a false notion.” All truth is backed up by the authority of an Almighty Creator. How unifying this is in our deeply fragmented world. The answer to fragmented worldview is the Person of Christ. “The eternal logos became human in time-space history, without the loss of transcendence.” Therefore, the “incarnation is the loss of all divided views of truth and fragmented worldviews.” The “logos doctrine overcomes . . . false dichotomies by fusing pure rationality with history.” “Logos doctrine brings a total holistic end to fragmentation.”[55] He is the real source of the new humanity by means of the new creation. “The whole purpose of the incarnation is to restore redeemed man and woman to the image of God.” “The incarnation does what no human resource can do. In Christ, God reconciles humanity—He brings the peace and communion for which we were created.”[56] As
new creatures believers are to jettison the old perspective of fragmented
worldview and carnal thinking. Paul
commands the Corinthians to regard no one from the perspective of the old
worldview anymore (2 Cor It is all too common for believers to see obedience as a narrow bandwidth and not whole life affections. The assumptions of popular culture only deepen this misconception that life may be successfully divided up by means of a sacred-secular split. God’s claims upon us in Christ blast into our false sacred-secular dichotomy—telling us that the Lord claims every square foot of our life experience for Himself. (The alternative is christo-platonism and neo-Gnosticism.) Biblical worldview blasts us out of dualistic thinking. Christian integration is provided by Christ and His incarnation. “The incarnation does not let us partition reality into spiritual and non-spiritual spheres—but shows us that all reality flows from one integrative source.” Christians are to develop a holistic worldview by “critical reflection on life in light of the incarnation” of Christ.[58] Without God’s view of the world, culture will assume the default role of setting our worldview agenda. The answer is to study and proclaim the full-orbed gospel of Christ—who is both Creator and Redeemer. Believers are to live so as to bring every area of life under the Lordship of Christ. Only then will they be able to abandon all disconnects and enjoy a unified Christian experience. John Piper’s exhortation which joins Christ’s supremacy to our unified worldview is also very valuable: Christ is like
the sun in our solar system. In this
analogy, planets represent the goals, desires, and responsibilities of the believer.
Christ’s majesty is like the blazing glory and gravitational pull of the sun; the orbits of the planets are held
and guided by His preeminence. When
Christ is central in our lives; the
‘planets’ of our desires and goals and labors are ordered by Christ and put
into their proper orbits. When we are
captivated by the supremacy of Christ and ravished by all that God is toward us
in Christ and all that He has
promised to be toward us in Christ, then our hearts are enlarged to take in more of our Lord. The more that happens, the more the soul is
broadened to take in the majesty of our
God. As we grow in that direction; God
is big; and lusts are small – sexuality, with its ‘little’ thrill, assumes its proper size and orbit
in our life; sexual lust loses its power over us. The solution to
this pervasive problem [of the ‘small soul’] is drawn from our created purpose;
the human soul was created to find
unending satisfaction in Christ; for in Christ God gives us Himself. Only
the supremacy of Christ is big enough to enlarge the soul [majestic landscapes
such as the Our problem today
is that churches are full of folks with little souls. The evil one knows this; he is opportunistic; he is using the world to send
tsunami waves through the back door of the church – we’re awash in lust and sexual addiction. There is a clear reason
for this. If we were created for soul-staggering grandeur; and our hearts and
minds are disconnected from that majesty that is the supremacy of Christ; then it is not surprising that hearts have
settled onto trivial things. The human heart was made to be lost in wonder, love, awe,
and praise – if the heart is not staggered by the supremacy of Christ, then it will tend to reach for the
greatest natural high it can get – sex. The deepest cure
for sexual lust is to be emotionally staggered by the supremacy of Christ. The sheer
weight of Christ and eternity constitutes the gravity of what life is all
about. So heavy is that weight, that to have felt the tiniest portion
of it makes it almost emotionally impossible to go to the internet to view porn.[59] Endnotes: [1] Ibid, p. 4 [2] It is radically dualistic in the sense that they see an immense chasm between material and immaterial reality. [3] Tim Gallant, “Material Girls and Boys,” (www.truth-and-beauty.com) p. 1 [4] Ibid. [5] Ibid. [6] Ibid. [7] Ibid. [8] James
White, Alpha Omega Ministries, [9] Dave Doveton. [10] Jay Wegter, “Worldview.” [11]
Divinely ordained teleology (or
design), is the foundation of these transcendentals. [12] Randy
Alcorn, Heaven (Tyndale, 2004), pp.
52, 112 [13] Ibid, p. 176 [14] Ibid, p. 481 [15] James
Herrick, Professor at [16] Alcorn, p. 112 [17] [18] Ibid, p. 82 [19] Ibid, p. 83 [20] James Herrick,
The Making of the New Spirituality (InterVarsity
Press, [21] Ibid, p. 270 [22] Ibid, pp. 201, 270 [23] Al
Mohler, “The Seduction of Pornography,” Boundless
Webzine, 2005, p. 1 [24] Ibid. [25] Ibid., p. 2 [26] Ibid. [27]
Interview with Vishal Mangalwadi, missionary to [28] Ibid, p. 3 [29] Ibid, pp. 3-4 [30] Kevin
Scott in “The Pornification of a Generation,” book review, Jessica Bennett, Newsweek, [31] Ross
Douthat in Roberto Rivera y Carlo, “Porn Adultery & Marriage” Boundless Webzine, 2005 [32]
Interview with Grant Horner, Professor of English, The Master’s College, [33]
Interview with Jo Suzuki, Professor of English, The Master’s College, [34] Ibid. [35] David
Wells, God in the Wasteland (Wm. B.
Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, MI, 1994), pp. 40, 48,57 [36] Ibid, pp. 103, 107, 110-111 [37] Ibid, pp. 114, 112-113 [38]
Rosemary Bennett, “Children spending half as much time in class as they do
looking at screens,” The Times, [39] Ed
Mayo, Consumer Kids, in Rosemary
Bennett, The Times [40] Grant
Horner, “Theorizing the Weightless Rhetoric of the Digital Spatialization of
Knowledge,” (The Master’s College, [41] Ibid, p. 8 [42] [43] Horner, “Theorizing the Weightless Rhetoric of the Digital Spatialization of Knowledge,” pp. 7, 9 [44] Greg
Johnson, The World according to God (InterVarsity
Press, [45] Peter
Jones, The God of Sex (Victor Books,
Cook Communications, Colorado Springs, CO, 2006) pp. 21-26 [46]
Christopher J. H. Wright, The [47] [48] Greg Johnson, p. 21 [49] [50] Ibid. [51] Ibid, pp. 89-90 [52] Ibid, pp. 125, 128 [53] By “epistemic lordship” is meant that Christ, as lord of all knowledge, is the final source, authority, and arbiter of truth—He is our epistemology—our basis for knowing what we know with absolute certainty. [54] Norman
Klassen and Jens Zimmerman, The
Passionate Intellect (Baker Publishing), pp. 30-31 [55] Ibid, pp. 147-149 [56] Ibid, p. 149 [57] Ibid, p. 151 [58] Ibid, pp. 186-187, 195 [59] John
Piper, Sex and the Supremacy of Christ, Conference,
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