Thank you for joining for this important topic: God, Gender, and Pornography. In an interesting twist of God’s rich providence, our teens are looking at this subject with a guest upstairs this evening.
The Problem of Pornography is real. In April 2010, The Atlantic Monthly ran an article entitled: “Did Porn Cause the Financial Crisis?” A senior attorney at the SEC's Washington headquarters spent up to eight hours a day looking at and downloading pornography. When he ran out of hard drive space, he burned the files to CDs or DVDs, which he kept in boxes around his office. In fact, seventeen of the employees were "at a senior level," earning salaries of up to $222,418 who were surfing internet pornography.
About a year ago, I read an article from Ted Cruz who had announced his run for the White House. It an article he penned about his time as a Supreme Court Clerk. “The year I was a clerk for Rehnquist, the Internet was nascent technology. The court was considering one of the first cases challenging the constitutionality of a law passed by Congress to regulate Internet pornography. Most of the justices were in their 60s or older. Few knew much or anything about the Internet. So the librarians of the court designed a tutorial for them. They set up sessions for two justices at a time and their clerks. As it happened, our Rehnquist group was paired with Justice O’Connor’s. In a small room gathered the chief, O’Connor, and their respective law clerks. The librarians’ purpose was to demonstrate to the justices how easy it was to find porn on the Internet.
I remember standing behind the computer, watching the librarian go to a search engine, turn off the filters, and type in [a] word … After she pressed “return,” a slew of hard-core, explicit images showed up on screen.” Here I was, a 26-year-old man looking at explicit porn with Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who was standing alongside the colleague (my boss) she had once dated in law school. As we watched these graphic pictures fill our screens, wide-eyed, no one said a word. Except for Justice O’Connor, who lowered her head, squinted slightly, and muttered, “Oh, my.”
Gender Confusion
In April of 2016, Fort Worth ISD signed off on language that guaranteed students access to a restroom where they feel comfortable and safe. On May 13, 2016 schools were directed with the following language in what newspapers were calling “Obama’s Directive” – “A school may provide separate facilities on the basis of sex, but must allow transgender students access to such facilities consistent with their gender identity.” These words in both Fort Worth and across our national set off a political firestorm, to the point where Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick called on the FWISD Superintendent. On July 20, 2016, the FWISD turned away from its previous regulations with revised guidelines that placed a heavy emphasis on parents, students, and teachers to make the right decisions. Things have gotten complicated fast and it is not just in Texas. Recently, 500 people packed a middle school auditorium in Virginia as a local school board voted to approve adding “gender identity” to its non-discrimination policy, despite the vocal opposition of hundreds. And there’s only more confusion coming. Facebook’s diversity team recently found that their 58 gender options weren’t enough for users. Facebook now proudly offers a customized gender option in hopes that individuals will be able to better express their identities on Facebook.
Yes, there is a great deal of confusion concerning gender in our day. In place of biblical roles where men, women, and children find their identity, we have elevated freedom to be whatever you want as the supreme good. In place of the happiness we felt we would achieve by determining our identities and roles within the family, we have tremendous confusion.
How Should we Speak on Gender and Pornography issues?
1) Be Disarming
2) Be Truthful
You always want to speak in the most disarming way, but still be very truthful. Both disarming and truthful. I’m not sure most of us speak in that way—trying to be both. We need to give biblical answers to the culture’s questions. You don’t give them the answers they want, you give them the answers they need. You can’t be a responsible pastor if you don’t.
3) Use Verbal Modesty – It’s important to not to shock people. All of us should use modesty in our words and not speak for shock value.
1. Your Gender, God’s Gift
God created both genders as equal but He gave each distinct gifts and intended them for our good. I am going to say something that you may not feel the full weight of for sometime to come. You are a Christian first and you’re male second. You are a Christian first and you’re female second. The relationship between two Christians outweighs any other relationship you have on the basis of your race, on the basis of your gender, or on the basis of your social status. You are a Christian first and you’re white second. You’re a Christian first and you’re black second. You’re a Christian first and you’re an American second. Again, the relationship between Christians outweighs any other relationship you have on the basis of your race, on the basis of your gender, or on the basis of your social status.
1.1 Men & Women Are Equally Valuable
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:26-28)
All thinking about men and women must start here in Genesis 1. There are at least three truths we learn from Genesis 1:26-28.
1. God created human beings.
2. God created humans in HIS image.
3. God created us male and female.
Unlike God, humans are said to be both male and female. Where the animals named in Genesis 1 were broken down into species (“according to their kinds” in Genesis 1:24), humans are characterized by their sexuality. No other creatures in all of creation, not even angels, are said to be in the image of God. To be made in the image of God is to be like God and to represent God Himself. Every time we talk to another man or woman, we should remember that this person is more like God than any other creature in the universe. According to the Bible, both women and men are equally important to God.
You should know that various philosophies treat gender roles differently. Ancient Greek thought believed that the first human being was androgynous. The thinking of the Greeks was that the original human being was three kinds of beings, who were joined back to back, much like Siamese triplets. This creature was masculine, feminine, and bisexual. It was when this being rebelled against Zeus, that he split them into man and women. Or in 1945, a “lost” gospel was discovered in Egypt known to us as the Gospel of Thomas. The book The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown made this gospel’s teaching popular. The document is comprised of 114 sayings and is not included in the New Testament or the Bibles. The reason it is said to be the Gospel of Thomas stems from its opening line” “These are the secret words which the living Jesus spoke, and which Didymus Judas Thomas wrote down.” It’s rejected for several reasons but among them is the fact that it was probably written about a century after the gospels of the Bible were written. But there’s another reason the so-called Gospel of Thomas isn’t included in mainstream Christian teaching – it fails to meet the Christian standards for orthodox teaching. It represents the teaching known as Gnosticism, a popular philosophy toward the end and immediately after the New Testament was written. Here’s how Thomas’ gospel ends: “Simon Peter said to him, ‘Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life.’ Jesus said, ‘I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven.’” A woman only becomes equal with men when she ceases to be a woman. This isn’t what the Bible teaches.
Sexuality is not an accident of nature but it is by the direct act of God. No sex is better in the eyes of God than the other. God doesn’t treat males as more valuable than females nor does He treat females as more significant than males. As we enter in the New Testament, we see both men and women receive the gift of the Holy Spirit upon salvation (Acts 2:17-18). We see both male and female baptized into the church (Acts 2:41). And we see them both receive spiritual gifts for service (1 Corinthians 12:7, 11; 1 Peter 4:10). “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).
1.1 Men & Women Are Equally Valuable
Avery Jackson was a 9-year-old from Kansas City when she made the cover of National Geographic. According to the magazine, Avery was born a boy but has lived as an openly transgender girl since she was five-years-old. This is a powerful suggestion from the magazine’s editors and the parents of this young man. As Walt Heyer comments in The Federalist: “The activists’ theory of gender fluidity, or gender spectrum, suggests that God-designated genders of male and female indicated by biology is too limiting. Their theory separates gender from sex and says that gender is determined by how people feel or think, not by the objective evidence of body parts, chromosomes, and other distinct biological markers” Why this comment/quote is important is because Walt Heyer was a transgender for eight years. He lived as Laura Jensen as an adult and underwent full-range hormone therapy as well as surgery. He calls the cover on the National Geographic emotional and psychological child abuse.
1.2 Man & Woman Are Distinct
If Genesis 1 labors to communicate gender equality, Genesis 2 speaks to gender distinction:
Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” 19 Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. 21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said,
“This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man.”
24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed” (Genesis 2:18-25).
The distinctions of gender are expressed in at least two ways in this text.
1.2.1 Gender Is a Part of Our Beginning
The first recorded human words are poetry in praise of a woman, Eve. The first mention of humanity in the Bible also mentions gender (Genesis 1:26). We are biologically male and female. God made even our DNA to be male and female. From the nucleus of every cell of your body, your chromosomes are loudly proclaiming either “I am a girl” or “I am a boy.” Every cell of our body is stamped “XX” or “XY.” And both are equal in the eyes of God. This means I cannot understand myself if I do not embrace the way God designed me. Empirical studies have shown that men and women think, feel, work, and behave differently. And it is not just conservatives who see the differences such as myself. The feminist author, Carol Gilligan, wrote that men seek maturity in detaching themselves while women see themselves as maturing as they attach themselves in relationships. Gender dysphoria, that expression, is really the latest medical diagnostic term for the experience of distress that some people have when their psychological or emotional gender identity or sense of gender doesn’t match up with their biological or birth sex. A 1973-year-old study from the Institute of Psychiatry in London has talked about how we’re all wired — there are 3 basic ways to deal with threats: Some run (fear), some fight (aggression), and some remain calm when facing a threat. You find this insight in neurochemistry—across 36 countries, these instincts are wired into us. In only a small percentage of the threatening situations is our habitual approach the right one.
The worst thing parents can do is listen to the culture when it says, “Let your child be who that child is. Don’t try to change him.” Harvard developmental psychologist Jerome Kagan says that’s the worst thing you can do. Children need to be pulled out of their natural instincts. Parents need to intervene and not let their natures run them. Doing so is a form of child neglect. We cannot forget this when considering the transgender question. Today, we’re told we can only affirm their chosen identity. The lack of wisdom in this response will become more evident over time. And I think we’ll see 20 years of mistakes, and then we’ll realize it wasn’t a good idea.
Here the biblical truth: I didn’t choose my parents; I didn’t choose my nationality; And I don’t choose my gender. So the Bible counsels us to treat those suffering from Gender dysphoria as a psychological problem rather than a biological problem.
1.2.2 Males Lead, Females Respond
Yet, there is a distinction in how God made each gender. Although both are created equal and in the image of God, the Bible clearly communicates an authority given to males to lead. Men are given the primary responsibility to lead their families in a God-honoring manner. I am making a distinction between men leading and male-domination. When men dominate, they assert their rights in careless ways, with little thought to her needs and desires. Let’s not dismiss or belittle the horrible practices where men abuse women and twist the Bible’s teaching as justification for their ugly actions.
Let me show where the Bible teaches male leadership…
1.2.2.1 The Order of Creation
Adam was created first, then Eve (Genesis 2:7, 18-23). We may think this is inconsequential but it wasn’t to the New Testament writers (1 Timothy 2:12-13).
1.2.2.2 Adam Represents the Human Race
When we read in Genesis that Eve sinned first, we might expect the New Testament to tell us that we receive our sinful nature from Eve. But the New Testament reverses this and surprises us: “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22).
Look carefully at God’s words in Genesis 3 when both Adam and Eve sin and Eve sins first: “But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, ‘Where are you”” (Genesis 3:9)?
1.2.2.3 Adam Names Eve “Woman”
When God work Adam from sleep, Adam named Eve:
Then the man said,
“This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man” (Genesis 2:23).
This is important in the context of Genesis as naming implies male leadership (Genesis 1:5, 8, 10; 2:19-20, 23).
1.2.2.4 God Names the Human Race “Man”
“This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. 2 Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created” (Genesis 2:1-2).
1.2.2.5 Eve is Created as a Helper
Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him” (Genesis 2:18).
The word “helper” is often used to describe God Himself. So it’s not a demeaning word in the Bible. The New Testament confirms this understanding when it says: “Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man” (1 Corinthians 11:9).
2.1 Men & Women Are Equally Valuable
2.2 Man & Woman Are Distinct
1.3 The Fall Distorted the Relationship Between Men & Women
Genesis 3 is one the crucial chapters in all of the Bible. If it were suddenly removed from the Bible, the Bible would no longer make sense.
To the woman he said,
“I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing;
in pain you shall bring forth children.
Your desire shall be for your husband,
and he shall rule over you.”
17 And to Adam he said,
“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife
and have eaten of the tree
of which I commanded you,
‘You shall not eat of it,’
cursed is the ground because of you;
in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
and you shall eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.” (Genesis 3:16-19)
Everything is distorted when sin enters the world, including the relationship between a man and a woman. When sin enters, caring male leadership becomes male dominance. When sin enters, a woman’s gift of nurturing becomes a “clingy” dependence. There quickly becomes many angry explosions of misunderstanding, a lack of trust, and plenty of tears. But the work of Christ’s cross reverses this. There’s a difference between what the gospel requires and what the gospel produces.
The gospel produces men who are like Jesus in four ways: Prophet, Priest, Provider, and Protector.
Prophet – self-sacrificing
This begins when men make a personal commitment to Jesus Christ. There are no selfish priests.
Prophet
You represent God to your family. You have a clear understanding of God’s word.
Provider
You make sure your family has what it needs. You must have a job (Proverbs 6:6-11; 1 Timothy 5:8). You are not economically careless. You are not lazy. You are not self-centered. All jobs are cursed (Genesis 3:18) and there’s no work that does not work.
Protector
You place yourself between your family and harm (1 Peter 3:7).
2. Pornography Destroys Real Relationships
One Cambridge University study found that porn addicts resembled drug addicts in that they fit the model of “wanting it more” but not “liking it more.” The urge to escalate use, coupled with the desensitization to “regular” porn, produced an increased appetite for more deviant and cruel images/scenarios.
“Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous” (Hebrews 13:4).
The gift of sex is given to deepening the bond between a husband and a wife. Part of the distortion of God’s good gift of sex is pornography. And it brings tremendous harm to people. Pornography is Satan’s plagiarism of God’s good gift of sex. ERLC Director Russell Moore states, “Satan isn’t a creator but a plagiarist. His power is parasitic, latching on to good impulses and directing them toward his own purpose.”
Pornography is killing our men. The 2016 Republican Party platform calls pornography a “public-health crisis that is destroying the lives of millions.” And even the liberal New York Times ran an article with the headline: “It’s O.K., Liberal Parents, You Can Freak Out About Porn” on July 16, 2016. From the first awakenings of a boy’s sexuality, he is being inundated with pornographic images. These are not simple images of naked women as they may have been a couple of generations ago, but are hard-core images that often extend to what is base and degrading.
My Hope
Pornography is so rampant today and it like smoking when I was a child in the 1970s. My hope that there will eventually there will be a backlash to it in our society because it’s harmful effects are too big to ignore.
2.1 The Effect of Pornography
Here are four tragic dangers to pornography…
2.1.1 It’s Toxic Waste to Your Soul.
For the sake of your soul, men, quit looking at pornography. It is fake love and fake beauty.
2.1.2. It is Sexual Violence
People against their will create a vast amount of pornography. It is sexual violence and you should not enjoy seeing sexual violence.
2.1.3 It Costs Leaders
The church needs godly males and pornography is wiping out scores of young men. Believing men are choosing sexual immorality over God. In a relatively new book, The Demise of Guys: Why Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It, psychologists Philip Zimbardo and Nikita Duncan say we may lose an entire generation of men to pornography and video gaming addictions. Their concern for these authors isn’t about morality, but instead about the nature of these addictions in reshaping the patten of desires necessary for the community. Pornography is stunting spiritual growth and the progress of the church. Tim Challies has written: “Time is short and hell is forever, which makes the Christian’s business an urgent business. And yet so many Christians are distracted by something as evil and as wasteful as pornography.”
2.1.4 It Is Tearing Apart Families
The fabric of families is being ripped apart by pornography. When a husband watches sex acts in a pornographic setting, they fill his mind and imagination. Often, his wife cannot compete with what he has seen. Or, he asks his wife to do what he’s seen and conflict emerges. Again, pornography is sexual violence and it is made-up distorted beauty. He cheapens his wife when he demands she does what he’s seen. Worse still, when she refuses, he pays for sex. He moves from mental adultery to real adultery. Pornography is tearing apart the fabric of our families. The only naked woman I should see is my wife. Make it a goal for the families in your church to be Porn-Free Families.
2.2 Practical Plan on Attack
It seems every home has 5 to 20 devices that can access the rest of the world through the Internet. Not every child or teen needs an iPhone. Also, watch out for other homes where your children are – do they have devices there you need to be aware of?
Step 1: Inventory
You need to know exactly how many Internet-enabled devices you have in your home. To do this, you will need to take an inventory. Make a list of all your Internet-enabled devices: desktop computers, laptops, tablets, and smartphones. Don’t forget the Playstation 3, Xbox, smart televisions, Apple TVs, iPods, and e-reader tablets. Even a Kindle reading device has basic web-browsing capabilities. A family recently reported that after doing this they were shocked to learn they had 22 devices to account for!
Step 2: Budget
Decide whether you are able to make Internet security a regular and recurring monthly expense. Where it used to cost money to access pornography, today it often costs money to avoid it. While there are free options available, the best services have a cost associated with them. A budget of $20-$25 per month will allow a family to take advantage of the premier options.
Step 3: Learn
Now that you have taken your inventory and have a better grasp of the devices your plan needs to account for, it is time to learn about the options available to protect those who use them. There are four broad categories of protection we have available:
Filtering. Filtering proactively detects and blocks objectionable content. (Examples: If your child does an Internet search for “naked girls,” it will block the search; If your child mistakenly clicks a link to a pornographic website, it will block access to the site.)
Accountability. Accountability software tracks websites visited from different devices and then prepares and deliver regular reports. (Example: If your child visits a pornographic website or performs a search for “naked girls,” the accountability software will note it and include it in a report emailed to you.)
Parental controls. Parental controls block certain functions of modern devices (Examples: Preventing the use of the Internet browser on an iPod Touch; preventing the use of the Facebook app on a tablet).
Communication. We cannot rely on technology to solve all of our problems, so the plan must also involve regular, deliberate and open communication.
Because none of these offers complete protection, the wise plan must use some combination of all four. The Porn-Free Family plan uses the following tools:
OpenDNS. OpenDNS uses filtering to automatically block objectionable web sites for every device connected to your home network. It is activated by making a small change to the settings on your existing router.
Covenant Eyes. Covenant Eyes tracks the web sites visited by your computers and mobile devices and sends regular email reports; it also offers optional filtering that can be configured specifically for each member of your family.
Parental Controls. Parental controls allow parents to disable certain functions on devices.
Meetings. The most indispensable tool is regular, open, deliberate communication between parents and their children.
Step 4: Discuss
Before you begin to implement the plan, it may be a good idea to meet with your family to explain what you are about to do and what you hope to accomplish by it. You will be inconveniencing your family and putting rules in place that will impact them, so it may be wise to discuss these things with them.
Resources
Covenant Eyes – www.covenanteys.com
Parent Control App – www.Qustodio.com
Porn Free Family - http://www.challies.com/articles/the-porn-free-family-plan
