Pornography and the Desire for Beauty
This past Sunday I attended my mom's church, Redeemer Presbyterian in Jacksonville, FL, and had one of those aha! moments where dots were connected, lights turned on and insight gained.
The pastor of Redeemer, Toby Dubose, was speaking on Revelation 17 and making some comments about beauty and he had one line which was a bit of a tangent, but which hit home. He was speaking about our desire for beauty and said that one explanation for the prevalence of pornography is that God created us to drink in beauty. And, because Satan seeks to counterfeit all that God does, he provides his own counterfeit beauty for us to drink in.
The dots I connected were Toby's comment and Thomas Chalmer's famous sermon on the Expulsive Power of a New Affection.
Here's a relevant quote from Chalmers:
There are two ways in which a practical moralist may attempt to displace from the human heart its love of the world; either by a demonstration of the world's vanity, so as that the heart shall be prevailed upon simply to withdraw its regards from an object that is not worthy of it; or, by setting forth another object, even God, as more worthy of its attachment; so as that the heart shall be prevailed upon, not to resign an old affection which shall have nothing to succeed it, but to exchange an old affection for a new one. My purpose is to show, that from the constitution of our nature, the former method is altogether incompetent and ineffectual and that the latter method will alone suffice for the rescue and recovery of the heart from the wrong affection that domineers over it.
The use of pornography, to use Toby's words, is an attempt to drink in beauty. The trouble is that it is a sinful and counterfeit beauty. But I like the way Toby worded his commented. We are wired to drink in beauty. The question is, from what fountain will we drink in beauty.
Chalmers says that to dislodge a sinful desire from the human heart it has to be replaced with an object that is more desirable. Simply telling people that something is a counterfeit and unworthy of our affection is not sufficient to dislodge our love for it. Chalmers words find scriptural backing in Colossians 2:20-23:
20 Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: 21 “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? 22 These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings. 23 Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.
The New Jolly Commentary (NJC) on the Colossians passage paraphrases it and says that "simply saying 'stop that, it's bad' is insufficient in getting people to stop doing bad things." This is what Chalmers is getting at and this is where Toby Dubose's comments are helpful.
The main question we need to deal with is where can we go to drink in beauty in a way that is honoring to Christ?
This is where the arts come in, whether they are cinema, drawing, painting, photography, sculpting or any number of other things. Our eyes want to drink in beauty like our throats want to drink in water. So, we've got to provide our eyes with godly pleasures to drink in. And by the way, this is coming from a guy who has always been into sports and who pretty much had no use for artsy-fartsy stuff.
If we don't find ways to bring godly pleasures to our eyes, Satan will come up with ways to provide counterfeit pleasures. I realize that there are lots more issues behind pornography than this, but it's an important item to add to the discussion. Along with saying "no" and "stop that" we need to provide ourselves and our neighbors with "visual water" that is more satisfying to the soul and more worthy of its attachment than the counterfeits that Satan provides.
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