I Love a Good Morning Rant.

It’s five am. And I’m ready for a good rant.

I know, I know. Most girls wake up slowly, sip their coffee and think lovely thoughts about what they shall wear for the day [actually, I don’t know a single female who does this]. But I wake up like a bull horn [ask my neighbor, Molly], I will probably end up wearing the same thing as yesterday, and I don’t believe in “sipping” coffee when you drink it by the dregs as I often find myself doing.

Anyway, on with it.

Last night I had a conversation with a close friend about porn. Her bf struggled with it, as did many individuals I have been close to. It’s a heart-wrenching conversation, to be honest. It hurts in ways and places we can’t name or understand. And we weren’t even the perpetrators.

Here’s the thing about porn. I don’t think the problem with porn is that it’s addictive. I don’t think the problem with porn is that it’s naughty. I don’t think the problem with porn is even nakedness. No.

The problem with porn is that it is anti-Gospel.

Since it’s early and I’m feeling feisty, I might even dare to say that it is the most anti-Gospel notion that our culture has conjured up yet [in the same camp I would place sexual abuse of children as well].

Think on this, though. The Gospel is imaged in marital intimacy. God said, “Hey, you wanna know what it’s like between Me and My Church? Look at the sexual union between a husband and wife.” Kinda radical, if you ask me [you didn’t, but it’s my blog so I get to keep on ranting here…] So if sex is to image the union we have with Christ, then anything that distorts that image would warp the truth we are to find there. But I suppose this could happen on many different levels. Well, I would argue that porn does this on many of them.

When we look at the Gospel [He who is the Gospel and the Good News He brought about an invitation into union with Him] we find that it is life-giving, it makes us more human as it seeks to restore us into full humanity as we become more and more like the ultimate Human; the Gospel takes us from being objects of wrath and makes us children of God; He welcomes us into Himself, into intimate union, to partake of all that is His as He takes all that is ours. This is the Gospel.

To now begin thinking about porn in these ways is overwhelmingly disturbing. In light of this, it makes sense that we want to walk away from this conversation because the nakedness of the issue [no pun intended] is disconcerting, to say the least. Where as the Gospel is imaged by pure, unashamed, holy sex, porn pretends it. where the Gospel is life-giving, porn is life-squelching [perhaps this is why it is so addicting?]. Where the Gospel seeks to make us more human, porn takes away the life-nature of the one it portrays. As the Gospel takes us from being objects and makes us children, porn takes children and makes them objects. Where the Gospel welcomes us into an intimate relationship of union, porn is one-way gratification devoid of relationship or intimacy or mutual giving.

It’s my vote that we stop talking about porn in a quaint way in churches, where we slap hands and say, “that was naughty, now don’t do that again.” Instead, we need to preach what this is really about, the Gospel. I wonder what would happen if the next pastor to talk with one in his flock about this told him or her that in their participation of pornography they were participating in the distortion of the person of Christ Himself. I just wonder …

I wish there was a lighthearted way to end this rant. One can usually be found, but not here. And, on second thought, I’m kinda glad there’s not.

So. Now it’s 5:30am. Rant complete.