This means that Christians believe the radical truth that nothing good can be ugly, that nothing untrue can be beautiful, and that everything beautiful and true is also good.

To attempt a separation of the good, the true, and the beautiful is, by Christian understanding, both impossible and self-defeating. Furthermore, the attempt to separate them is sinful -- an act of defiance.

For this reason the Christian worldview insists that the face of a child with Down syndrome is infinitely more beautiful than an airbrushed model on the cover of a fashion magazine. The model may be pretty, but every human being is beautiful, simply by virtue of being made in the image of God. That grounding of human dignity points to the fact of our creation by a loving and merciful God, who made us in his image, and revealed this truth in our very existence and in our capacity to know him. He revealed this truth explicitly in Holy Scripture, and this means that every single human being, at every stage of development, possesses full human dignity.

The corruption of the gift of sex is, more than often realized, an assault upon that human dignity that is the Creator's gift. The attempt to declare beauty at the expense of goodness and truth is at the heart of the problem of pornography. Now, we live in a society fast losing even a sense of shame about its pornographic obsessions.

The explosive sales of the Fifty Shades book series alerted many Christians to the fact of female-oriented pornography. While far more attention had been devoted to the visual nature of most male-oriented pornography, the Fifty Shades phenomenon underlined the public mainstreaming of pornography that would find a primary audience among women -- narrative pornography in book form.

While many had noted the attraction of so-called "romance novels" to many women, the arrival of the Fifty Shades series announced that the culture at large was ready to shift to what can only be described as explicitly pornographic. Furthermore, the plot line of the series, now quite well known in the larger society, is devoted to forms of sexuality that had historically been defined as perverse and abusive.

The lost sense of shame is not only documented in the unprecedented sales of the series in book form, but also by the mainstream celebration of the movie.

A culture that is determined to reduce all sexual morality to the issue of adult consent is now ready to eat popcorn while watching the corruption of the gift of sex and, in effect, granting approval to the vision of sexuality that is the film's very essence.

This next stage in the evolution of pornography combines, in an unprecedented way, male-oriented visual pornography with female-oriented narrative pornography. The movie is being marketed on Valentine's Day as an adventure for couples -- something offered to both men and women.

That something is a lie. The late U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan spoke of our tendency to "define deviancy down." That is one of the marks of our age. The Fifty Shades movie will not be legally defined as obscenity or pornography. In our age, almost nothing is. But biblically speaking, there can be no question about the fact that the Fifty Shades phenomenon is explicitly pornographic -- defined in the New Testament by the Greek word porneia -- which refers directly to any illicit sexual impulse or act. Pornography, whatever its form, is intended to produce that wrongful sexual impulse.

Going to see Fifty Shades of Grey, or reading the book series, is an exercise in pornographic intent and effect. It is also an act of defiance against the goodness of the gift of sex as granted to humanity by God. Furthermore, the series is an assault upon the dignity of every human being.

The loss of shame in modern society is championed as a sign of cultural progress in many circles and as a step forward in mental health by many therapists. More than anything else, however, it points to the depth of the confusion that inevitably accompanies the corruption of God's gifts.

Christianity celebrates the unity of the good, the beautiful, and the true in God himself. In obedience, we must seek to unify the true and the beautiful and the good in our hearts and minds -- and in our bodies.

Words from theBook of Common Prayer's Service of Holy Matrimony will serve us well here. Christians know that the good, the true, and the beautiful are always and evermore united. What God has joined together, let no one tear asunder.

*****

Fifty Shades of Grey: Sipping at Lust

By Jay Haug
www.jacobswellhope.com
February 17, 2015

Dear Friends,

St. Augustine penned these words centuries ago in his Confessions.

"To love and be loved in return was what excited me, especially if I could enjoy my lover's body. So I polluted the stream of friendship with the filth of lust and obscured its brightness with foul passions. But despite the shameful and degrading behavior, in my excessive vanity I hoped to be regarded as elegant and civilized."

We live in a culture that has engineered a massive effort to mainstream lust, if not to make it "elegant and civilized." And yet as my wife and I walked past the two large theater screens set aside for Fifty Shades of Grey on our way to see another movie last night, I noticed the furtive glances of those walking past with us. Did they wonder what was being portrayed inside? Did they secretly want to see it? Did they wonder which of their friends or neighbors might be inside? The feint presence of shame was in the air.

Despite the fact that pornography has never been more present and more accessible and despite continual attempts to use soft-core porn as a bridge to using its hard version, most people understand that Fifty Shades and its ilk will create nothing but disturbance in their souls. Watching it will leave them feeling inelegant and uncivilized. Why?

After seeing Fifty Shades, the true lust addicted person will only experience agitation of soul, the kind that will drive them to internet porn within hours of seeing the movie. The "gateway" soul, relatively inexperienced in these matters and naively hoping for either a romance or relationship "zinger," will be left with frustration and disappointment. If seeing it with a partner, they may be surprised that viewing it will do something quite different in their partner, something they may not like. Hoping to be drawn closer, they may actually be driven apart.

Forty years ago, before the mainstreaming of porn, I attended one of those famous informal college seminars. It was called "Sense and Non-sense in Sex." The speaker was a very liberal religion professor. He essentially ridiculed pornography, saying there was no way viewing a celluloid movie could take the place of real people being together. But he was wrong. Unfortunately, many people today have made that trade, most tragically, many married people.

In Augustine's words, they have "obscured the brightness of friendship with foul passions." But there is a way out. It is by paying attention to the voice inside that speaks to us of the value and eternal worth of our souls. When we surrender to Him and wait for his provision in relationships and sexuality, in the way that He chooses to give it, we will find that it was all worth waiting for. While we wait, we can rejoice that our soul is not being poisoned by drinking the unquenching sea water of lust.

One thing is for sure. There will be other attempts to utterly eliminate the shame connected with porn. But as long as humans continue to be born with souls, that attempt will fail. There is something indelible within us that knows beyond any doubt there is something better. That instinct prevailed in those who chose to attend another movie last night and in doing so acknowledged lust for what it truly is..the gradual and often undetected killer of souls.

Jay Haug is Executive Director of Jacob's Well www.jacobswellhope.com