In our previous study, we began the final section of the catechism, which is called Restoration. As we noted back in Question 2, the premise of this section is to know “how I am to lead a thankful life of holiness and sexual purity in conformity to and union with Christ.” Question 27-30 initiated that study by giving us reasons and guidance for how we are to make war against our sinful desires. The questions before us today, continue that line of thought by diving into the great challenge of pornography, its harmful effects, the danger of unrepentance, and the nature of genuine repentance.

QUESTION 31

We begin with a notoriously difficult question to answer.

What is pornography?

Pornography is sexually explicit material produced to serve lustful desires of the flesh, activated through the channel of the eye, through the looking upon of naked images of males and females for the purpose of sexual arousal.

Alongside Question 29’s addressing of same-sex desires, this question fits well within the context of the war for sexual purity, for these topics form some of the most pressing threats today. Gordon’s definition is good, yet it is too specific. Merriam-Webster’s definition is broader (and, I believe, better): “the depiction of erotic behavior (as in pictures or writing) intended to cause sexual excitement.” Gordon’s definition could be similarly modified:

Pornography is sexually explicit material produced to serve lustful desires of the flesh for the purpose of sexual arousal, often activated through the channel of the eye and through the looking upon of naked images of males and females.

This clarification is important because, as Paul notes in Romans 1:30, sinful man is an inventor of evil. If the definition is too specific, then loopholes will be looked for and found. Particularly, if we limit pornography to being viewed images, then we exclude erotic fiction, which is generally more consumed by woman than men. Indeed, during our time in college, my wife was often dismissed whenever she warned other young women that their obsession with romances, whether in film or in book, was creating unhealthy expectations and problematic desires for their future marriages.

Indeed, the Bible sets the pattern for us by often speaking simply of “sexual immorality,” which is the Greek word porneia. Of that term, David DeSilva says that “Porneia originated as a term for buying and selling sexual favors, but came to be used to refer to a variety of sexual practices outside of marriage” (120-121). Indeed, the New Testament uses it as a junk drawer term for all sexual activity outside the godly sexual intimacy within marriage. Although viewing explicit images may be the most common form of pornography, pornography is not limited to the sense of sight nor to the images.

QUESTION 32

Having defined what pornography is, Gordon now gives us six reasons for why pornography is destructive and must be avoided (Note: to reflect the changes to Question 31, I would simply change the word images to material):

Why is pornography so destructive?

Because the use of such images ruins the sexual intimacy intended for marriage, supports idolatry in the worship of the creature, dehumanizes men and women promoting abuse, especially of women, advances other forms of sexual impurity, creates idleness in society to the harm of our neighbors, and degrades the mind into darkness.

As with Questions 11 and 30, this question gives us a good list to meditate upon for ourselves and that we may have a ready answer in discipling others. This question is also worthy of our time considering because it can be all too easy to rest on the assumption that pornography is destructive without giving time to consider what exactly makes it so destructive.

First, pornography “ruins the sexual intimacy intended for marriage.” This is so common and well-documented that I have trouble even knowing where to begin.

Perhaps we can begin with placing much of the blame upon pornography for the sharp decline in both sex and marriage among young people. It is far easier to manage than an actual real-life relationship. It is perfectly tailored to whatever momentary lust one may be feeling, and thanks to the screens that have become extensions of ourselves, it is always available. Thus, many who have never known a screenless life simply do not see the value of putting in the effort having sexual intimacy at all, especially within marriage.

Of course, it also ruins sexual intimacy within marriage. Each man with an internet connection now has Solomon’s error open before him. Though he may technically have only one wife, an endless digital harem is always available. And it is impossible for a husband to love his wife as Christ loved the church while actively committing digital adultery. Indeed, how can a man find satisfaction in the ordinariness of sex with his wife if his mind is full of everything else.

As Alan Noble sadly points out:

Today you can find a pornographic depiction of virtually any fantasy. If you can dream it, you can find it, and you can probably find it for free within 3 minutes whenever you inevitably get bored of that fantasy, just dispose of it and find something new indefinitely. Humans have always been able to imagine all kinds of sexual scenarios, but we haven’t been able to make them exist unless you happen to be a tremendously powerful despotic ruler. We all have the power of Caligula now.

Caligula, of course, was a particularly disturbing Roman emperor, who is known for his for his incredibly debauched sexual behaviors. The Internet has made it to where we all have the power of the worst of the worst emperors in human history. And now, thanks to smartphones, we have it all 24/7, whenever and wherever we want.

Likewise, though women are sadly becoming ensnared in visual pornography at ever-increasingly rates, the primary pornographic snare for women is through narrative. Men tend to be more visual in nature, while women generally are more drawn the emotional appeal of a story. Many romances designed for women achieve the same function that visual pornography does for men. It creates a fantasy world in the mind, wishing that her husband was more romantic like the man in the story. Indeed, in whatever form, pornography is both a violation of the Seventh Commandment and the Tenth Commandment, for it is very much a form of coveting.

Second, pornography “supports idolatry in the worship of the creature.” To understand what Gordon means by this we should consider the Scripture that he footnotes, Romans 1:24-25:

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

This is the first of Paul’s threefold statement of God giving men over to their sins, and he states that God gave people over to the lusts (or the desires) of their hearts because they did not worship Him as the Creator but rather worshiped the creature. As Peter Jones notes, these verses display that the only two religions in the world are worship of the Creator or of some portion (or even the entirety) of His creation. Thus, lust or sinful desires arise from idolatry and then add fuel to that fire. Pornography is idolatry in at least two senses. First, it is idolatry of the self because it places personal desires above all else. Second, it idolizes whatever content is being consumed.

Third, pornography “dehumanizes men and woman promoting abuse, especially of women.” This is likely this chief destructive element of pornography within our minds and for good reason. Michael Knowles did an interview with a former pornstar who is now both a Christian and a pastor. As is the story with many who fall into pornography, he wanted to be an actor and was told that doing porn would get his foot in the door. But interestingly, during one of his interviews, one of the interviewer’s first questions was regarding his relationship with his father, which was non-existent. He then reinforced the point that the pornographic industry is quite literally built upon both men and women without fathers. That is fundamental to what pornography is. It preys upon those who have broken families and are seeking affirmation from people outside themselves. Thus, it is quite rightly called abusive in that sense.

Matthew Lee Anderson also notes that pornography is not simply a violation of the Seventh and Tenth Commandments; it is also a breaking of the Sixth Commandment.

Pornography is a murder of the heart. Is this too strong? Or must we use such language to wake us from the slumbering injustice in which we live? Or must we use such language to wake us from the slumbering injustice in which we live?

Perhaps if our eyes were able to break through the smoggy haze of our pornified society, we would see the slow, steady hand of death at work around us. Perhaps we would awake into the terror that those who once knew of holiness felt. Perhaps, if we would recognize the desecration of the temple of the living God, that we all that we are all, every day, complicit in, we would pray to the same Lord for mercy.

Reducing the human person to an instrument for our own pleasure is to wish in our hearts that they simply did not exist as persons. If we believe human beings can be replaced by sex-bots or virtual-reality pornography, what good are they, precisely? Persons are independent centers of agency, with their own wills and minds and reasons. They cannot be traded, like baseball cards, on the basis that one brings us more sexual pleasure than another. To do violates the very nature of their humanity. Pornography, I say again, is a form a murder within the heart. (The Gospel & Pornography, 98-9)

It is, therefore, quite literally dehumanizing. We tend to throw that word around, but Anderson gives us the proper lens for viewing that word. By using others for our own momentary pleasure, we are stripping them of their humanity within our hearts. You cannot have pornography without that kind of denigration. Again, this is true of both men and women, but as Gordon notes, women are the particular victims of this abuse.

Fourth, pornography “advances other forms of sexual impurity.” This is true personally and societally. Personally, pornography often escalates into more severe forms and creates a far greater likelihood of committing a physical act of sexual immorality. Like any addictive drug, an ever-increasing stimulus is required to get the same dopamine release. Thus, a person may begin by viewing Victoria’s Secret catalogs but then find themselves in much darker territory, which very often results in much higher likelihood of committing physical acts of sexual immorality.

On the societal level, viewing pornography condones the making of pornography, which increases the amount of pornography available, which then increases the likelihood of others using it in the future. This is one of those truths that is so simple that we might easily miss it. If nobody used porn, then it wouldn’t be there. But anytime that it is used, then it is shown to have an audience, which then incentivizes people to make more. Of course, that then means that more is now available, which increases the probably that people will discover it, creating more users. Thus, it is a negative feedback loop.

Fifth, pornography “creates idleness in society to the harm of our neighbors.” I love that Gordon added this reason because idleness is probably not the sin that we tend to associate with pornography. However, Tim Challies, in his excellent article called “8 Sins You Commit Whenever You Look at Porn,” writes:

We are called in all of life to “redeem the time,” to understand that we live short little lives and are responsible before God to make the most of every moment (Ephesians 5:16). Sloth is laziness, an unwillingness to use time well, and reflects a willingness to use time for destructive instead of constructive purposes. In that way pornography is slothful, a misuse of time. It is using precious moments, hours, and days to harm others instead of help them, to foster sin instead of kill sin, to backslide instead of grow, to pursue an idol instead of the living God.

Of course, since we are all in the war for the Kingdom together, not using our time well is indeed a harm to our neighbor.

Finally, pornography “and degrades the mind into darkness.” Again, the quotation from Alan Noble above is absolutely right. We now each have the ability to be far worse than Caligula. Matthew Lee Anderson, however, gives another way that pornography corrodes the mind that we probably do not often consider, which is the death of wonder and the trivialization of what matters.

The path toward seeing how pornography dehumanizes begins here, in thinking about the death of wonder in our hearts and lives. But I do not speak of wonder about sex—not yet, anyway. The death of mystery in that realm is only one manifestation of a more general disease, a pornification of our eyes and our minds that extends well beyond the realm of sexual stimulation. Whether pornography is to blame for this more general problem or vise versa, may remain subject to debate. My only interest is in arguing that what happens in pornography is not limited to sex.

Consider, for a moment, our practice of reading or watching other entertainment or informational “content.” Our minds are often hurried and frantic, which keeps our attention strictly on the surface of things. Any pleasure that comes from reading must be had quickly (especially when reading online) or we give up the task. We skim the articles and books and chapters, hastily moving on to consume the next bit of information. Our eyes jump from photo to photo while scrolling our phones in line at the store. We flip from channel to channel, awaiting for the next spectacle to seize our attention. Ours is a life in the shallows, to use Nicholar Carr’s fine phrase [or we might just as well insert Gordon’s point of the mind descending into darkness]. We rarely expend the effort required to contemplate anything any further than what appears in our direct line of sight, gorging ourselves on surfaces and images until we finally grow weary and eventually fall asleep.

This ravenous lust of vision is classically known as curiositas, curiosity. Curiositas is a restlessness of the spirit and mind, an unsettled anxiety that pursues new spectacles to consume. Such pleasurable novelties provide cheap mental stimulation with little to no work… A society animated by curiosity will have two compatible, paradoxical sentiments. First, it will attempt to peel back the curtain and lay bare sordid and dirty secrets. Curiosity aims to expose what ought not to be known. Our society’s rampant fascination with the inner workings of the lives of celebrities—lives we will never have—may seem benign. But the voyeurism that moves someone to gaze lustfully through a window operates according to the same logic, only in a sexual key. The more secret they are, the better for us. Second, curiosity undercuts our stomach for more serious ventures.  “Cat videos don’t really matter,” we say—and that is why our interest in them is damning. Curiosity is only attentive to the surface. It cannot abide the matter, the substance, or the depths before us. Curiosity is content with the image; but loving attention needs bodies. The curious has not the patience required for sustained consideration, much less the openness to the consuming immersiveness of wondrous rapture. (87-89)

Indeed, the way that pornography degenerates the mind into darkness can be compared to (and of course this is an imperfect analogy) how a diet of exclusively candy would completely ruin one’s appetite for other flavors. To have nothing but overly sweet things will destroy the ability to appreciate any of the other complexities of flavors that God has created in the world. Or we could use the analogy of music. Listening exclusively to contemporary pop music, which is the musical equivalent of candy, can ruin our ability to appreciate good music.

Either way, pornography functions in the same way. It ruins our ability to appreciate the ordinary complexities of sex with one’s spouse. Of course, I mean ordinary in a similar sense that every meal that we eat is ordinary. Eating food is a very ordinary process, and yet every meal is different with different flavors to appreciate. Something similar is true of sex, only on a much grander scale. Yet pornography degrades the mind into darkness, dulling our senses so that we lose the ability to appreciate the subtle art that God has created all around us. It addicts us to fluff and triviality, and reality becomes intolerable.

QUESTION 33

Can those be saved who do not turn to God from their unholy desires and are unrepentant of their sexual ways?

By no means. Scripture tells us that no sexually immoral person, no adulterer, no fornicator, no homosexual, no abuser of women, or the like will inherit the kingdom of God.

Again, from what we said about the word porneia, notice this phrase here “or the like.” He gives a list of sins, but then says “or the like” to remind us that this is not an exclusive list. Sounds pretty dreadful, right? Gordon references 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, which reads:

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

We can probably put ourselves somewhere on that list of sins. We have all likely been guilty of sexual immorality at some point in our lives. Scripture tells us that we are all guilty of idolatry. So, we all belong on this list, in at least one way. But Verse 11 is the gospel. “And such were some of you.” We are no longer identified with our sin; rather, we are washed and sanctified in the name of Jesus Christ.

And that salvation happens through repentance. That is why the question says, Can those be saved who do not turn to God form their unholy desires and are unrepentant of their sexual ways? No, they cannot be saved because they will not repent. But to those who do repent, then we have the beautiful news of the gospel is that they are no longer idolaters. They’re no longer adulterers. They are no longer the sexually immoral. They’re no longer those who practice homosexuality. They’re no longer thieves. They’re no longer identified by their sin.

Interestingly, in the context of 1 Corinthians, Paul was writing to a church that was very much rampant with sexual sin. Even so, he says that “such were some of you.” So, they were still committing some of these sins. But he’s writing the letter to say, remember your identity and Christ. You are now a new creature in Christ. Live in him. You don’t belong to your sin any longer. Flee from your sin. Repent of your sin and follow Christ.

QUESTION 34

What is involved in genuine repentance of all sexual sin?

Two things: The dying-away of the old self, by hating all forms of sexual immorality and fleeing from it; And the rising-to-life of the new self, by finding great joy in leading a sexually pure life and, if married, by properly loving our spouses.

A great passage of scripture that we can go to for this is Roman 6, which we read almost in its entirety several weeks ago. Also, Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3 basically give us this exact same pattern. Paul tells us in both of those chapters to take off the old self and to put on the new self. Undress ourselves of all our old ways and sins, and put on the new clothing that Christ has given to us, which is our new life in Him.

Whether married or single, it is crucial that we remember that the word for lust in the New Testament can also be used of righteous desires. As Trevin Wax says,

The ultimate answer to pornography is not by putting filters on our computers, as helpful as they may be, but in having the changed heart where we see pornography the way God does—as the ridiculous and dangerous substitute it truly is. And that only happens when our delight is in something bigger, when our grasping for beauty is not out of place but directed to the right object.

That is the nature of genuine repentance. It is not simply the rejection of a sin that we desire; it is also the act of setting reborn desires upon Christ and the good gifts that He provides. Indeed, our war against sexual immorality and all sin in general is essentially fought over two verses:

Psalm 16:11 |  You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

Psalm 84:11 | For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.

Every time we sin, we declare with our actions our unbelief in those two verses. Conversely, every time we reject temptation, we affirm their truth with our lives. Contrary to what the world around us would have us believe, the path of purity is filled with great joy. May we be a people who follow after genuine repentance, dying to the old self, hating all forms of sexual immorality, and rising to new life in Christ, who is Himself are joy.