How technology contributes to a pornified culture
By / Aug 30

Pornography is unrealistic. It’s a statement many might view as common because it’s been said so frequently. But the raw data on pornography use in the United States reveals new ways that this is true. Each year, Pornhub, the world’s largest pornography site, puts out a report. This “Year in Review” includes details of which countries watch pornography the most (United States), which holiday sees the most drastic drop in visiting the site (New Year’s Eve), and which day is the most likely for people to log in (between 1-2 a.m. on Sunday morning). 

This past year, the data revealed that once again pornography is not meant to give us reality, but to feed us an illusion. The most searched for terms of 2021 in the U.S. included a form of Japanese pornographic anime known for its unrealistic depictions of body parts and the term “lesbian.” Think about that for a moment. Men are the most likely candidates to view pornography, and they have opted overwhelmingly for sexual acts that are impossible for them to ever actually participate in. 

What pornography reveals about people 

So, if it is not the real thing that people are after, what does this reveal? We do not desire real sex between two people, bringing with it all the vulnerability and responsibility that it entails, but a sea of sexual licentiousness, where individuals can seek their own pleasure through the use of another individual (real or imagined). If the pill gave us sex without pregnancy, then the widespread adoption of internet pornography has given us sexuality without people. 

In a culture awash in sexuality (but not true sex) as this, the novelty and strangeness of the act becomes more enticing than actual intercourse. This is similar to the conversation between two characters in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World where one encourages his friend to go to the “Feelies” (a movie experience where viewers can “feel” the movie), with these words: “I hear the new one at the Alhambra is first-rate. There’s a love scene on a bearskin rug; they say it’s marvelous. Every hair of the bear reproduced. The most amazing tactual effects.” 

When describing a sexual scene, the most alluring part of it is that you can “feel” the bearskin rug, not that there is bare skin shown on the screen. In the same way, when sexuality is so freely available, it is the other stuff that draws our attention. No longer is it enough to see the “bland” pornography, we now must gravitate toward that which is impossible: cartoons where the laws of physics and biology don’t constrain; scenarios that could never involve us. The allure of the strange and novel is what is exciting, not the beauty of a sexual union between partners who know each other (and only each other) intimately in the bond of marriage between a man and a woman. 

Technology and the use of pornography

Technology is not entirely to blame. Pornography use existed long before smartphones and the internet. But it is impossible to dismiss the ways that technology is reshaping our minds and sense of the physical world. Ironically, this particular moment has the striking fact that sexual content is more available online, even as rates of teen sexual activity are declining. 

According to sociologist Jean Twenge, iGen (or Gen Z) is less likely to have engaged in physical sexual activity than their predecessors. However, before we celebrate, the teens and young adults are no less likely to have engaged in sexual activity, it is just mediated through digital devices: sending nude photos or engaging in illicit texting with significant others. If sex is only about the individual’s physical pleasure, then one can receive that with a smartphone and Snapchat, physical presence not required. 

This is the contradiction of our time: a culture so flooded in sexuality and committed to pleasure, yet so starved for true sex and physical intimacy. The destroying of the barriers around sexuality did not actually bring us together, but in fact drove us further apart. Whereas a healthy view of sex involves two people in the context of marriage vulnerable before one another, pornography mediated through a screen requires nothing of an individual. The focus is bent inward, only on the person and what he or she might desire.The other person ceases to be human, becoming only a tool for sexual gratification. 

In some instances, the person is only a means for my economic profit. In the early days of the COVID pandemic, when many people were laid off from their jobs and confined to their homes in lockdowns, some turned to the internet and camshows (online shows where viewers pay to watch individuals engage in sexual acts) as a means of closing the economic gap. One popular site reported over 60,000 new “producers” in the first two weeks of March. Another promised to let out-of-work McDonalds workers keep 90% of their profits (a profit margin not given to most other “performers”). 

The disastrous effects of pornography use

Whether for individual sexual fulfillment or economic exploitation, what is required is not a person but an object. A tool. An image on the screen. To use another person in this way mars their status as one who has been made in the image of God, but it also sears our own consciences. Only a deformed conscience can treat another individual as an object rather than a person. And the prolonged practice of doing so brings unimaginable relational and personal destruction because we focus only on our own gratification. And, scientifically, that repeated use has a damaging effect on our lives. 

Sociologist Samuel Perry, who has studied pornography use among conservative Christians, found that those who engage in repeated use were more likely to back away from their faith. The turn inward toward self-pleasure is not compatible with the command to self-denial (Mark 8:34). These Christians did not hold contradictory beliefs in their head—“I believe pornography use is bad” and “There is nothing wrong with my use of pornography”—but rather opted to downplay the former belief that sex outside of marriage is detrimental. This trajectory reveals one of the most troubling aspects of our culture. Not that we would only engage in illicit sexual behavior, but we can come to believe that it is good for us. 

As Christians, we must understand the reality of pornography and state clearly the dangers it poses, both to those who produce and consume it. We must condemn its predatory, exploitative, and criminal activity. And we must call the world back to a view of sexuality built on physical, committed, and mutual intimacy in the context of God-designed marriage rather than personal self-gratification. 

How do we navigate conflicting values in the public square?
By / Jun 28

Beneath many—if not all—of the pressing social and cultural questions that our nation faces today sits a fundamental question about the nature and role of religion in the public square. From the often-fraught debates over abortion and sexuality issues like transgenderism to the increased discussions over online governance and the role of the technology industry in moderating public discourse, there lies a deep tension among ethical worldviews and disparate visions for the pursuit of the common good. 

Although it was published in 1984, The Naked Public Square by Richard John Neuhaus offers a deep critique of these contrasting visions and models an understanding of the public square that reveals the constant interplay of religion and politics. Ultimately, they cannot be kept separate, regardless of what some proponents of a “naked” or purely secular public square want to claim. Neuhaus defines the vision of a naked public square as the desire to “exclude religion and religiously grounded values from the conduct of public business” (ix).

Neuhaus was a prominent public theologian who served in a variety of clerical positions in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, later serving as a Roman Catholic Priest until his death in 2009. He was the founder and editor of the ecumenical and conservative monthly journal First Things, the director of the Institute on Religion and Public Life in New York City, and the author of over 36 works. 

In The Naked Public Square, Neuhaus offers a constructive critique of both the moral majoritarian movement of his day — as seen in the “religious right” led by so-called fundamentalists like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson — and what some have deemed “the rainbow coalition” of the religious or secular left who seek to shift the conversation of public morality away from any transcendent reality toward radical concepts of “naked” pluralism based in an expressive individualism. Neuhaus concludes that the concept of a “naked public square” is simply untenable and fails to account for the public nature of religion itself. He forcefully argues that religion cannot simply be relegated to a private matter as seen in the language of freedom of worship or belief. And this concept of religion as purely a private matter of the individual is even more prominent today than it was in the 1980s when Neuhaus penned this monumental work.

Dangers of the “naked” public square

In this second edition, released in 1986, Neuhaus seeks to build upon his original cultural critique and begins to flesh out a constructive proposal for bridging “the connections between biblical faith and democratic governance” (xi). He opens the work by exposing the rise of civil religion in his day and critiques the constant debate over the proper role of religion in public life. Much of this debate has devolved into caricaturing opponents’ views, all the while defending the moral purity for our own tribe through comparison. He wisely points out that “in principle, we should be suspicious of explanations for other people’s beliefs and behavior when those explanations imply that they would believe and behave as we do, if only they were as mature and enlightened as we are” (16). This honest and humble posture is evident throughout Neuhaus’ work.

In this book, Neuhaus traces the history of public theology and shows that many critics of religion in the public square express fear that if allowed, politics may again degenerate into the religious wars of the past. Quoting Alastair MacIntyre, he states that “in the absence of a public ethic, politics becomes a civil war carried on by other means” (99). This is a prescient critique of today’s public square based on how many of Neuhaus’ predictions have become reality in recent years with the warring factions of political tribalism — fueled by the rise of the social internet — and the almost religious-like devotion to secularism of our day. Both of these political and inherently religious tribes are at odds over what should constitute a serviceable public ethic, which Neuhaus believes is “not somewhere in our past, just waiting to be found and reinstalled” (37). It will take hard work on behalf of all parties in order to navigate the challenges ahead.

Like a skilled surgeon, Neuhaus dissects the political moment of his day and shows the fundamental issue with religion in the public square is not an issue of Christian truth “going public,” which he points out is an essential element of Christian faith (19). Rather, he critiques the substance of the claims made by both the politicized fundamentalism and the utopian dreams of the naked public square of secularism. He argues that both pose a grave threat to human flourishing and the preservation of democracy as a whole. Whereas fundamentalism can lead to a paving over of conscience and may even devolve into forms of totalitarianism (99), secularism removes the “agreed-upon authority that is higher than the community itself” (76). The naked public square then becomes a place where “there is no publicly recognizable source for such criticism, no check upon such patriotism . . . therefore criticism becomes impossible and patriotism unsafe” (76). 

Neuhaus later proposes a new way in this debate that seeks to reorient the public square as one based on a transcendent reality, one that seeks to honor the real differences in worldview and groundings of morality through the framework of democratic values and a robust public square of reinvigorated discourse.

The morality of compromise

Neuhaus’ vision for the public square draws criticisms from both sides of the debate. To the ire of secularism, he refuses to grant that religion is simply a private matter that shouldn’t be allowed in the public square. Instead, he argues that it is also at odds with the religious right by stating that religion dogma cannot go unchecked in this democratic experiment. He articulates a vision of compromise and tolerance in the public square that seeks to understand both religion and democracy in their proper forms — a vision that is much more robust than critics often ascribe to him. For Neuhaus, compromise doesn’t equate with weakness or giving up on deeply held beliefs but rather engaging in a robust dialogue over important issues and seeking a workable solution for all parties. He states, “Compromise and forgiveness arise from the acknowledgment that we are imperfect creatures in an imperfect world. Democracy is the product not of a vision of perfection but of the knowledge of imperfection” (114).

Neuhaus goes on to argue that compromise “is not an immoral act, nor is it an amoral act” because the person who makes a compromise is making a moral judgement about what is to be done when moral judgements are in conflict.” He rightfully critiques the terminology of “two-kingdoms” in popular public theology and proposes a “twofold rule of God” that “underscores that it is the one God who rules over all reality, and his will is not divided” (115). This ensures that the public square is not devoid of a transcendent grounding for morality. Though, some on both sides of the divide will argue that Neuhaus gives away too much in the debate to the other side and that his middle ground approach is ultimately untenable in the increasingly hostile public square.

Neuhaus’ vision of compromise picks up on the idea of true toleration that has been popularized by some today as a path forward in these divisive times of polarization and tribalism. In his view, compromise is not about giving up truth or abandoning principle but recognizing that there are multiple moral actors present in any given decision and the need for humility in a workable vision of democracy. It means that “having set aside the sectarian and triumphalist alternatives, one acts with moral responsibility in an arena that requires compromise” (124). He later describes this project as one true democracy that understands that there “will always be another inning, another election, another appeal, another case to be tested” (181). It is understandable why this particular vision would be unsettling to both sides of these public debates because it means seeing the humanity of your supposed “enemies” and working toward a common future.

In seeking to lay out this vision for religion and democracy in America, Neuhaus describes a “very large number of Americans who feel they have for a long time been on the losing end have come to believe that the winners are trying to deny them their innings” (181). This is also one of the prevailing issues of today and bears acknowledging that particular communities — especially those of color — have actually been historically disenfranchised. But given Neuhaus’ context and intention of this volume, he does not particularly highlight the plight of these communities in his vision for the public square and discourse. While this is a weakness of the argument presented, it does not invalidate the principles that he lays out for his constructive proposal for the public square. He simply shows that those who hold a “pragmatic and provisional view of the democratic process” would understandably be alarmed by his proposal. Neuhaus rejects this pragmatic vision of the democratic process and argues for a more robust public theology.

Overall, Neuhaus offers a credible and healthy alternative to the warring factions of society and the outright secular rejection of religion in the public square by showing that these disparate visions of religion and democracy are simply untenable by their very nature. In the preface to the second edition of The Naked Public Square, Neuhaus writes that many critiqued the first edition of this work because it lacked a substantive proposal for applying the vision he articulates. While this second edition does move toward that type of proposal, it still lacks a detailed outworking of his vision for the public square. But Neuhaus believed others would be able to develop that type of proposal as they built upon the foundation that he laid out for an alternative understanding of the relationship of religion and democracy in the public square.

Evaluating “Cuties”
By / Dec 1

Editor’s note: In critiquing the film, this article includes some graphic descriptions of the film’s disturbing scenes.

As a filmmaker, I know that filmmaking teams spend a lot of time planning out shots in their storyboards, framing shots on set, selecting and contrasting shots in the editing room, and creating “key art” that promotes the theme and tone of their films. This work is not done on a whim. Most films represent years of effort spanning prep to promotion. The imagery is intentional and highly curated, selected to elicit a strong emotional reaction in viewers. 

The film industry also spends a lot of time discussing the ethics of filmmaking and representation—especially in the documentary world. Those conversations are necessary and valuable to bringing diverse voices and experiences to storytelling.

Reacting to the film’s key art

So it’s with that knowledge and experience that I was dismayed when Netflix launched a promotional campaign for a Sundance-award-winning film called “Cuties.” The film’s logline is: “Eleven-year-old Amy starts to rebel against her conservative family’s traditions when she becomes fascinated with a free-spirited dance crew.” I think “free-spirited” is not even close to an accurate description of this group, but it was the image for the film’s marketing campaign that drew the initial ire. 

Netflix is very intentional about the imagery for its films, changing it frequently and testing to see what attracts viewers to a particular film. But the first promo campaign for “Cuties” drew outraged responses, which Netflix later changed after issuing an apology. This campaign showed images from one of the final scenes of the film—the hyper-sexualized dance contest that the “cuties” were competing in. It is a scene that is supposed to show the negative aspects of sexualizing young girls. But the film’s key art told a different story. 

As the Hollywood Reporter defines it, key art is “the singular, iconographic image that is the foundation upon which a movie’s marketing campaign is built.” Meaning that this image sums up the tone, theme, and message of a movie. That’s why this image provoked so many people even before the film’s Sep. 9 release on Netflix. They understood that the film was being sold on the sexualized imagery of girls.

A campaign to #CancelNetflix immediately followed. The film’s French-Senegalese director, Maïmouna Doucouré, was stunned. She had not received a similar reaction at the Sundance film festival earlier this year (where, it should be noted, her film’s key art was decidedly less sexualized). Instead, her film received the Directing Award in the World Cinema Dramatic competition, a top prize for any director, much less a feature film directorial debut. Writing for The Washington Post, Doucouré said her film was intended to provoke adults to make changes to benefit generations of children to come and that, with this film, she was doing her part as a filmmaker. 

Some people have found certain scenes in my film uncomfortable to watch. But if one really listens to 11-year-old girls, their lives are uncomfortable.

We, as adults, have not given children the tools to grow up healthy in our society. I wanted to open people’s eyes to what’s truly happening in schools and on social media, forcing them to confront images of young girls made up, dressed up and dancing suggestively to imitate their favorite pop icon. I wanted adults to spend 96 minutes seeing the world through the eyes of an 11-year-old girl, as she lives 24 hours a day. These scenes can be hard to watch but are no less true as a result.

Doucouré is even clearer about her intent in a Netflix interview on YouTube about why she made this movie that depicts both Islamic and Western views of women: “We are able to see the oppression of women in other cultures. But my question is, isn’t the objectification of a woman’s body that we often see in our Western culture not another kind of oppression?”

Criticism of the film 

That’s an astute question and one that I agree with. So the question then comes down to how well does she pull off this intent in her film? Is the criticism of her film valid or not? In an October 14th article in Variety, co-CEO Ted Sarandos says no.

Sarandos says the film is “misunderstood” and raised First Amendment concerns about governmental efforts to pressure the company. He made it clear Netflix has no plans to alter the film that is an autobiographical story for director Maïmouna Doucouré.

“The film speaks for itself. It’s a very personal coming of age film, it’s the director’s story and the film has obviously played very well at Sundance without any of this controversy and played in theaters throughout Europe without any of this controversy,” Sarandos says. “It’s a little surprising that in 2020 America we’re having a discussion about censoring storytelling.”

It’s possible to claim that “Cuties” is misunderstood if its critics only responded to the marketing campaign and didn’t watch the film—though the initial marketing campaign was clear and was quickly revised. But it’s also possible that Sarandos and Doucouré misunderstood the critical response. I don’t think it’s about censoring storytelling. I think it’s about responding to the imagery chosen by a director who claims in the Washington Post that she “wanted to make a film in the hope of starting a conversation about the sexualization of children.”

So let’s talk about those scenes. The film starts when 11-year-old Amy (played by Fathia Youssouf, 14, who is luminous in her debut acting role) moves with her family to a new apartment in a worn-out housing project filled with other African Muslim families in Paris. Her father is on a long trip back to Senegal. In a heart-breaking scene (worthy of the directing award), Amy learns that her father has gone there to take a second wife and that her mother feels rejected and powerless to change it. But in a Muslim prayer group, she hears a leader tell the assembled women that though they are precious to Allah, many more women than men will end up in hell: “Where does evil dwell? In the bodies of uncovered women. Therefore, we must strive to preserve our decency, we must obey our husbands, and fear God when we educate our children.”  

In contrast to her family’s culture, Amy sees a group of classic mean girls at school who are popular and accepted, and she yearns to be like them. These are the “Cuties”—a group desperate to win a local dance competition. Though they are mean to her, Amy eventually befriends one of them in her building. As they slowly accept her, they include her in their sexting, porn discussions, and cat-calling encounters with older boys. Craving acceptance, this rowdy clique tries to gain the attention of older boys who, mercifully, turn them down as being too young. 

When Amy steals a phone from a visiting cousin, she now has the tool to see what’s happening online. These social media posts quickly shape her ideas of acceptance and femininity. Watching dance videos on this phone, she practices her moves in secret and eventually convinces the group to accept her because she can dance as they do. However, shaped by what she has seen online, Amy pushes them to dance in even more suggestive ways—and this is where the film begins to undermine its intended message.

Prior to this scene, Doucouré mostly handles the issue of porn and sexting by watching the girls’ reactions to the material, rather than showing the audience what the girls are looking at. It’s still cringe-worthy to hear them talk in a mixture of naivete and smut, but it establishes the sexualized online world of these girls. But now, as Amy joins the dance troupe, the director’s camera turns on the girls with the classic “male gaze” montage of body parts for a two-minute scene that is uncomfortable to watch as the girls fondle each other’s rears and dance in very suggestive ways. Instead of offering a critique about hyper-sexualizing pre-adolescent girls, this scene showcases it. There is no awkwardness of prepubescent girls trying out unfamiliar moves and showing their discomfort in doing so. It’s disturbing to see these young girls look so practiced at something that is supposed to be new for them and that’s a directorial choice.

The same thing happens in a later scene, when the girls set up one of their own phones to record their dance on some steps. In their world, the phone would have been on a wide shot the entire time of this dance. But instead of giving the audience the phone’s point-of-view, the director decided to go for the tight shots once again, creating another unnecessary 90-second montage of sexualized dance moves, with close-ups on the girls’ twerking rears and crotches. It’s not believable that this is how the home-made video was filmed by the girls, so the shot choices here pull the viewer’s head out of the film to wonder why a director making a commentary on sexualizing children is unnecessarily sexualizing children in this scene. 

But as a plot point, this dancing video ends up going viral for Amy, and we see her captivated by all the likes the next day at breakfast. That triumph is ruined when Amy later gets in a brawl with a competing dance squad and ends up exposed in her ratty underwear. Someone makes a video of it, and of course, that goes viral, too. That now jeopardizes the reputation of the Cuties in the upcoming competition. They are seen as little kids wearing little kids’ underwear. As Amy learns this bad news, she is confronted by her cousin who sees that she has stolen his phone. Desperate not to lose her lifeline to popularity, she unsuccessfully attempts to seduce him to get the phone back. When he pushes her away, she bites him, wrestles the phone away, and runs into the bathroom and locks the door. While her cousin pounds on the door, she hastily pulls down her pants, takes a crotch shot of herself, and posts it, before throwing the phone back at her cousin. It’s a shocking move and one that seems out of character for Amy, given her background and her world.

Of course, all of this behavior comes back to her mother, who hysterically confronts her daughter, slapping her and asking her who she has become. The elderly “auntie” intervenes, and the scene abruptly shifts to the two older women sprinkling water on Amy as she stands in her underwear. It is a callback to an earlier scene when the mother tells Amy that water washes away sins. But Amy reacts very oddly, performing a trancelike simulation of sex and orgasm that befuddles the older women—as well as this viewer. This is the most confusing and gratuitous part of the film, especially in a scene that has religious overtones. There are other moments in the film that awkwardly attempt a magical realism, and perhaps this scene is supposed to be in that vein, but it didn’t work. It’s just super disturbing to watch Amy shake, hump, and moan in a sexual pantomime, making me wonder why Doucouré thought this unsettling scene served either the storyline or her activist goals. 

The film culminates in the dance competition that the Cuties have been preparing for, which also takes place on the same day as Amy’s father’s wedding to his second wife. As the girls twerk and pout their way across the stage, the audience does not react positively to their moves. In fact, many look appalled. In the middle of the competition, Amy has a meltdown and leaves the stage. She runs home in her skimpy dance costume to encounter her mother, who is regally outfitted in traditional dress for the wedding. Inexplicably, and in contradiction to the previous scenes, the mother receives her daughter warmly and tells her she doesn’t have to go to her father’s wedding. Then Amy goes outside and ends up jumping rope with other kids. End of film. 

It’s not a logical or satisfying end to the movie because it’s abrupt and all the set-ups for a dramatic third act don’t pay off. These characters don’t act in the ways the audience would expect from prior behavior. For example, Amy is so competitive that she pushes one of the dancers in the river to ensure she has a place on the team at the competition but then she melts down because a few dozen adults stare at her? Her mother doesn’t get angry when her daughter shows up “uncovered” on the day of her humiliation at her husband’s wedding to another woman? These reversals of emotional arcs for these characters are supposed to reveal redemption, but instead it’s just confusing and unrewarding. Her mother is still humiliated by having to deal with a second wife, and the sexualized world of Amy’s peers is unaddressed. At the film’s conclusion, Amy appears to have no healthy option for her future as a young woman. 

Conclusion 

So in the end, the cinematic language of “Cuties” promotes the very thing it is critiquing. Had Doucouré filmed it in a way that didn’t objectify these girls, I think her film would have offered a better commentary and been more widely accepted. In her interviews, Doucouré makes a case for her activism with this film that is not obvious to someone who just watches the film and sees her directing choices. There were too many gratuitous and unnecessarily sexual shots of these young actors to serve that stated goal. Instead, “Cuties” contributes to the problem.

Is the Netflix backlash warranted? It definitely was for the original key art. It’s also a legitimate response to the film because of the problematic scenes described above. But that’s not “censoring storytelling”—no government is enforcing any standard here. That’s simply making a legitimate consumer-driven choice.

But I also think if “Cuties” makes you mad, you should do something more substantial than cancel your Netflix account. A better backlash would be to skip watching “Cuties” and direct that outrage toward truly damaging entities like PornHub that are profiting from actual filmed sexual abuse of minors (and adults) and getting away with it. 

As activist and author Rachael Denhollander tweeted: ‘“Cuties” is bad. The federal government receiving 70 MILLION FILES of child pornography and doing VERY little about it – is worse. Laws that make it impossible to prosecute or sue companies like Pornhub that monetize child rape and simulated rape, is worse. Get involved.” 

Speaking truth into a broken world
By / Sep 16

Over the weekend, news broke that two law enforcement officers in Los Angeles were targeted, seemingly at random, as a gunman ran up to their parked vehicle and opened fire. Sustaining life-threatening injuries, the two officers were transported to a nearby hospital. And following the shooting, reports surfaced that a crowd of protestors had gathered outside of the hospital’s emergency room. The crowd apparently blocked the entrance to the emergency room as at least some present screamed and chanted obscenities, including vile expressions of their desire that the officers involved would perish. 

The news was chilling, but the heinous and wicked nature of the attack was solidified after video of the shooting began to circulate online. It was unquestionably a senseless act of violence. But the insanity of the moment was further compounded by the reports that others, with actual knowledge of the incident, then called for the death of the two victims of such brutality. Those actions reflect, in a staggering fashion, the moral cancer infecting American culture today. 

Devastating brokenness

Sadly, this was hardly the only reminder of our world’s devastating brokenness in recent days. For several weeks, much attention and criticism has been directed toward “Cuties,” a new film acquired by Netflix telling the story of a young Sengalese girl torn between two worlds–her family with its traditional Muslim culture and her dance troupe of preteen girls. Originally released in France and highly acclaimed, the film won an award from the Sundance Institute in February. And according to its defenders, “Cuties” aims to reflect the pressures on young women growing up in a hyper-sexualized culture. 

But ahead of releasing the film on its streaming platform, Netflix advertised “Cuties” in a way that played-up and glamorized the sexuality of young adolescent girls. The promotion of the film was obscene. It not only objectified the young women featured, but made an illicit spectacle of underage girls that was tantamount to soft core pornography. Whatever the film’s supposed virtues, the sensual and provocative images of children “dancing” across the screen was rightly met with public (and bipartisan) outcry. Senators Tom Cotton and Ted Cruz condemned the film along with Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard who claimed “Cuties” would “certainly whet the appetite of pedophiles.”

To return to California, Gov. Gavin Newsom recently signed a controversial bill, Senate Bill 145, into law. That bill updated certain statutes related to offenders convicted of sex crimes in the state, specifically of statutory rape. Under the new law, judges in the state may now exercise discretion as to whether or not an offender must go on the sex offender registry in certain cases involving same-sex sexual activity. Defenders of the bill argued that it merely ended a form of discrimination in California’s judicial system by allowing judges to exercise the same kind of discretion regardless of the sex of the victims and perpetrators. But entirely overlooked by supporters of the new law was the fact that the legal “parity” created by this law simply extended the bad law already on the books in California. Expanding protections for adults to sexually exploit and prey upon children is no kind of justice.

These are but a few examples of the moral decay on display all around us. And the truth is, it doesn’t matter what direction you look. The effects of sin and signs of brokenness are everywhere. So how are Christians supposed to live faithfully in a world that celebrates violence and sanctions the sexual exploitation of children? Each day Christians in the United States face myriad problems of unbelievable complexity. What are we to do when the problems are overwhelming and solutions are hard to come by?

Spiritual maturity

Learning to live faithfully in a fallen world requires the development of spiritual maturity. And this is where we find some good news. Through Jesus, God is in the business of redeeming this fallen and broken world. Not only that, but living in this time between the times is not a new problem for the people of God. Since Jesus ascended into heaven, his people have been left with the task of bearing witness to him through our lives, words, and deeds. But each generation of Christians has had to fight to faithfully bear witness amid all kinds of pressures and circumstances–amid every kind of sin and brokenness and evil. And if we are to face these problems, we must prioritize the work of spiritual formation.

Christians should not be surprised when our world displays its brokenness. But we should never forsake an opportunity to show the world a better way.

It isn’t always clear what the best response is to any particular manifestation of evil. When Disney partnered with China’s communist government to film the movie Mulan–a government which is actively persecuting and potentially perpetrating genocide against Uighur Muslims–after the same company threatened to cease filming operations in the state of Georgia over a pro-life law being considered there, Christians were rightly outraged. But what is the best response? Refuse to see the film? Boycott Disney? What about Netflix? Is ignoring “Cuties” enough? Should we also cancel our subscriptions? And what if our government is itself perpetrating evil?

The point is, answers aren’t always easy or obvious. Addressing such matters requires tremendous wisdom and spiritual maturity. But God has equipped us to prepare for these moments. This is part of the reason Christians have the church, the Scriptures, and the gift of the Holy Spirit. In the new covenant, we don’t face any of these difficult issues alone. 

For believers, the Spirit of God lives within us and guides us through these challenges. Not only that, but God has not left us to guess by what kind of standard we are to live. He has provided us with the written Word as a revelation of himself, his work, his nature, and his plan of redemption. He has also brought us into his body, the church. As believers, we belong to something much bigger than ourselves. We are children of God and we stand together not only with our brothers and sisters in this age but in every age. We not only learn and benefit from the wisdom and experience of our contemporaries, but throughout church history we see a long line of Christian witnesses from whom we can learn so much about navigating life in a world that is under a curse.

None of us can solve every problem. Nor will we ever successfully eradicate the presence of evil from our world. Only Christ can do that– and has promised to do so upon his return. But until then, we can still work to oppose evil and injustice. We can speak against acts of violence and oppression. And we can speak up for the vulnerable and for those without a voice. Christians should not be surprised when our world displays its brokenness. But we should never forsake an opportunity to show the world a better way.

Covering up sexual abuse in Southern Baptist churches does not protect Jesus’ reputation
By / Feb 11

Sunday's edition of the Houston Chronicle features a major investigation into church sexual abuse in Southern Baptist contexts, looking at the harm done to over 700 survivors, including children as young as 3 years old. The report also details over 200 offenders who were convicted or took plea deals, demonstrating how a shocking number returned to ministry to abuse again. The report is alarming and scandalous, the courage and grace of these survivors is contrasted with the horrific depravity of those who would use the name of Jesus to prey on them. So how should Christians think about this latest revelation?

Read the full article here.

Sexual Madness and the Image of God
By / May 31

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule … over all the earth” … God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Genesis 1:26-27

The Hebrew for “image” (tselem) comes from a “root meaning to shade; a phantom, i.e. (figuratively) illusion, resemblance; hence, a representative figure.” It is used in several Old Testament passages for idols (e.g., I Samuel 6:5). This point is emphasized by Robert Luginbill, professor of classics at the University of Louisville, who argues against any effort to eisegete the term: It “means ‘image’ in a fairly concrete sense; the word is often used for statues of pagan idols which, after all, are meant to be exact replicas of the god in question.”

“Likeness” (demût) means pretty much what it does in English – like something, but not the thing itself. As the theologian Gordon Wenham notes in his commentary on Genesis, the terms are used interchangeably in the Bible’s first book (for an example, see Genesis 5:3). John Piper summarizes, demût “is used uniformly in connection with a tangible or visual reproduction of something else. So again, as with tselem, the usage of demût urges us very strongly in the direction of a physical likeness.”

Just as a statue is not the thing it represents but is identifiable as an artifact resembling the real and original being, so are human beings as image bearers of the living God. We are not God but, in some ways, resemble Him. We are capable of having intimate relationships, of articulate speech, of intricate intellection, and so forth. We carry in our persons elements of His being.

The Satanic deception in the Garden (“you will be like God,” having the moral knowledge of and become a peer with Him) is an attack on both the sovereignty of God (as Satan himself had sought to dethrone God) and an attempt to soil human dignity (through Adam and Eve’s acceptance of the lie that they would not bear God’s image if they ate the fruit; they would become Him).

God created us male and female, each fully human and fully bearing God’s image, yet each distinct. The Genesis account says that God created Eve, a woman, because Adam needed a partner who “suited” him. The Hebrew term implies a being who corresponds to him, or “fits” him. The two are complementary, both image-bearers of God yet with unique characteristics as well (contemporary science supports the argument that these distinctions are discernable and permanent). As theologian Bruce Ware writes, “while God did intend to create male and female as equal in their essential nature as human, he also intended to make them different expressions of that essential nature, as male and female reflect different ways, as it were, of being human.”

This complementarity is the foundation of male-female relationship in marriage: Sexual and emotional, perceptual and experiential, biological and neurological.

This understanding of human personhood – male and female, equal yet distinct, created in only two sexes – is now being derided by many culture-shapers as antiquated, naïve, inadequate. Instead of receiving help, the sexually troubled are affirmed. Same-sex attraction and transgenderism are celebrated by popular culture and their normality is asserted as confidently as ancient claims that the world is flat.

“Diversity of gender is a normal part of the human experience, across cultures and throughout history,” claims the website GenderSpectrum.org. “Non-binary gender diversity exists all over the world, documented by countless historians and anthropologists. Examples of individuals living comfortably outside of typical male/female expectations and/or identities are found in every region of the globe.”

Yes, persons attracted to the same sex or who wish to wear the other gender’s clothing exist and always have. But although they are universally present, their numbers are rather miniscule and often not apparent visibly, and thus to claim them as “a normal part of the human experience,” as if an obvious male dressed as a woman is “normal,” is to demand a shrug when a furrowed brow is more natural.

The new insistence on sexual self-definition means public showers and restrooms have become forums of heated political debate instead of, respectively, cleanliness and intimate hygiene. Failure to participate in same-sex weddings places wedding vendors who affirm their faiths’ traditional beliefs about human sexuality are called haters, bigots, and so forth.

When in May President Obama’s Justice Department threatened states and localities with the loss of federal education aid unless they opened their restroom and shower facilities to people identifying as transgender, North Carolina Lt. Gov. Dan Forest issued this statement:

North Carolina will not stand by and let our locker rooms and high school showers be used for social experimentation at the expense of the privacy and protection of our young boys and girls. I do not think it is appropriate for teenage boys and girls to share the same bathroom. I don’t think it appropriate for teenage boys and girls to shower next to each other. I don’t think it is appropriate for male coaches and male teachers to have access to girls’ locker rooms and showers while the young girls are naked and exposed.

For this wholly reasonable statement, Forest has been called names too crude and/or ridiculous to publish here. Non-sequitur insults are the activist Left’s first rhetorical resort to counter arguments they cannot defeat and, concurrently, wish to silence. Their frequency, accompanied by threats of economic retaliation, coarsen public life and intimidate the cowardly (of whom there are, regrettably, too many, perhaps most especially in the corporate community).

Ultimately, the elevation of radical human sexual autonomy as one of the chief gods of the age is grounded in the delusion that each individual has both the right and the capacity for complete self-reinvention. We assert our godhood, inarticulately but with defiant persistence.

This has led to situations that are flabbergasting to the rational. As Dr. Peter Jones wrote earlier this year:

An employee of a Catholic university (Loyola Marymount) committed cultural blasphemy by stating that there are only two genders (a view entirely compatible with Catholicism). The university, however, has suspended her and is currently investigating her for a “hate crime.” It gets more manifestly insane. Students at my alma mater, Cardiff University, and in other UK schools, are demanding the installation of women’s sanitary bins in male toilets “for men who menstruate.” This is logical lunacy. The inevitable demand for urinals in women’s restrooms will surely follow.

He’s right. Stories abound concerning the accelerating foolishness of our culture’s driven commitment to redefine human sexuality and its outworkings in American public life.

Dr. Jones continues:

Clear-headed theology reveals what is happening in our Left-leaning, progressive world. We are witnessing the reappearance of an old heresy, Gnosticism … Interestingly, the ancient Gnostics also rejected creational sexuality and sought the higher form of “androgyny,” the experience of being both male and female—which is the same rejection of the male/female gender binary that we observe today.

The dissolution of sexual difference (perceived and practiced, although itself intrinsically immutable as a matter of biology) will lead to the social chaos we are now beginning to experience. This may well lead eventually to the emergence of a fascist-type leader who will promise order and probably bring it, but with it will also bring an iron fist beneath which liberty is crushed.

Writing in The Public Discourse, Jason Wilson explains the liberal conceit that sex is merely a physical transaction between consenting persons:

Liberalism posits radical autonomy and then attempts to mediate those individual autonomies through contracts (“consent”). By contrast, sex draws two people into the most intimate form of community, forming a new relationship based on a shared totality of existence. Where liberalism deals in a world of unjoinable, antagonistic atoms, human sexuality strives to bring two atoms together in order to make an entirely different molecule.

Radical sexual autonomy bridles at such a molecular proposition. That’s why concerted efforts are being made by Left-leaning politicians, activists, journalists, and entertainers to fuse manhood and womanhood. They claim, confidently and persistently, that human sexuality is “fluid,” in the sense that one can lapse from one kind of sexual attraction to another with almost spontaneously.

This is a self-contradictory argument: If one’s sexual attraction lurches from one direction to another, how can it be immutable? The latter claim is made by those who analogize race with sexual identity, saying they are both fixed characteristics. If one’s sexual identity is immutable – if it cannot be changed – how can it be fluid?

University of Maryland social psychologist Dylan Selterman (who would not identify as a conservative) writes that “perhaps political liberals want to believe that sexuality is stable across the lifespan, thus giving credence to the idea that since people cannot change or control their sexual preferences (they are simply ‘born that way’), it would be a rallying cry for equitable treatment (equal rights) based on gender and sexual orientation.”

Selterman contends that “people’s sexual responses are not set in stone, and can change over time, often depending on the immediate situation they’re in. For example, if someone identifies as heterosexual but then finds themself (sic) in an environment with only people of the same gender, they might feel increased sexual/romantic attraction to those same-gender partners.”

That’s a big “might,” but is probably true of a relative handful of persons. That’s very different, however, from suggesting that human sexuality is a matter of arbitrary fluctuation or, at the opposite extreme, that same-sex attraction or opposite-sex identification cannot change.

“In the 1970s, I identified as a lesbian, and wrote about it,” says Chirlane McCray, wife of New York City mayor Bill DeBlasio. “In 1991, I met the love of my life, married him, and together we’ve raised two amazing kids. I’m reminded every day how lucky I am to have met my soulmate.”

Good for her. But this acknowledgement gives lie to the contention that sexual attraction is always immutable. For the overwhelming majority of us, it is: All but a small percentage of men are attracted exclusively to women, and vice-versa. But for those who are sexually attracted to members of the same gender, the possibility of change is evident from many testimonies like McCray’s.

No one should claim that sexual attraction can be turned on and off like a light switch. Personal friends who have been active gays and lesbians but who now embrace heterosexuality will admit freely that same-sex attraction will always be an issue in the background of their inner lives. However, in so affirming they are only acknowledging what those with any broken habit, good or bad, will say: A long-time, engrained pattern of behavior will always threaten to again grasp those who have discarded it. The grooves of the mind remain deeply cut.

New habits build slowly. For Christians, they all are based on identity in Christ, in the new creations each of us is in Him. The revolutionary transformation of character, heart, and mind that begins at the moment of our coming to Christ builds over time if we are purposeful about it. Habituation of virtue through deliberate and conscious effort based on Scripture’s norms and through the enablement of the Holy Spirit can happen. It is real. Not moral perfection, but the regulation of the inner life and of outer conduct and speech such that they reflect consistently the character of Jesus Christ.

Jesus is “the image of the invisible God” (Colossian 1:15; see also Romans 8:29, II Corinthians 4:4, Hebrews 1:3). He manifested, in His humanity, the glory and power of the Triune God. As God in the flesh, He demonstrated what the fullness of humanity could be.

In eternity, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit had a complete relationship of love and joy. In one another, so did the pre-Fall Adam and Eve. In Christian marriage, despite our moral failures and short-sighted mistakes, men and women can find a fulfillment only a being capable of comprehensive intimacy can experience. A being made in the image and likeness of the Creator and Redeemer of all.