Protecting children online

Peter and Lydia (Photo credit: Michael Sarver)

I wonder if anyone has an answer for this: what proportion of people who’ve seen naughty images saw it on purpose? In other words, how many people who have never experienced anything like that actually go out of their way to find them?

I’d be willing to guess that the proportion would be pretty small. Most people I talk to say that the first time they saw a naked lady or whatever was by someone else showing it to them, or a random popup on the internet, or simply searching for something innocent online and finding that it means something entirely different in ‘that world’.

For me, that thing I was searching for was ‘deckchair’. What on earth?

I read an article a couple of weeks ago written by a lady who searched for a Christian video by its exact title, and six of the top ten results were pornographic.

That gets pretty scary when you imagine a child innocently searching for something fun and stumbling across something that will affect them for the rest of their lives. How about when you imagine your child doing that?

That article finishes by saying this:

There are sites dedicated to childhood cartoon pornography, and you know they aren’t for the adults. It brings a new perspective to 1 Peter 5:8, when we are told to be sober and vigilant because our adversary is roaming around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.

If a roaring lion were after you and your child, what would you do?

Please, parents be vigilant, for the sake of your sons (and daughters), be watching. Be involved. Know what is finding your kids.

I’d encourage you to read the whole thing.

Related articles

• What should Christian parents do if they have a prodigal Son or Daughter? (raymondjclements.wordpress.com)

The Fantasy Fallacy (a 50 Shades of Grey response) by Shannon Ethridge

This is a pretty unique book. Based partly on the 50 Shades of Grey phenomenon but mostly on a prophetic picture Shannon Ethridge received, it’s a review of what sexual fantasy is, what it does, and whether it is (or can be) good or bad.

First things first. Although the front cover of this book claims it to be ‘A response to the 50 Shades of Grey phenomenon’, it definitely isn’t. If you’re looking for something that takes the series and essentially concludes on whether to read it or not, you won’t find that here; Ethridge clearly dislikes it but doesn’t go so far as to say ‘don’t read it’, and barely talks about it (there’s probably no more than a couple of pages on it in the entire book).

So that’s misleading, but the book isn’t really about that. It’s about the fact that almost everyone has sexual fantasies, and what we should do with them. She’s careful not to be judgmental yet at the same time not to ‘allow’ it, and I think does a reasonably good job of talking about something that the Church simply doesn’t talk about. She’s particularly strong on understanding why we have particular fantasies, how we ought to respond to them, and how they can be redeemed for the good of our marriages and for the glory of God. I thought the chapter on pornography was one of the strongest I’ve read.

That said, I didn’t love this book. In her desire to not be too left-wing or right-wing I found her at times to sit on the fence and simply not communicate; at one point she seems to suggest that someone who fantasizes about violently raping a child should tone down the fantasy by increasing the age of the child and by imagining that the child enjoys it rather than getting pleasure from another’s pain. To a certain extent I can see where she’s going (one step at a time seeing our fantasies becoming those of us loving our spouse better) but I felt that she stopped short of saying that clearly enough, which left me thinking a reader could justify their fantasies. I also felt that she wasn’t as strong as I’d hoped when talking about fantasies regarding incest or homosexuality.

If you’re really squeamish or are feeling offended by some of the content of this review, this book probably isn’t for you. At points the book goes into perhaps a touch too much detail which is appropriate within the context but to my mind would restrict this book to married couples.

Overall, if you want a good, honest, biblical look at sexual fantasy you can’t really go wrong with this one. It wasn’t outstanding so I’d normally go for four stars but the fact that the Shades books were barely mentioned and the minor frustrations I had with it I’m having to go three stars this time.

I got this book for free from BookSneeze.com. I’m not required to give a positive review.

How many shades of grey until everything becomes black?

English: Symbol of the “New York Society for the Suppression of Vice”, advocating book-burning. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’m not sure I should even admit this, but Fifty Shades of Grey came up as recommended reading on my Amazon page the other day. If that means nothing to you, please feel free to click off this page right now.

Fifty Shades of Greyis apparently an erotic novel. Basically, porn written down. The reason it came up on my list is because someone on Facebook had written about enjoying it on their status, and as a naive guy I then went and Google-searched for it. Thanks, Amazon, for tracking my history. Recommendation removed, now it’s back to geeky gadgets and Bible commentaries.

Anyway, I want to recommend something to you, the rest of the world: please don’t read this book, or anything like it. I’ve never read it, will never read it, and hope never to find out anything more about it, but I don’t think you should either. And I have good reasons for it, which I’ve shamelessly plagiarised from Girls Gone Wise:

1. It violates God’s design for sex
2. It violates the biblical concept of authority
3. It violates the biblical concept of submission
4. It encourages the sin of sensuality
5. It promotes sexual perversion
6. It glamorizes pathological relationships
7. You won’t get it out of your head

How people find me

Image via Wikipedia

Here’s a bit of fun. WordPress is lovely in that it allows me to see what people who find my blog were originally searching for. So here are the top ten search terms people use to get here (I’ve excluded people specifically searching for ‘Sam Isaacson’ or anything with that in it because that just wouldn’t be funny enough).

So, at number ten…

10. Inconsistencies in the Bible

For the people who searched for this, I’m sorry. You probably clicked onto my blog to find some inconsistencies in the Bible and discovered that there weren’t any. Oh well.

9. A bad workman blames his tools story

Well, those of you looking for an analogy will have been served very well. I assume you found this post. I hope you were blessed by it.

8. Margarine illegal

Perfect example of how the internet proves itself – I assume you were looking for evidence that margarine is illegal. I said something about it without any background information or evidence whatsoever. I apologise.

7. Brian Cox

Ok, well, I hope you found what you were looking for! I’m not even sure who Brian Cox is any more so if anyone wants to help me out, you’re more than welcome. Maybe I should Google it and click on my own blog.

[Edit. Ok, found him, he probably landed you up here. Stuck a photo of him above to make up for it. Sorry Brian.]

6. Christian porn

Ok, I can guess how you ended up at either of these posts about porn addiction, but seriously? Just stop it, ok?

5. Justin Beever

Love it. I mentioned this guy in  passing once, and he’s number five all-time. Jolly good. Well done all. I hope you found my little drawing funny.

4. Angela Kemm

Now I know this lady, what a legend. I literally told one little story about her, I hope it helped you all out.

3. Oxo laughing stock

Ok, now all of you who actually clicked on the blog through this search, you already know the joke – that’s the punchline. I hope whatever you ended up finding improved your life.

2. Takkiya

Yep, I know what you all found, again see numbers 2 and 8 above.

1. Irony

Well, actually no-one found here by searching for ‘irony’ but the number one search term was apparently: <!search_terms> – for the 1,234 (no way!) people who searched for this and found me I hope you found what you were looking for.

Simple evidence proving God exists

Image by FlickrDelusions via Flickr

This is nothing new, but it’s logical and a good reminder of the truth.

If I have a desire for something (let’s call it Nid for the moment), it shows that Nid must exist. I’m hungry, therefore I know something exists to satisfy that desire; food. I’m tired, therefore I know something exists to satisfy that desire; sleep. These are natural, inbuilt desires that we don’t need telling about – a newborn baby simply wants food, love, and sleep.

There are other desires that are artificial to a certain extent. I have a desire for the latest Xbox game, a new car, to be able to fly like Superman, and to travel to Oz…the simple difference between these two desires is that the first can be genuinely satisfied but the second cannot. I can stop being hungry, and I can stop being tired…but my desire for ‘more stuff’ simply won’t go away. Just look at the wealthy people we see every day in the news – broken marriages, depression, alcoholism, yet they have a whole bunch of stuff we desire. It doesn’t add up…

But the desire still exists, and there is not a single case of an innate desire for something that does not exist. Something inside us all simply knows that infinite joy, peace, and beauty is desirable…but it’s certainly never going to happen on this earth. Here’s C.S. Lewis’ useful summary:

Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for these desires exists. A baby feels hunger; well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim; well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire; well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.

A good, more detailed look at this is over here, together with answers to common objections.

Visual stimulation

Infographics about porn seem to be all the rage right now – I thought this one was pretty illuminating:

There was one I saw a couple of weeks ago which had a pretty disturbing statistic:

Eighty per cent of women fantasize regularly about sexual encounters with people who are not their partner.

…

Ninety-eight per cent of men do.

Let us pray.

How doctrine’s like sex

Put ‘sex’ in a blog post title and increase traffic by 39%.  Fact.

I started reading a book the other day.  One of the things it said is that doctrine has become like a demigod to some branches of Christianity, and like a curse word for others.

The author very cleverly compares doctrine to sex. Satan has no creative ability, so the only way he can be mean is to take something good, and twist it until it’s so deformed it’s difficult to see past it to the original beautiful thing it was created to be. The perfect example of this is sex, and here are his own words:

What could be more life-affirming, life-enhancing, life-producing, more fun, joyful, freeing, and exciting? Now think of how the enemy has bent it into a grotesque caricature in the sex shows, peep shows, and prostitution markets – how it perverts and debases the pornography-bound, the sadomasochist, and the child abuser. Life bent into death. The same can be said for any aspect of reality, and that includes the intellectual, the philosophical, the biblical, the theological. What God intended for blessing as been – but need not continue to be – a curse. Sex is still really good, despite its ugly distortions.

So is theology.

I encourage you to try it. You’ll like it.

Good theology, like good sex, is not optional for the survival of the human race. It is not just for the religious/philosophical Geek Squad. It is essential.

Spot on, I think.

Female bishops

I read a story in the newspapers recently that the Church of England had started the process of potentially enabling ladies to serve as bishops. Of course there are two sides to the debate – one side didn’t ever want ladies to become vicars so will vote against this move (and likely lose), the other side believes in equal rights.

Now, I don’t want to start a massive argument here but I would like to genuinely ask a question of those in favour of female bishops & church leaders. Jesus appointed leaders over the early church in the form of his twelve disciples, all of whom were male.

My question is: why did he choose only men if he wanted us to have both men and women leading? Whenever I’ve asked this question before I’ve been answered in only one way, which is that men were leaders in the culture at that time…but the last time I checked Jesus wasn’t the biggest fan of conforming to society!

Genuinely, I’d like an answer – thanks

Resources for dealing with a porn addiction

I’ve been told off before by non-Christians for talking about ‘secret things which go on in the bedroom’ because that’s none of my business. Fair enough point of view, but it’s clear that pornography has a detrimental effect on relationships, self-esteem, jobs, finances, and the perception of women today.

It seems that there’s been a flurry of activity on a bunch of Christian blogs recently with resources for this, so I thought I’d try to gather some of them here, in case people would find them useful.

A selection of excellent 60-day courses which really work at Setting Captives Free

Thabiti Anyabwile on gypsy moths

A long, but very good scientific article on the addictive effects of pornography

Women and pornography

XXXChurch

Breaking the addiction – parts one and two

Justin Taylor’s list of fantastic resources

John Piper – a sermon, and the ANTHEM blog post

Mark Driscoll’s Porn Again Christian book

Tim Challies’ Sexual Detox for single guys and married guys

30 pages of research on porn’s effects

Randy Alcorn on the cost of pornography

That’s all for now. Hope it helps someone.

Homosexuality, sin and submission

I was thinking about the phrase ‘homosexuality is a sin’ today, and realised just how completely useless it is. Sin is defined by your worldview surely, so a Christian’s definition of sin (to miss the target of God’s glorious standard, Romans 3:23) is always going to be different to an atheist’s definition.

That said, the Bible says this:

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. (1 Corinthians 6:9-10)

This verse can only lead to one of two responses:

1. God doesn’t get things wrong, the Bible’s breathed out by God, so practicing homosexuality is a sin.
2. The Bible’s a load of rubbish, so it doesn’t matter either way.

However, a third response has emerged, has it not? This says: I’m a Christian, but this particular bit of the Bible does not apply any more, it was written only for the time.

And this makes no sense. The Bible says that ‘men who practice homosexuality’ will not inherit the kingdom of God. So unless God, who is the same yesterday and today and forever, has changed, that mindset is choosing to interpret the Word of God based on what I think, rather than changing what I think based on the Word of God. I think that, as a Christian, we ought to submit to God, rather than suggesting that he ought to submit to us.

The wonderful truth, however, is that the important thing, the really important thing, is that the Bible doesn’t end there! The passage continues:

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. (1 Corinthians 6:11-12)

Notice: ‘such were some of you’ – Christians are no longer sinners! We were washed, sanctified, and justified in Christ by the Spirit.

Response – choose the appropriate response based on which mindset you agreed with earlier:

1. You think homosexuality is a sin. Fair enough. Don’t pretend you have it all together though, thank God that he forgives you of your sin.
2. You don’t think it really matters. You’re allowed to. But you’re also not going to inherit the kingdom of God…repent, and believe in Jesus – he’s happy to wash, sanctify, and justify you by the Spirit!
3. You don’t think homosexuality is a sin, so you are implying God made a mistake in this verse? Decide whether you genuinely think the most Christian thing to do is to make God’s Word submit to your opinions, rather than submitting to God’s Word.

I’m happy to have a conversation on this, so please say what you think. For the moment, I think I would rather face God with integrity, knowing I am a forgiven sinner doing my best to submit to him, rather than having to explain why I thought he was wrong.