Politics and Pornography

Who cares?

Autumn is the season for party political conferences. But it seems there is less and less of an interest in what goes on. There is a growing disenchantment with politics and a growing loss of confidence in politicians.

The current House of Commons was elected by a turnout in the 1997 General Election that was lower than in any previous post-war election: it was only 71.5 percent. In a recent poll 72 percent of people agreed that "parties are only interested in people's votes, not in their opinions," while 60 percent agreed that "it doesn't really matter which party is in power. In the end things go on much the same." The disillusionment with European Parliamentary politics is even greater than with UK politics to judge from the 24 percent turnout in the 1999 European elections: the 1998 English local elections were slightly higher with a 30 percent turnout.

Part of the problem undoubtedly is the failure of the "party system". The parties are now dysfunctional. It is not sufficiently realised that the public issues - the issues in which people are interested, over which they divide, and on which they want to be represented - are no longer the old economic and employment issues of the last century. In the 21st century the issues are moral and religious. At least the Lord Chancellor's Department has begun to see this.

"Recent trends in society," said a department Consultation Paper, "indicate that politics is becoming more cultural or value based." It spoke of "a variety of issues including sex, homosexuality, education, religion, drugs and single parents" as key "post-material non-economic concerns" for public life.

Most today agree on the need for a healthy economy, good medical care for all, less unemployment, better living standards and environmental sanity. That is why the perception that "in the end things go on much the same" whichever party is in power is fair enough - at least in these areas. Most people in their better moments realize that no political solution to a public problem will be perfect. So they tolerate genuine attempts motivated for the public interest.

What is not tolerated by a significant number is manipulation motivated by a desire to overturn received morality and to introduce decadence. Invariably there will be resistance and protest. But such protests over moral and religious matters come not only from the general population. They come also from within each of the parties. However, foolish party bosses, in the interests of a supposed unity and inclusivity, develop lowest common denominator policies. This means, by definition, that the "lowest" position - that of the immoralists - wins every time. The result is disunity and the exclusion of those concerned for morality.

But should morality and politics be mixed up? Should religion, should Christianity be mixed up with politics? These are important questions as, undoubtedly, we will soon be in the run-up to a General Election.


Two errors

Classically there have been two errors for Christians as they think about politics.

First, there is the error of those who think that the only duty laid on a Christian is to preach the gospel in terms of introducing men and women to faith in Christ. The Christian faith is, they say, concerned only with spiritual issues; and the only public duty Christians have is to obey their rulers - an obedience Paul talks about in Romans 13. This is the error of undervaluing the political order.

Secondly, there is the error of those who think that the way to establish Christ's kingdom is only by politics. They point to the Prophets in the Old Testament who championed the poor and to Christ who "liberated" the sick and demon-possessed. So the Christian faith, they say, needs to focus not on heaven in the future but on working now for health, wealth and prosperity. The Christian mission is not to "save souls" but to promote what is called "a social Gospel." This is the error of overvaluing the political order.

So how does the Bible encourage us to think about these things? Paul told Timothy that there must be prayer for politics and for evangelism:

for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Saviour, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth" (1 Timothy 2.2)

We are to pray for a political order that ensures protection for life, limb and property ("peaceful and quiet lives") and that ensures freedom to worship, evangelize and live morally ("in all godliness and holiness"). Such a state of affairs is objectively "good and pleases God". It also would seem to assist God's twofold desire for evangelism ("all men to be saved") and teaching ("to come to a knowledge of the truth").

But it is obvious we are not only to pray, but, certainly in the United Kingdom, we are to act. If it is right to pray for something because it is God's will, and if also we have an opportunity to bring about God's will by our actions, not to act is disobedient. Furthermore, in a democracy we are the authorities of Romans 13. We are God's servants in the political realm. We are to be "agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer" (Romans 13.4). Of course that is not an entitlement to take the law into our own hands. We delegate legislation and the administration of the law to Parliament. But it means we have the responsibility to work for Parliament to legislate for a just and moral society and for the fair punishment of public wrongdoing.

Nor are we all called to be involved actively - although after the sad showing in September by Newcastle City Council in their licensing of Xsensual and in their publicly advertizing for homosexual adopters in spite of the harm done to children, it is clear that we need more committed Christian councillors. Nor are we all called to be engaged in public lobbying - although when the Christian Institute does that on our behalf, we can pray, give financially and help in a number of ways, not least by writing letters.

But we all need to develop a consciousness that concern in the public realm is not an optional extra for the believer. We are to seek God's will for the whole of life Monday to Saturday: not just on Sunday.


"Good, pleasing and perfect"

It is vital, however, to realize that "public life" is not limited to Parliament and the structures of Government. The "Public Square" in a democracy is not coterminous with "Parliament Square".

"Intermediate communities" between Parliament and local authorities on the one hand, and between the individual, on the other hand, are vital for the health of the public realm. Pre-eminent in these "intermediate communities" is the family.

No society can survive long the disintegration of its families - and the family understood as the "married family" not the modern counterfeit of the "love family". Particularly for the care and nurture of children there needs to be a unit where a man and women are committed together for life. And for that to be possible the relationship needs to be held together by more than emotional ties. Emotional ties come and go. The relationship of a man and a woman for permanence needs external, social and institutional support. That is what marriage is all about. Marriage provides that support. That is why societies universally (if they are not disintegrating) privilege marriage. But marriage and the married family is now under attack. There have been two self-conscious sources for that attack.

First, there has been the Marxist attack on the family in Russia that came to a head in the 1920's and the Marxist attack in Western Europe in the 1960's in a new form under Herbert Marcuse and his many disciples. This sought to displace the Christian sex and marriage ethic with an ultra-libertarianism and extreme feminism. It resulted in a cocktail of heterosexual decadence, evidenced not least in a growing pornography industry. The Russian dissident Igor Shafarevich, in his book The Socialist Phenomenon speaks of "the Socialist project of homogenizing society". He says it ...

... demands that the family be vitiated or destroyed. This can be accomplished in good measure by profaning conjugal love and breaking monogamy's link between sex and loyalty. Hence, in their missionary phases Socialist movements often stress sexual 'liberation'.

Secondly, there has been the Nazi attack on the family by the elevation of homosexuality. Many of the early Nazis had the ideal of displacing the Christian sex and marriage ethic with a return to a pre-Christian Graeco-Spartan ethic. They gloried in the macho-warrior type who was active in the homosexual relationship while despising the passive partner as effeminate. The Nazi roots of modern homosexuality are important in the progressive homosexualization of the West that is now being evidenced in the request for so called "gay marriage" (see the paper Homosexuality and the Nazi Party by Scott Lively).

But some Christians are nervous over getting involved in any of these issues partly because they do not believe in the real "goodness" of God's will. There has been another dangerous error in the history of the church. It is when people think that God's will is, as it were, neutral. His "pure will" defines what is good, they say; there is, therefore, nothing inherently good in what God wills. For example - and to take an extreme example - if God had chosen, he could have made killing good and saving life bad. And so there is no reason for obeying God. All obedience must be blind.

Now, of course, the believer often has to obey God "blindly", like Abraham in the Old Testament who "obeyed and went" out from Haran, "even though he did not know where he was going" (Hebrews 11.8). But Abraham knew that God was good and all would be well for everyone, himself included. The essence of faith is not only believing that God exists. True faith is believing that God is good: "anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him" (Hebrews 11.6).

God's commands are inherently good, not because there is some divine "goodness" out there in eternity that is bigger than God! No! It is simply that God is the creator and all he has made is good, and to be good is to go along the grain of creation. It is living in harmony with God's creation intention which is the production of life and existence and not death and annihilation. As Paul says in Romans 12 verse 2, God's will is "good, pleasing and perfect."


Family breakdown and pornography

It follows that if you defy God's will you will suffer long term but also quite often in the short term. It is defying the maker's instructions. This is seen no more clearly than in these issues relating to the family.

On 14 September a Parliamentary report entitled "The Cost of Family Breakdown" and commissioned by the Lords and Commons Family and Child Protection group gave some startling figures. According to the Newcastle Evening Chronicle it "put the cost of family breakdown at around £15 billion-a-year and said children from broken homes started out in life with a 'huge man-made handicap'."

The report argued that "each failed relationship produces pain and emotional hurt, creating an incalculable cost in human misery. The whole society is affected by the social consequences of family breakdown ... Family breakdown impairs the health of the nation, reduces the educational achievement of its children, increases the crime rate, places a burden on the national economy and a strain on social relationships."

£15 billion are the "open" direct costs. That averages around £11 a week for every UK tax-payer, or one third of Government expenditure on education or a quarter of the annual NHS bill! There are probably a further £15 billion hidden costs. Cohabitation, gay-parenting, so called "new family forms" are all damaging for children. This is now a fact of social science, in the same way as it is a fact of medical science that smoking damages your health. But lies are perpetuated that God's way for sexual and family relationships is not necessary. The very same week that this report came out Jerry Hall, the former wife of Mick Jagger, was advising parents in an unhappy marriage to divorce. But she was ignoring the famous 1994 Exeter University study by John Tripp and M.Cockett. They found that a bad marriage is often better than a good divorce for the children.

Even more shocking were the remarks of the judge, Mr Justice Collins, in the Judicial Review of the decision by Newcastle City Council to grant the single blanket licence to allow a three day sex market to take place at the Newcastle Arena. The report from the Christian Institute includes these words:

we were ... astonished by the Judge's suggestion that sex offenders would benefit from attending a sex exhibition.

But what are the facts about pornography? As with smoking and the damage caused by the evolution of non-traditional families the evidence of harm is clear. A report from the American Commission on pornography agreed that there is a causal link between violent pornography and aggressive behaviour towards women. Also it said that exposure to sexually explicit material that is not violent but nevertheless degrades women - a category that "constitutes somewhere between the predominant and overwhelming portion of what is currently standard fare heterosexual pornography ... [bears] some causal relationship to the level of sexual violence." Then there is the harm to the models and actors involved in pornographic productions. There is a process of sexual desensitization going on. One actor in a nude play said: "Initially, perhaps, it is erotic ... after a while you've been really saturated ... [you become] impotent for a while and that is nothing unusual."


Ted Bundy

Ted Bundy was one of the most notorious serial killers ever in America. He killed at least 28 young women and girls. When he was finally convicted and before his execution he asked to see Dr James Dobson of "Focus on the Family". He wanted Dobson to make public his final reflections and the facts as he saw them. The facts were these. Bundy came from a good home. Aged 13 he saw some soft-core pornography by accident. Over a period of years he viewed more and more and he wanted more sexually graphic and violent materials until simply viewing wasn't enough. He began to wonder if actually doing some of the things he saw would give greater excitement. It was clear with Ted Bundy that each encounter with pornography lowered his inhibitions and made him desire even more, until fantasy did not satisfy. Before he died he said this:

I've lived in prison for a long time now. And I've met a lot of men who were motivated to commit violence just like me. And without exception, everyone of them was deeply involved in pornography - without question, without exception - deeply influenced and consumed by an addiction to pornography. There's no question about it. The FBI's own study on serial homicide shows that the most common interest among serial killers is pornography.

And then there is the harm not just to individuals but to the culture as a whole. As with the homosexualizing of the culture so with its ready acceptance of pornography, there follows a break up of the "social contract". Viewing people who seem happy to tolerate pornography and even enjoy it, an individual may well ask himself, says E.J.Mishan:

are these the sort of people for whose society he must stand ready to make sacrifices? ... Can anyone care very much what happens to a society whose members are continually and visibly obsessed with sexual carousal - to a society where, in effect, the human animal has been reduced to a life-style that consists in the main activity of alternatively inflaming itself and relieving itself?

The time has, surely, come not only to be angry but to take action. A cursory look at late night viewing now on mainstream TV channels, not least on Channel 5, suggests enough is enough. Pornography in the arts is like a cancer. It spreads. In the words of Irving Kristol: "Gresham's Law can work for books or theatre [and TV] as efficiently as it does for coinage - driving out the good, establishing the debased."

Nor should it be said that nothing can be done. It is true that with the proliferation of digital channels and the internet, the possibility for pornography is enormous. However, what is mainstream TV and publicly funded (or endorsed by licence) does determine standards and it does not have to follow what Kristol calls "the debased". A public stance on what is acceptable and unacceptable is of great significance in the wider world, as is clear parental disapproval in the world of the family. An American psychiatrist giving evidence in an important court case dealing with pornography and young people said this:

Psychiatrists ... make a distinction between the reading of pornography, as unlikely to be per se harmful, and the permitting of the reading of pornography, which is conceived as potentially harmful. The child is protected in his reading of pornography by the knowledge that it is pornographic, i.e. disapproved. To openly permit implies parental approval and even suggests seductive encouragement. If this is so of parental approval, it is equally so of societal approval - another potent influence on the developing ego.

The Christian Institute

We can be thankful to the Christian Institute for their action in taking on Newcastle City Council and Jack Frere with his Xsensual 2000 at the Newcastle Arena. The result according to Tyne Tees TV lunch time News on 12 September was that the "controversial adult entertainment exhibition has been a spectacular failure ... the adverse publicity [generated by the Christian Institute] kept the public away. Promoter Jack Frere says he has lost more that £200,000 pounds." That may deter him from attempting further promotions, for which we can thank God. But we need to pray for wisdom as to what more can be done. One thing we know can be done is to evangelize. That is the number one priority. Jesus said that out of the heart "come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly" (Mark 7.21-22). People need to be born again. Laws cannot change the heart. However they can restrain the heartless, to quote Martin Luther King. That is why we also need to develop a Christian consciousness about the public realm and political issues.