The Private, the Secret, the Intimate

The sermon yesterday at our church, one in a series about family life, was about sexuality and its proper role. Much of the sermon was about the current problems with internet pornography and how that is destroying many families. It may well be the biggest sin problem within the church. The fact that an addiction to internet pornography can be idulged in 'secret' is part of the problem, since many are lured into it thinking that it will always remain a secret, not realizing how indulging in this secret sin will eventually destroy their marriage or lead them to other less secret sins with prostitutes, underage partners, or other crimes.



Besides being a troubling reminder of how sexuality continues to be a point of vulnerability for most men and many women, it also made me think about the role of the secret things in life and how pornography turns that role on its head.



In years past it seems to me that I heard more sermons and discussion about how our secret, private life exists to empower our public life. This idea, that the role of prayer, meditation, and marital sexuality provide a foundation of strength to help us resist the temptations of public life, is a powerful concept that I think deserves more attention. At the same time, in parallel to this idea of a private life that strengthens you, was a parallel idea that if you instead had a private life of secret sin you could be sure that it would find you out. In fact, this came up in a family discussion recently, whether that quote 'Be sure your sin will find you out' was in the Bible or just was a saying , so we looked it up and it is in Numbers 32:23, telling the Israelites that if they did not do as the Lord commanded then they should be sure that their sin would find them out. Of course many of the Proverbs talk about this as well in regard to sexual sin and failure to learn the Law among other things. Our private failures eventually become public, even if we are not running for public office.



Today we instead treat the private portions of our lives as the area where we alone should be god. We insist that these are 'victimless crimes' rather than self-destructive behaviors. As the movie Fireproof pointed out, porn plays a role in the failure of many marriages now. Pastoral counselors confirm that they find it to be an issue when counseling marriage problems. Just as we seem as a society to be less and less willing to defer gratification until later (via saving money, for instance) we also seem not to recognize that there are behaviors with penalties that arrive later. There is such a thing as postponed penalties as well as deferred gratification.



Yet the private, the secret, the intimate can provide strength instead of weakness in its proper role. Marriage provides times for both sexual self-control and times for fulfillment that should strengthen our character and provide the fulfillment needed to resist temptation. Similarly, private devotions can provide the knowledge and strength to withstand spiritual deception. Secret sin like porn takes that which should enable our lives and instead undermines it.



Someone pointed out to me many years ago that porn is basically a lie. It is a lie in many ways: the airbrushed photos of 'perfect' bodies, the implants and other surguries to make 'perfect' bodies, the false implication of seductresses who are always available for pleasure, in addition to the lies that it is victimless, that it is just normal, that no one will know, that sex should be just for pleasure and nothing else. These are all lies. But in addition to telling us lies, porn turns our secret life which should be a source of strength into a source of weakness.