I thought I had heard the last of this book series for women when suddenly my Facebook timeline has been flooded with postings on the upcoming movie. If you have lived under a rock the last few years, E.L. James' erotic novel “50 Shades of Grey” is to women what “Twilight” was for teenagers. Women who hadn’t read in years were suddenly clamoring to read this series.
I have always been a book-lover and avid reader. But, a few years back, the Lord spoke to my heart and convicted me about certain types of books I had been reading. Let’s say that the more sexually explicit, the better it was. Remember that I am writing this with Christian women in mind. This comes from the heart of a single woman who struggled with this subject for a long time.
I will come right out and say it; this book series is pure PORNOGRAPHY.
As Christian women striving to grow closer in our relationship with God, this is unacceptable reading. Neither is it “liberating,” as many reviews have exclaimed.
If your husband had a stash of hidden porn magazines or you found him watching porn online, how would you react? Would you be upset? Maybe even yell and scream?
Men are visual and naturally drawn to images, including image-based porn. Women are emotional and imaginative and generally will be drawn to read written word porn that allows their imagination to run wild.
Women are openly reading this series, discussing them at the hairdressers, and daydreaming about meeting someone like Christian Grey.
Married women expect their husbands to live up to this make-believe man who lives in the pages of a book. I have heard women comparing their husbands to this “fake” man. How do Christian women think this will help them get closer to their husbands and strengthen their marriages? Over time erotica robs women of the enjoyment of real sex with their husbands.
Single women, this is not a healthy situation to put yourself in, lusting after a fictitious man and comparing him to men you may meet and marry. Christian single women and porn are a whole other subject for another day.
Barna Group surveyed 1,075 American adults in January (2013) to find out who read some popular titles. For the purpose of the research, "practicing faith Christians" were those who self-identified as Christian or Catholic, had attended a church service in the last month, and strongly agreed that their faith is "very important" to them.
According to the survey, the same proportions of practicing Christians (9%) have read Fifty Shades among American adults (9%). Sixteen percent of women have read the bestseller among those adults who read Fifty Shades, and one in five (19%) were practicing Christians.
Anything, whether visual or written, that causes sexual desire and lust for another person that is not your spouse, caused by another person that is not your spouse, is pornography, sinful lust, and sexual sin. This is at the very heart of what Jesus meant when he said, “if you look on a woman [or man] and lust after her [him] you have committed adultery in your heart.” (Matthew 5:28)
Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. (1 Corinthians 6:18)
It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God; (1 Thessalonians 4:3-5)
