“Christians don’t masturbate”
A church just down the road here at Myrtle Grove Middle School, Lifepoint, was one of the only in the area to host an October 7th simulcast of national “Porn Sunday”, a series of sermons from the XXXChurch aimed at porn addicts and featuring such taglines as “Christians don’t masturbate” and “Jesus loves pornstars”.
Here’s Star News blogger Amanda Greene:
I’ve seen a few edgy things coming from Wilmington’s churches, but who knew we’d see a church willing to devote a whole Sunday sermon to pornography addiction.
Whoa!Yep, Lifepoint Church, an 18-month-old nondenominational church that meets in Myrtle Grove Middle School, is hosting a Porn Sunday simulcast in its 9:30 a.m. and 11 a.m. services on Oct. 7 as part of a national movement to reach out to people who can’t stop looking at varying forms of erotica.
I had a hard time finding this story online at the Star News, but it was published in the print edition a few weeks ago, just before the referred-to Porn Sunday. Here’s the full post.
Some questions and an observation: Is there such a thing as an addiction to church, or to religion, or to Christ? Unless someone is doing harm to others, is there anything wrong with an addiction to erotica? As I understand it the church originally forbade masturbation and non-procreational sex because spilling one’s seed was a no-no. But that was 2,000 years ago when populating the earth (with more faithful) was a priority. Today’s overpopulation and competition for resources negates this type of edict. I wonder where Lifepoint Church falls on the issue of birth control? Kudos to Amanda Greene for unearthing this. By the way, Ian, nice Freudian slip in those first four words!
Aha! It was hard to see that typo. (edited content) -editor
Hmmm… commendations commendations to the Church! And to Ranald whose “birth control” question is most apt!
Alas, in their attempt to take attention away from porn, they more than likely introduced some of their audience to a new taboo addiction.. especially the young ones in the crowd… “O! so that’s the free website that won’t infect my hard drive” (…get it?)
For myself, I submit that my first cigarette came at a church camp directly after a police officer gave us a Jesus-inspired “Just Say No” lesson.
As for pre-marital procreation and the mixing of the bodily fluids as “sin,” I give you the first stanza of “The Flea” by John Donne, metaphysical poet and 17th century genius of religious sonnets:
“MARK but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is;
It suck’d me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.Thou know’st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead;
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pamper’d swells with one blood
made of two;
And this, alas ! is more than we
would do.”
There have been ample examples of eroding taboos within the “Christian community” from the harems of David Karesh and Jim Jones to modern-day Catholic pedophilia. We symbolically align a basket of bastard bunnies with the risen Christ as part of the annual Easter ritual. In this light animal lust is not only endorsed by the church but seems somehow divinely inspired. Somewhere along the line someone forgot that we are a primitive species with primitive desires and needs. The idea that acts of privacy and discretion need necessarily to be labeled taboo is almost as ludicrous as the idea that we shouldn’t have bowel movements because someone may be offended by the smell. As a society and culture we should teach youth and young adults to embrace their sexuality with confidence and care and address pedophilic and other predatory “reform” with serious skepticism. The worst taboo is sweeping sex crimes under the rug and pretending that it doesn’t happen. I wonder what prescription the Babylonians might have recommended under Hammurabi for pedophiles and other rogue clergymen!
Is it creepy to think that churches colonizing middle schools (as Lifepoint does Myrtle Grove Middle School on Piner, though I believe they now remove their sign during weekdays — asked to?) is creepy?