Sometimes titles are all about shock value, and I am sure this particular title along with the accompanying illustration have the potential to keep people from reading, that’s fine. It’s easy for us to walk away before knowing the whole story. In fact, sometimes it’s preferable, I know it is for me. So, without any more ramblings as to why this post exists, I think it’s about time I got to it…What follows is something that I have been wrestling with for a while and realizing how true the concept is.
Jerry Jr, Ravi, Perry, Mark, Ted, The two Jims, Bill, Brian, Carl, Franklin, Aaron. These names, among others all have something in common. All of them fell and fell hard. All of them sinned, all of them wounded the church and the name of Christ. This is, um-fortunately not an exclusive list. Each of these men have fallen for different reasons, many would argue that Franklin’s name should not be here, however this is called Walking on the Edges, and I am the owner and author so if I put him here, he stays for reasons that make sense to me. Anyway, the point of this list is not what you may think, I’m not going to wax eloquent on what causes a fall, I’m not going to excuse away the behavior that anyone, and I mean ANYONE on this list has had. There is a reason we know all these names, a reason that they are so easy to recognize in the church world, so easy to shake our heads at, so easy to feel a deep sense of righteous indignation towards. That these gentlemen on this list all have fallen is public record. It’s something they each have to live with, every day of their life, and trust me that fall is never far from the thoughts that zip through their minds. I know because, as you can see, my name is in that list.
So, is this yet another mea culpa? No, I want to be clear on that. I am not interested in continually reliving that destruction that I perpetrated. After all, this post is titled Evangelical Pornography. Not Aaron beats on himself for what has been repented of and forgiven.
First a few definitions that may help you understand a bit more what I’m talking about before I get into the story.
Evangelical: (n.) one of evangelical principles. (adj.) 1. relating to or being a Christian church believing in personal conversion and the inerrancy of the Bible especially the 4 Gospels; “evangelical Christianity”; “an ultraconservative evangelical message”; 2. of or pertaining to or in keeping with the Christian gospel especially as in the first 4 books of the New Testament; 3. marked by ardent or zealous enthusiasm for a cause; evangelistic.
Neo-Evangelical: This is of course my own term and is defined as follows: Of or relating to evangelical principles through the lens of Micah 6:8, the sayings and example of Jesus, and the importance of context, historicity and original intent.
Pornography: (n.) creative activity (writing or pictures or films etc.) of no literary or artistic value other than to stimulate sexual desire; porno; porn; erotica; smut.
Evangelical Pornography: Again, my own term that is defined as follows: Destructive activity (writing, reading, gossip, and many other verbs) of no spiritual or uplifting value other than to self-justify, feel superior to or cause division among the people that look, act and sound like the individual consuming said products.
On to the story.
I have been around long enough to understand that there is more to pornography than nudity and activity. What I mean is more things are pornographic than just smut. One of the more recent iterations is food porn. There is an understanding that when I post pictures of a particularly good looking meal, or desert others will look at it and just like the ringing of a bell their mouths will start to water, they will want that thing it will make them feel happy and give them a bit of not just joy but a bit of that intimacy that only can come from a good looking and tasting meal shared with others that you can then gloat about and make others jealous with, and while you may have gotten a chuckle out of that little explanation it translates beyond food and flesh.
I’m sure that by now you may have a hint of what I’m calling evangelical pornography and if not here goes.
Once upon a time there was a person that seemed to have it all together in fact more than anything they seemed to be at the top of their game. Everything seemed to be going well. People liked them, listened to them, they were making friends, influencing people, and leading a ministry that was growing and changing lives. There was stress of course but it could be handled, mitigated by will power. There of course was the problem of humanity creeping in. That part of the person that doesn’t always react the way that they should or that they even want too. Paul was right when he said that it’s so hard to do what you want to do what you know to do and easy to do what you don’t, what you know is wrong. It’s easy to look at that as a way to deal at times, a hidden little issue that isn’t that bad. And so the person wanders on down a few side paths in their work/ministry life, always making sure to keep the right path in sight, always able to find their way back to it, until one day things get harder, maybe they get some bad news, perhaps there is a issue in their family or extended family, it could be that they are watching the decline of someone they love, or dealing with depression and feelings of inadequacy that date back years. The amazing work that they have been doing, the ministry that was thriving still seems to be, but they are not and always waiting in the wings are the people that can’t wait to see a slip or a trip or a fall. Because they are human, because they have to rely on God and his grace and mercy just like other people. The person loses the fight that they have been waging to keep things in their proper place, for whatever reason they go off the deep end and the fall is spectacular to watch.
And now good reader, we come to the meaning of Evangelical Pornography and my admitting that I have had a problem with it, and can see how easily I could fall prey to it again, especially as a neo-evangelical who wants to see the tradition, he grew up in evolve while retaining the fundamental truths that it espouses.
In the New Testament, as the church is working on the foundation that the carpenter from Nazareth set up, slowly adding the stones that would build the mechanism for following Jesus there is a realization that people are flawed, that they are going to mess up, it’s not an if it’s a when. The founders of the church through inspiration of the Spirit lay out how to deal with people that fall, how to deal with having something against someone else that claims to be a Christ Follower as well. There is an emphasis on some steps to take, first talk to them, then bring someone will you, then the elders and finally if all else fails the group as a whole can be brought in. Fast forward to 2022 and there is a different thing happening. There is an almost visceral desire to see someone fall and to see them fall hard, but more importantly there is a need to discuss it, to report on it, to dig into it even if you don’t have any skin in the game of that particular body of believers, even if you don’t have a relationship with the person that falls or those around them, even if they are hundreds or thousands of miles away. There is a need to not just notice the fall, but to relish in it and its aftermath. For me it was all about self-justification and a desire to see if people who fall are really able to not just be rehabilitated, not just able to fall on the grace of God and seek his forgiveness as well the the forgiveness of those that they hurt. If I’m honest though there are times that it was also about being superior to them in some way that really doesn’t exist. To be able to look at one of them and say: “Well there you go, I knew they were not all they claim to be, I knew something was wrong. I’m not like that and I would never do that.” In addition to that attitude there is the one that keeps going back to check on the person, to see if their mea culpa was sincere or if they have just traded one fall for another potential one. I remember reading this book called I Was Wrong. It was an amazing confession of a man that had fallen, at least that’s how I looked at it, but then I found the guy that wrote it and in doing so realized that he has gone off the deep end selling apocalypse survival kits. He scares me now in that he has sway over so many people, and yet there are times that I can’t look away, that I look for something he is preaching or saying with the express purpose of laughing or looking down on or feeling superior to him and those in his circle. It makes me feel better about myself.
Evangelical pornography is a self-justifying addiction that allows us to lie to ourselves about being in some noble cause to hold leaders accountable. The problem is many of the leaders we are “holding accountable through our Facebook posts and our blog comments and our anonymous postings are not in our sphere of influence at all. We haven’t gone to them as an individual when they offended us, we have not taken another with us in the hopes of winning them back, we didn’t go to the elders and ask their involvement at all because we don’t sit under their ministry or have a real relationship with them, and if we do have a relationship at all we tend to hide behind the screen and our fingers typing and texting our superiority while hiding who we are and hoping against all hope that our issue whatever it may be stays safely hidden.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not at all saying that when a person falls, the way any of the people in that list and myself has done it’s not okay. It’s important that they are held accountable in the right way, that they are confronted by the right people in love and discipline. That’s what Jesus had in mind, it’s what the founders of the church envisioned.
What they did not envision is a podcast or blog post or stinging investigative article, written under the auspices of speaking truth to power, even when that person that is being spoken to isn’t someone we know personally, have relationship with at any level beyond what we have read or heard.
To be clear, I do think it’s important that a person faces the consequences of their actions, people need to humble themselves and pray and seek His face so that their sin can be forgiven, and their land can be healed. (2 Chronicles 7:14) There needs to be a group of people around the one that falls that can help and talk to and pray with and for. Again, back to that iron sharpening iron thing. Solomon says it like this:
9 Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. 10 For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! Ecclesiastes 4:9-10
It’s interesting that in many ways Solomon didn’t take his own advice, and it could be argued very strongly that he suffered the consequences of that way of living when it came to his personal life. I’m almost sure that had he kept relationship with those that had permission to speak truth to power he would not have built so many shrines or knelt down before them with his myriad wives.
We are all susceptible to being drug into things that make us feel good, that have the ability to scratch that little itch that we think of as self-worth but in all actuality is self-righteousness with a side order of gossip, because after all in the end if we do not have a relationship with the fallen person beyond what we have streamed in a podcast, or seen on a YouTube channel or texted about in our friends group about someone else.
Leaders must be held to a standard; Christian leaders are and should be held to a higher standard. When we fall and mess up it’s not just our own lives that we hurt it’s the lives of those that are under our care, but there is a proper way for it to happen, and we all need to bring ourselves into submission to that plan that was set out in the early days of the church, leaders and laypeople alike.
And so good reader I leave you with this. When you are tempted to revel in the demise of a ministry or a person. When you can’t wait to hear about the latest thing that Mark has done wrong, or that Bill has said regarding his particular scandal. When you want to see how crazy either of the Jim's has become. Ask yourself why it’s so important to you personally, what is the takeaway from that information you are so desperate for. And if like me it was for the wrong reason, first tell God you’re sorry and mean it, then when that notification pops up that they have done something else, turn and walk away from it. Pray for them and for the people actually in their lives that God gives them all wisdom, grace, and understanding.
Be well
, may the One that loves you more than any other, guide you, direct you, bless you, keep you, and grow you into His image.
