Religious Pornography...

Religious Pornography: the creative activity (writing or pictures or films, etc.) which has no artistic, theological, hermeneutical or philosophical value other than to stimulate religious desire and lust - usually depicting religious behavior, actions, words, ceremonies for the intent to cause religious excitement and exuberance as well as judgment of the “other”.

What does religion mean? In what sense am I using the word?

Here is a one of the best descriptions of what I mean given by Gregory A. Boyd, “…religious people feed the hunger of their heart by striving to impress whatever picture of God or gods they embrace with the rightness of their beliefs and behaviors – in contrast to the wrongness of others’ beliefs and behaviors” (Boyd, The Myth of A Christian Religion: Losing Your Religion for the Beauty of a Revolution p. 59).

Boyd also writes, “…religious idolatry is particularly resistant to the Kingdom of God. It’s no coincidence that the main opposition Jesus faced in establishing the Kingdom came from the guardians of the religious status quo – the Pharisees, religious scribes, and the like. So it should not surprise us that the main opposition to advancing the Kingdom in our day comes from contemporary guardians of the religious status quo” (Boyd, p. 50).

Who did Jesus hang out with? How did those he spent time with delineate between his life giving presence and the life taking presence of “the guardians of the religious status quo”?

Well, “One of the most shocking aspects of Jesus’ ministry is that he befriended tax collectors, prostitutes, and other ‘sinners.’ He even went to parties with them! They seemed to want to hang out with Jesus. This tells us something important about the Kingdom of God….Prostitutes were viewed as undermining the moral fabric of society, while tax collectors were seen as traitors because they worked for the oppressive Roman government, which most Jews despised. No wonder Jesus’ association with these groups ruined his reputation among religious leaders…” (Boyd, p.62).

Sadly, there is much religious pornography extant and propagated by the modern Church. Religious pornography is analogous to the golden calf the Israelites built while Moses was on the mountain:

"When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, "Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don't know what has happened to him." Aaron answered them, "Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me." So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, "These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt." When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, "Tomorrow there will be a festival to the LORD." So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry" (Exodus 32:1-6 TNIV).

All religious pornography is an attempt to get life from something other than God - and all varieties of idolatry exist to make “us” feel better than “them.” Something Jesus never did! As a consequence of this, “…on the whole today’s prostitutes and tax collectors steer as far away from Christians as they did the Pharisees in the first century. Nothing could be a greater indictment of the modern Church than this” (Boyd, p.64).

Unfortunately, purveyors of religious pornography resist the liberating revolution that Jesus inaugurated as addiction to religion is far more fulfilling in its immediate gratification of the self and therefore there is the constant need to continually have that need met rather than turning to the true lasting source of Life. For to do that would require a complete relinquishing of the addiction to religious pornography and the intense fervor of being right and being the maintainers of the arbitrary religious status quo that stands in stark contrast to the example of Jesus.

For Jesus, “…was known for the scandalous way he loved. The religious people viewed him as an anarchist eroding the moral fabric of society because of his refusal to recognize their all-important distinction between their ‘holiness’ and all they judged to be ‘unholy.’ Tragically, Christians today often see themselves as the primary defenders and promoters of this very distinction. Rather than viewing themselves as ‘the worst of sinners,’ as Jesus and Paul command, many view themselves as the morally superior guardians of society who will protect it from those they judge to be the ‘worst of sinner.’ So, instead of being known as outrageous lovers, Christians are largely viewed as self righteous judgers. No wonder the prostitutes and tax collectors of our day are repelled by us” (Boyd, pp.64-65).

As Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “Jesus calls not to a new religion but to life” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers From Prison, p. 482) and this life is the way to the freedom of the abundant life, as Jesus said, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10).

Starting with this post as an explanation and defining of both religious pornography and religion, I will be periodically posting examples of what I have hopefully defined here as both. The examples will be under the title “Religious Pornography” – and it is my hope that, “…we cease getting Life from the rightness of our beliefs and behaviors and return to getting it from the one true source of Life” (Boyd, p. 65).