Wednesday, June 27, 2012

In Response to Amy Simpson's, "Why I'm Not Shocked by Fifty Shades of Grey"

In college, I majored in Literature. My intent was to make a career out of reading and someday writing best-selling fiction. The day God gave me sight to see through the saving power of Jesus Christ, I stopped reading fiction. This book and the so-called success of its sale is a blatant illustration as to why I changed so drastically in this regard. I will be sharing this link with others, because many people seem clueless when I tell them vehemently that I no longer read fiction.Why I'm Not Shocked by Fifty Shades of Grey

3 comments:

  1. Posted on 06.05.12 by Mary Kassian

    Seven Reasons Not to Read Fifty Shades


    1. It violates God’s design for sex.


    God created sex to be exclusive to marriage. In Fifty Shades, the relationship is based on a sex contract, not a marriage contract. The Lord says that sex outside of marriage is sin. It grieves Christ when we take pleasure in something He abhors.


    2. It violates the biblical concept of authority.


    The relationship between a man and wife is to mirror Christ’s relationship to His Bride. BDSM tells a lie about the nature of that relationship. Christ taught and modeled that authority is for the purpose of loving service. It is not an egotistical power trip. Christ is not into domination, control, abuse, and humiliation. So in my mind, there’s something seriously wrong when we get a kick out of interpersonal domination/humiliation, and bring BDSM into Christian bedrooms.


    3. It violates the biblical concept of submission.


    A wife’s submission is first and foremost to Christ. The biblical directive to submit does not turn women into brain-dead, passive, weak-willed doormats who acquiesce to the whims of dominant, controlling men. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Lord doesn’t want His daughters to be wilting, weak-willed, wimpy women who welcome and enjoy abuse. BDSM perverts and mocks the beauty of what true submission is all about.


    4. It encourages the sin of sensuality.


    Erotica is a genre that aims to arouse sexual desire. It evokes sensuality, a sin that appears in numerous New Testament lists of vices (Gal. 5:19, Rom. 13:13, Mark 7:21-23, 1 Pet. 4:3, 2 Cor. 12:21). Sensuality is anything that:
    a.is characterized by lust,
    b.expresses lewdness or lust,
    c.tends to excite lust.

    Scripture tells us to flee all such things.

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  2. 5. It promotes sexual perversion.


    “Curiosity” has led to the downfall of multitudes who have been trapped in the destructive, downward vortex of sexual sin. Fifty Shades piques curiosity. It dangles behaviors that are forbidden, unfamiliar, and titillating. Maybe you’re just curious, or maybe you rationalize that it might boost your libido and marital sex life. And it might. Temporarily. But the problem with erotica, as with porn, is that you’ll end up craving increasingly graphic, perverse images over time. Erotica/porn lead to deeper, darker erotica/porn. What’s more, they end up robbing people of the joy and satisfaction of “ordinary,” non-twisted sex with an “ordinary” spouse. In the end, they assault and diminish a healthy sex life.


    6. It glamorizes pathological relationships.


    The male protagonist is a very tortured and misunderstood soul with a proclivity for sexual perversion. One moment he is abusive, and the next he is tender and romantic. The girl feels she is the only one who can reach him and help him. Hmmm. Sounds like a seriously dysfunctional co-dependent abusive relationship to me. As Dr. Pinksy, a relationship expert said, “the idea that women look at this relationship as anything other than absolute, categorical, profound pathology is more than I can imagine . . . I worry about the fifteen-year-olds and nineteen-year-olds reading this and formulating a notion that this is anything close to a reasonable relationship.”


    7. You won’t get it out of your head.


    The Bible tells us to think about things that are pure, right, excellent, praiseworthy, lovely, admirable, noble, and true (Phil. 4:8). There’s truth to the old proverb that “as a man thinketh so is he,” and the modern day adage, “garbage in–garbage out.” Your thoughts have transformational power–for good or for evil. Filling your head with thoughts of sin, sensuality, dysfunction, and BDSM will lead you further away from the things of God and not closer to them. Darkness has incredible “sticking power.” Once exposed, it can be extremely difficult to get the images and thoughts out of your head.


    As Dannah Gresh says,



    “God has given me more than fifty shades of truth in His Word and when just one of them is in conflict with my entertainment choices, I choose to pass! To be clear: I wouldn’t drive my Envoy into the front of an oncoming semi-truck any more than I would open the pages of Fifty Shades of Grey. I love my marriage, my God, and myself too much.”

    So girls, have some respect for the Lord, and for yourselves. Exercise some discernment, and don’t read this book!


    In my opinion, the choice whether or not to read Fifty Shades of Grey is pretty black and white.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you, Jamie, for your thought-provoking statements and clarification. Not only should we guard our minds and hearts against this particular book, but also we must guard against the potential exposure to similar problems in other works of fiction as well. Thank you for your courage in standing up for the God's truth.

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