Go to Hell, Pop Culture

The most recent cover given to Gay Talese's cultural chronicle Thy Neighbor's Wife has an image of an unclothed woman sitting on some rocks on a beach. While she is sitting at an angle that covers all the odds and ends that would render the image explicit, it is still clearly suggestive.

It didn't really occur to me that this cover would be a problem, considering that the book was the definitive piece of journalism on the sexual revolution, and the image was clearly a relic of a bygone era, revealing less than you would see at the average neighborhood pool nowadays. So I bought the book at borders and dove in.

My dear wife did not see things the same way I did, so out of consideration for her feelings, I went ahead and took some sharpies and drew a modest skirt and T-shirt on the woman. Enjoying this creative coverup, I went ahead and added some Nike sneakers, a baseball cap, a fish in her hand, and a text bubble that says, "mmmm...sushi."

So in this way, I ended up censoring the cover of a book which is essentially about the battle between censorship and sexual liberty in America. That would place me squarely in the same camp as most of the Christians in the book, with the exception of a liscentious cult leader named John Humphrey Noyes.

In fact, I read the book with a sort of perpetual cringe, waiting to find out what kind of cruelty and repression the Christians would come up with next. As Americans from all sectors of society began openly discussing, portraying, and practicing the kind of sexual (mis)behavior that had, according to the Kinsey Reports, been going on for generations, the Church moved in with its giant political claw to smother the movement.

The tactics employed included intimidation, imprisonment, smear campaigns, and various ill-conceived political maneuvers. It's not too difficult to see why people define Christians by their hunger for power and their ignorance.

Where does anyone get the idea that a Christlike response to "sin" is to crush it with all the political muscle we can muster? I think this response is exactly the opposite of Jesus' teaching, which pierces past appearances and deeds to the heart, and addresses pain, need, and perversion that lies there with love.

Although I've only skimmed it, Rob Bell's recent book Sex God seems to herald a changing voice in the dialog between Christians and pop culture on sex, which used to go something like this:

Pop Culture: Isn't sex awesome?
Christians: Sure, as long as you don't enjoy it.
Pop Culture: But sex is wired into us. It's a biological part of who we are.
Christians: Your wiring is evil. Sex is only for making babies.
Pop Culture: You're irrelevant.
Christians: You're perverted.
Pop Culture: F**k you, Christians.
Christians: Go to Hell, pop culture.

That's a paraphrase, but I think it pretty accurately sums up the tone.

I'm a big believer in the idea that our understanding of, and more specifically our relationship with, Jesus gives us a perspective that can be both illuminating and liberating (although some would argue with my use of that word) if we can be a little less spiteful in how we listen to and speak with those who disagree with or don't understand us.

That goes for sexuality and dozens of other issues on the cultural radar these days. It doesn't mean we shouldn't have convictions and opinions. It means we should always let our speech be seasoned with Grace. We should be quick to listen and slow to speak, and we must understand that nothing short of love really makes a difference, anyway.