? You’re not going to kill? (Exodus 20:13).
This is the key text for dealing with a disturbing topic: pornography. In a libertine society like ours, there is a tendency to naturalize pornographic content. However, pornography is an abhorrent practice, and if we understand your relationship to murder, we can do better. understand the heart of his seriousness.
- At first glance.
- It may seem an exaggeration to link pornography to the Sixth Commandment.
- Which speaks of murder; However.
- We see in Jesus’ teaching the deepening of this commandment and how it can be broken inside (Matthew 5.
- 22).
- The sixth commandment is not just about the murder of a person.
- This goes further and requires the preservation and appreciation of human life.
- And reformed confessions of faith capture the profound meaning of the commandment.
- Let us take the example of the Great Catechism of Westminster in question 136:.
What are the sins forbidden in the sixth commandment?
The sins forbidden in the Sixth Commandment are: or take away our lives or that of others, except in cases of public justice, self-righteousness, or necessary defense; Neglect or withdrawal of legal or necessary means for the preservation of life; wrath of the sinner, hatred, envy, desire for vengeance; all excessive passions and too careful; overuse of food, beverages, work and recreation; Provocative words; oppression, conflict, beatings, wounds and everything that comes to destroy someone’s life (emphasize).
Can pornography fit very well into what the Catechism calls “excessive passions,” an excessive use of recreational facilities? And “oppression”. Pornography is the abuse of eros (erotic love). It is a violation of what God instituted for sexuality. Sex was something created by God for the pleasure of marriage. Adam and Eve were created to form a family that would give birth to other families. That is why sex is done solely for pleasure. regardless of its relationship to the marriage covenant, it distorts the original principle of divine creation.
We can also break the sixth commandment when, instead of being busy, we spend much of our time having fun, and in the digital age in which we live, where people spend hours surfing the Internet, pornography is just a click away. The commandment is broken when, instead of taking care of it, we stand in front of a screen, looking at two-dimensional images of nudity or explicit sex making it a “pastime. “It makes us unproductive and reduces us to viewers (or promoters) of what offends the holiness of God Himself.
And pornography is easily detectable as an instrument of oppression, among other things because it oppresses women. The so-called female sexual freedom, the flag of feminism, only reinforces the objectation of the female body. , used aggressively and violated in their dignity. You don’t even need to browse the deep web, the darkest corner of the Internet, to find the most varied degradations. In addition, some of the content is composed of products from a sex industry, which is very profitable. For the money, men and women film several scenes practicing the sexual act causing injuries in their intimate parts.
Returning to Jesus’ deepest conception in interpreting the sixth commandment, we see that he condemns the one who calls his neighbor, that is, another human being, of racá (Matthew 5:22). This word of Aramaic origin does not have an equivalent term in Portuguese, but commentators agree that it was an expression of contempt and that it had an indication of futility, as if someone did not make sense to be a “hollow head”. Therefore, racá is a term that dehumanizes and that is why Jesus uses it to condemn those who use it to deny the humanity of others.
From the point of view of Scripture, being a human being is being a bearer of the divine image (Imago Dei) that was imprinted on him in the act of creation (Gen 1:26). This image reveals that we are, by analogy with the Creator, emotional, rational and volitive beings. Thou shalt not kill, seek to preserve such an image that he is present even in the sinful man; although sin has affected him, he has not dissolved it.
Pornography therefore kills each other’s humanity by making it an object, neglecting their dignity and removing their traits. Note that the face, which corresponds to the window of the soul (Prov 15:13), is not at the center of pornography. In front of a pair of breasts on a screen, you cannot capture the person in its entirety and disintegrate from your being, which is your perception as a physical and spiritual creature with Imago Dei. And by turning someone into one thing, you too will become, so do you commit a murder of the essence of the other and end up committing suicide?because the essence itself has also succumbed.
May the Lord bless us and make us understand that the potential murderer of pornography must be strongly condemned by the Church, while announcing the gospel-releasing message that redeems imago Dei from those who are linked to the practice of pornography.