Canada Revenue Agency and Porn - Part 1 - The Scam
Now that I have your attention with a “clickbaity” title, lets talk about scammers and pornography. Recently, I preached a sermon on porn and sexual immorality at my local church, and todays blog is more or less the sum total of what I said. I am posting Part 1 of three here because, unfortunately, pornography exists in counseling and as counselors, it is important that we wrap our heads around what is happening, and what is needed. So here we go…
Scammers are a real problem. In fact phone scams were a $29 billion problem in 2021 (CNBC Article) in the USA alone. If you include internet, email, text and everything else worldwide, it’s almost incalculable. Scammers are always looking for new ways to separate you from your money. They present something that looks real. They find ways to gain your trust. Scammers play on the fact that you have a desire for security, control and money. They create a problem, and they offer a solution. The main problem is that the solution is never really a solution but a means to get your money and identity (to get more money). The problem and solution are not real. It’s all fake. The problem is created to cause you fear. The solution is a counterfeit solution and the only one who gets something is the scammer. You would think we would know better. Yet everyday people are being fooled and it’s constant. Emails, clickbait (not my clickbait of course) social media, text messages and phone calls from the Canada Revenue Agency, telling you there is a warrant out for your arrest. There isn’t. It’s fake. Yet they manage to trick a few and it brings victims pain, and death.
Pornography (definition in link) is another counterfeit scam. Though on paper the revenues might seem lower, I would say that it is at least as pervasive as the scams to get your money.
Jesus says, in Matthew 5:27-28, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (ESV)
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. (Matthew 5:27–28 ESV)
In one of six antitheses found in Matthew 5 (You have heard it said…but I say), Jesus is teaching the crowd that there are things about God’s law that you have misunderstood. In each circumstance Jesus intensified the law to get to the heart of the matter. You see, back then, and even now, people tend to take a rule and narrow its definition to find ways around the rule. How does our culture today get around adultery? Well, as a counselor, I have heard it said:
“It’s not cheating if you don’t act on your feelings.”
“You can look, but don’t touch.”
Re: Emotional affairs – “ Yeah sure we talk a lot, but we are not sleeping together, so it’s not really cheating.”
Those who look at porn will say, “It’s just images, it’s not like I am sleeping with those people.”
Each statement assumes that a narrow definition of adultery is when two people sleep together outside of their own marriage. People will even say that if you are not married, all bets are off, it’s not adultery. If I can find a loophole, I am not cheating. We look for ways to justify our behaviour.
Jesus says, that if you look at someone with lustful intent, then you too have committed adultery. Jesus did not change the definition. The commandment from God to not commit adultery is part of the ten commandments found in Exodus 20:3-17. The first four commandments are vertical love towards God and the remaining six display love towards one another, yet these horizontal commandments will always be subordinate to the vertical, so adultery is not just cheating on another person, but it’s cheating on God, because in committing adultery, we are saying we need something outside of what God has provided for us. This is true of every commandment. That is why we cannot actually perfectly obey God’s law. However, Jesus does. In Matthew 5:17, Jesus says, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” (ESV) Jesus isn’t tossing out the law, so that means we are still held accountable to it. I will discuss how he fulfills it practically later, but for now, it’s important to note that Jesus demonstrates one way in which he completes the law of Moses, by this intensification and broadening. Jesus is exposing how the world tends to re-create what God has already perfectly set in motion. Throughout history mankind has always taken what God says is good and created a counterfeit version. Pornography, and the whole system that supports it is a major one. Just like scammers in call centers making call after call with lie after lie to separate you from your money, pornography and hypersexualized culture is everywhere. Here are a few stats (full report here):
28,258 users are watching pornography every second.
40 million Americans regularly visit porn sites.
35% of all Internet downloads are related to pornography
85% of men and 57% of women have viewed porn.
We even use language that gives us permission to consume pornography. We call porn “adult material” which tells children, this is something adults do.
The pervasiveness of porn (sexual immorality) has existed in every generation. The world has been hard at work since the beginning. In biblical times, if you read, for example 1 and 2 kings, the sin that made kings of Israel and Judah bad kings was that they did not take down the high places. Baal worship was a problem during that time and Baal worship included prostitution and other sexual immorality. This is why God’s anger burned against Israel and Judah and eventually got them kicked out of the Promised Land. Porn and pornification culture as we know it today is the same thing. Although the altars and high places look different, they are still bringing the culture to its’ knees in worship to the god of self-gratification.
The pornification of culture is subtle. We can barely tell it’s happening. This phenomenon is doing something terrible to us and we don’t even realize it. From a very young age, children are being groomed to see porn as harmless.
Back to scammers for a moment. Scamming is so pervasive that we are growing weary of the phenomena. We are growing weary to resist it. How many of you reading have tried to log in to a website you typically use only to be told by Google, “your password appeared in a data leak, we strongly recommend you change it immediate to avoid having your data stolen.” The first, second and maybe third time we see this, we panic and immediately change our passwords. We go from using Password1234 to Pa$$word12345 and think we have beaten the scammers. Perfect, we are safe. Then it happens again. I don’t know about you but I am honestly tired of it, and so I evaluate, what apps and sites do I use that have that password? Does it matter? Eh, probably not. So, I leave it. I have been lulled into complacency by repeated exposure. The pornification of culture is acting the same way. We are constantly being exposed to a spectrum of tame images all the way to hard core images and we barely notice it. The world knows it, and is leveraging our worn out resolve to lure us in. In the Frontline documentary “Merchants of Cool”, marketers readily admit that their job is to make money and they will use anything to get us to consume whatever they are selling. They know sexualized imagery sells products and ideas. Marketers in the 90’s for example developed a type caricature of a young female based on Brittany Spears called the “midriff.” Here is a summary of who the Midriff is as described by Frontline:
“The Midriff is prematurely adult…, the Midriff is consumed by appearances…her ‘thing’ is sex. The Midriff is really a collection of the same old sexual clichés, but repackaged as a new kind of female empowerment.” The message, “your body is your best asset, flaunt your sexuality even if you don't understand it.” - Merchants of Cool
Today, going to a store with my newly minted teenager to find a full length shirt is near impossible. This tells me the culture has accepted this as “how girls dress.” Does that mean we have also accepted that sex is all girls have to offer? Not everyone has, but certainly this message has fueled the trends of pornography and deeper depravity of what types of porn are being pursued.
Social media algorithms have taken over for and have become far more sophisticated than their Madison Avenue predecessors. The message is the same, and it comes with a constant scrolling barrage of sexualized messaging that magazine ads couldn’t get away with. Our children, if they have access to these social media platforms, are being hyper-exposed to it. And because it’s contrived and not really real because of photoshop and the curation of “your best life now ONLY” postings, teens are constantly being made to feel they cannot measure up unless they become objects. You cannot influence (matter) unless you give all of yourself away (worship). The presence of the “High Places” still exist and they are on your phone, constantly drawing you in and tempting you into lust.
Jesus says if you look at someone with lust in your heart, you are committing adultery.
You have heard it said that Game of thrones is fine, it's just a bit of nudity, but Jesus says, its adultery.
Continue reading Canada Revenue Agency and Porn - Part 2 Here. Part 3 Here.