Training Young Boys to Navigate our Pornographic Culture- Guest Post Cole Jeffrey
Guest post by Cole Jeffrey. This was originally a discussion held within a Facebook group. It is reposted with Cole's permission. We at Redeemingfamily hope you find this a helpful resource as believers faithfully following Christ in a pornified moment in world history. We thank Cole for his thoughtful engagement on this topic and pray the Lord blesses him as a husband, father, and representative of Christ.
How Can You Train Young Boys to Navigate our Pornographic Culture
In my last post, Jessica Pero asked me how we can train young boys to navigate our pornographic culture. I've been thinking about that question ALL day, and I wrote this as a response. It's probably far more than Jessica or anybody else wanted, but I hope it's helpful to somebody:
Because I'm an English professor, I have to begin with literature:
In Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey, the hero Odysseus wants to return home to his wife, Penelope, after the Trojan War ends. Unfortunately, Odysseus angers Poseidon, the god of the sea. Poseidon turns Odysseus’s voyage home into a perilous ten-year quest. He subjects Odysseus to constant challenges and trials, including the Sirens. In Greek mythology, the Sirens were monsters who could appear as beautiful women. They would lure sailors to their death by singing to them. The sailors were irresistibly drawn to the song of the Sirens, but when they reached their island, the Sirens revealed their monstrous form and devoured them.
To return home, Odysseus and his sailors must make it past the sirens. So, he orders his men to stuff wax in their ears and look straight ahead so they can resist the Sirens. But Odysseus has a moment of weakness. He wants to hear the beautiful music the Sirens make, so he orders his men to tie him to the mast of the ship. That way, he can listen to the Sirens’ song, but he’s powerless to respond to it.
I think most Christians deal with sexual sin the way Odysseus deals with the Sirens. We place enough physical restraints on ourselves (or other people) to prevent us from acting out our sinful desires. But there is still a part of us that wants to listen to the Sirens’ song. Like the Pharisees, we focus on looking righteous without becoming righteous. We ignore our fallen hearts. But according to Jesus, the heart is what matters most. Most Americans think of the “heart” as a metaphor for our emotions, but in New Testament, the word “kardia” describes the inner self, the core and center of our being. Jesus tells us that all sins originate from the core of our being. The center of who we are is fallen. The world may invite me to sin; it may give me opportunities to sin. But the source of sin is me. “For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what defile a person,” Jesus says (Matthew 15:18-19). The Apostle James agreed. He says that “each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.” Our sinful desires are what “give birth to sin” (James 1:14-15). For Christians, our fundamental concern should be reforming our hearts—bringing every thought, feeling, desire, fear, etc. into harmony with God’s will. As the Apostle Paul writes, “take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). We must be “transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). The question is, though, how do we do this? How do we change our hearts? How do we renew our minds?
I think classical mythology provides us with an example of how this transformation works. Odysseus wasn’t the only hero who had to survive the Sirens. Jason and the Argonauts also had to make it past their island. Jason heard about the Sirens and their seductive power, but he pursued a different strategy than Odysseus. Instead of putting wax in his ears or tying himself to the ship, Jason brought a musician with him on his voyage—Orpheus, the most talented musician in the classical world. Jason asked Orpheus to play for his crew, and when he played, his music
was so beautiful the crew was mesmerized by it. The Sirens did their best to tempt the Argonauts when they sailed past, but the crew didn’t listen because they were enraptured by Orpheus’s music. They were listening to a better song.
As a father with two small boys (and a third on the way), I want my boys to pursue their sanctification like Jason, not Odysseus. I don’t want them to resist sin by putting wax in their ears; I want them to overcome it by listening to a better song. No half-heartedness or compromises. I want them to be so enraptured by the beauty of God that they recognize and despise the ugliness of sin.
Here is how I am going to try to help them do that.
(1) I will pray. Hopefully, I will pray every day for myself and for my boys. I know that I can’t do anything through my own strength. I will pray that the Lord will give me wisdom and discernment, and that He will show me “train up a child in the way he should go” (Proverbs 22:6).
(2) I will teach my boys that “everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving” (I Timothy 4:4). I want my boys to understand that God created the human body and sex romance and that all those things are good. I grew up in the Purity Culture of the 90s that tried to encourage virtue by vilifying sex and denigrating the body, and I don’t want to do that. God makes us erotic creatures, so when we try to deny eros, we are denying our nature.
(3) I will teach my boys that God designed everything with a purpose, and that nothing is truly meaningful or enjoyable unless we use it in the way God intends. I think that’s what Paul means when he talks about receiving the creation with “thanksgiving.” I want them to understand that the purpose of the creation is to reveal God’s glory to us in a way that inspires us to love Him and follow Him. This includes eros. Our culture will try to teach them that our bodies and sex have the meaning we give them. I want them to know that’s a lie. Good things only feel truly good when we use them and enjoy them in the way God intended.
(4) I will protect my boys from the world as long as I can. I will make sure they do not have unmonitored or unfiltered access to the internet; I will not let them have smart phones; I will be careful about what movies, music, books, etc. they experience; I will be discerning about what friends they spend time with; etc.
(5) I will prepare my boys to enter the world. Many conservative parents fail to do that. They are so focused on isolating their kids from the world they never prepare them to live in the world. I want to make sure my boys know they will eventually enter a fallen society where many people will tempt them to abuse God’s creation in some way. I want them to understand the truth so they can spot the lies and avoid them.
(6) I will teach my boys that they are fallen people. Because of their own sinful natures, they will constantly be tempted to abuse God’s creation. I will encourage them to be aware of their own fallen desires and help them identify thoughts, feelings, desires, etc. that aren’t in harmony with God’s will. I want them to know that their own fallen nature is the greatest obstacle they will ever face in their sanctification because it is the THING that needs to be sanctified.
(7) I will teach my boys not to blame people or things for their struggles. I want them to recognize that even if another person sins by tempting them, this does not give them an excuse to sin. It gives them a motivation to sin, but God has given them the power to overcome that sin (1 Corinthians 10:13). I want my boys to believe they can actively engage their own sin and sin in the world and WIN. God’s grace makes it possible!
(8) I will teach my boys that chronic sexual sins—like every other sin—show us our hearts are not satisfied with God. When I read Augustine’s Confessions, it showed me that all sins are a symptom of an unmet need for Jesus Christ. “You made us for yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You,” Augustine says. Nobody can overcome sin unless they know God and love God. Jordan Peterson says the struggle with pornography is almost always existential, not sexual; it’s rooted in a desire for a better life. I think that’s true. I think we gain freedom over particular sins when we find our meaning and joy in God. Brother Lawrence said something like “I don’t worry a great deal about my sins, but I worry a great deal about my relationship with God because a good relationship with God is what keeps me from sinning.” I want my boys to worry a great deal about having a good relationship with God.
(9) I will teach my boys to love other people, even the women who tempt them to sin. I want them to be charitable. I want them to recognize that every person needs Jesus and see other people’s sin as a symptom of an unmet need for Him. If they see a porn star or an Only Fans girl or an immodestly-dressed woman at the beach who tempts them, I want them to look past the immediate temptation and see her full humanity. When we lust for someone, we objectify them. We treat them as an object for our gratification. But often, when we resist lust, we dehumanize the person who tempts us. We get angry at them for tempting us. I don’t want my boys to be motivated by lust or anger. I want my boys to overcome temptations by loving God and loving others.
(10) I will teach my boys to love other people, even the women who tempt them to sin. I want them to recognize that every person needs Jesus and see other people’s sin as a symptom of an unmet need for Him. I don’t want my boys to make the sins they struggle with their identity. I want them to make Jesus their identity, and I think that, when Jesus becomes our identity, we think less about the sins we should avoid and more about the goods we should pursue. The highest goods we can pursue are loving God and loving our neighbors. I want my boys to realize that porn stars and Only Fans girls and immodestly-dressed women are their neighbors and that they are called to resist the temptations these women create WHILE simultaneously loving them.
(11) I will teach my boys that sanctification can be painful in the moment, but it makes you happy in the long run. Jesus calls us to take up our cross, deny ourselves, and follow Him (Matthew 16:24). I don’t want them to think this means living a joyless life, a life of constant denial and frustration because we have to say “no” to what we want (or think we want). I want them to understand the difference between what Lewis Smedes calls the “actual self” and the “true self.” The actual self is our current fallen nature; the true self is who God wants us to be, who we will be when we are sanctified. I want my boys to realize that, when they say “no” to sin, they are “mortifying” (as the Puritans put it) the actual self. But they are giving life to the true self. Killing sin is painful, but eventually it leads to a far greater sense of joy, purpose, and freedom.
(12) I show my boys how much I love their mother and make it clear to them (in appropriate ways) that she and I have a great romance and a great sex life. I want them to see that their dad is happy at home and that they can expect the same joy and contentment in their own marriage. I want them to feel like our home is a feast. If they grow up seeing this feast, they will crave it and try to recreate it in their own marriages.