Why are celebrities dressing in immoral ways?

This Associated Press headline is intended to make us click on the story: “They were there, but barely: Celebs embrace naked fashion trend at Oscar after-parties.” (I won’t link to the article lest I expose you to the images I’m sure it contains.)

The Academy Awards themselves “featured” numerous celebrities dressed in similar fashion. This trend at award shows has been going on for years and was especially in the news when Bianca Censori appeared at the Grammy Awards in an entirely see-through dress.

Pornography in popular culture

This issue is not confined to celebrity appearances at award shows. For example, my wife and I were watching a very popular primetime television show this week; in one scene, a couple was obviously going to have sex on her desk before a phone call interrupted them. Such immorality is more common than ever on television programming my grandchildren could be watching. Not to mention what is shown on subscription television shows.

And of course, there are the movies. The Academy Award for Best Picture this year went to a film that displayed explicit and gratuitous nudity while normalizing prostitution as “sex work.” In fact, the Wall Street Journal called it the “most sexually explicit film ever to win best picture.”

Several other nominated films were similarly immoral. One popular movie this year told the story of a sexual affair between an older woman and her younger colleague, showing scenes that were especially explicit. (I know all of this only from news coverage since I cannot in good conscience see any movie that includes nudity.)

In addition, recent years have seen a marked increase in “mainstream” online media images that are highly suggestive. Some outlets do this so commonly that I will no longer even go to their home pages.

And artificial intelligence is being used to fabricate nude images of celebrities and even young girls. In response, First Lady Melania Trump lobbied on Capitol Hill this week for a bill that would make it a federal crime to post intimate imagery online, whether real or fake. She said it was “heartbreaking” to see what teenagers, and especially girls, go through when they are victimized by people who post such content.

What happened to movie morality codes?

In the 1930s, the so-called “Hays Code” was enacted to promote morality in motion pictures. In 1968, this code was replaced with a system that led to “G,” “PG,” “R,” and “X” ratings. In 1984, “PG-13” was introduced; in 1990, “NC-17” replaced “X.”

The 1968 revision was a reflection in large part of the so-called sexual revolution that had been sweeping the culture for years:

• In 1953, Hugh Hefner began publishing Playboy magazine.
• In 1960, the first birth control pill was approved by the FDA. For the first time, couples could have sex without worrying about an unwanted pregnancy.
• In 1962, Helen Gurley Brown’s book Sex and the Single Girl encouraged single women to be sexually active.
• In 1963, Betty Friedan’s book The Feminine Mystique argued that women are victims of a false belief system requiring them to find meaning and identity through their husbands and children.
• The 1960s saw a rising anti-war movement promoting rock music, the use of drugs, public displays of nudity, and complete freedom of sexual activity. “Make love, not war” became the slogan of the era. This movement influenced college campuses; by the end of the decade, many permitted coed dorms.

Court rulings reflected this trend:

• In 1957’s Butler v. Michigan, the Supreme Court rejected the principle that adult material must be restricted because it might harm minors.
• In 1964’s Jacobellis v. Ohio, the court struck down “community standards” for pornography, ruling that such decisions must be national rather than local.
• In 1969’s Stanley v. Georgia, the court found that a state cannot prohibit citizens from possessing obscene material for personal use.

Today it is hard to point to any objective standards by which to protect our children and ourselves from pornographic images online or in television shows or movies. Movie ratings have become largely ineffective: PG movies regularly feature and normalize premarital sex, adultery, and LGBTQ sexual relationships; PG-13 movies often show nudity (Titanic was among the first notable examples and it has only become more common since then), while primetime programming often features shows and commercials our parents would have (rightly) considered obscene.

What, then, are we to do?

“Fences” for our eyes and hearts

If our broken, post-Christian culture will not regulate itself (and it will not), we must do the job ourselves. Let’s consider the negative and then the positive consequences of that reality.

Ancient Judaism constructed what became known as “fences” around the Torah designed to protect the commandments of the Law. These were prohibitions that would keep a person from breaking an actual law. For example, the rabbis came to forbid holding a tool on the Sabbath, lest we forget and use the tool, thereby working on the Sabbath.

Such traditions can obviously become legalistic in harmful and even destructive ways. But they can also help us make small decisions that lead to big victories.

For example, the Seventh Commandment forbids adultery (Exodus 20:14), defined as a sexual relationship outside marriage. But Jesus created a “fence” around it with his warning, “Everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). And James expounded on Jesus’ teaching: “Each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death” (James 1:14–15).

In this spirit, Job testified, “I have made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I gaze at a virgin?” (Job 31:1). Gaze translates the Hebrew meaning “to consider, pay attention to, focus upon.” It is to be distinguished from a different word for “glance” or “see quickly.” Job’s point is that his “covenant with his eyes” forbade him not from noticing a “virgin” but from focusing on her in a sexual or lustful way.

To make such a “covenant” ourselves, we can:

• Decide now that we want to “flee from sexual immorality” (1 Corinthians 6:18).
• Ask the Spirit every day to control and empower us to be holy (Ephesians 5:18).
• Pray when we face temptation, claiming God’s promise that “with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape” (1 Corinthians 10:13).
• Develop relationships with those who will hold us accountable for personal morality (Proverbs 27:17; 1 Thessalonians 5:11; James 5:16).
• Consider software and other tools that will help to shield us from unwanted images and content.
• If we fall, confess our sin immediately and seek God’s forgiving grace (1 John 1:9).

“In Christ, I am already victorious”

Let’s close with some positive responses to the plague of pornography engulfing popular culture.

A group of my pastor friends gathered some years ago to discuss ways we could help our members deal with the epidemic of pornography in our culture. Several suggestions were made. Then one said something I’ve not forgotten: “The key is helping them love Jesus. The more they love the Lord, the more they will hate what he hates.”

How can we “love the Lord” this much?

One: Stay in the Spirit.

Paul promised us: “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16). This means to begin every day by surrendering that day to the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18), then stay connected with the Spirit as we pray, think biblically, and act redemptively.

Two: Live holistically.

Our culture separates the spiritual from the secular and religion from the “real world.” One result is a compartmentalization of “private” and “public” sin with the promise that the former will not inevitably become the latter. But this is a lie. Sin will always take us further than we want to go, keep us longer than we want to stay, and cost us more than we want to pay.

As a result, we are instructed: “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). So ask of every image and thought, Will this glorify God? Then “take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5).

Three: Redeem temptation.

Erasmus said the devil hates nothing so much as for his evil to be used for good. We can make Satan hate our response to sexual temptation in several ways:

• Identify the temptation and immediately turn it over to God with intentionality. Say something like, “Lord, I am being tempted right now to . . .” Use temptation as a catalyst for communion with your Father.
• Pray for the person being used by Satan to tempt you. If they are an actor, actress, or model, intercede for them to leave the sinful industry in which they are engaged for something wholesome and positive. Imagine them as the child of God living for his glory. Give them to the Lord, asking his best for them.
• Look for ways to use your victory over temptation to strengthen and encourage others, paying forward the grace you have received. Remember that God “comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God” (2 Corinthians 1:4). Wounded healers can be the most effective healers.

The key is to experience the living Lord Jesus every day. Then his Spirit conforms us to the character of our Lord (Romans 8:29) and we can say, “This is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith” (1 John 5:4).

Watchman Nee testified:

Outside of Christ, I am only a sinner, but in Christ, I am saved. Outside of Christ, I am empty; in Christ, I am full. Outside of Christ, I am weak; in Christ, I am strong. Outside of Christ, I cannot; in Christ, I am more than able. Outside of Christ, I have been defeated; in Christ, I am already victorious. How meaningful are the words, “in Christ.”

Are you “in Christ” right now?