The Christian doctrine of human depravity teaches that all of us are sinners. We don’t become sinners. We are sinners. We are born into sin. It is our nature.
As a pure-bred sinner each of us have the potential to do the most heinous of sins. Even after we have put our faith and trust in Jesus we still have the potential to do awful, terrible sins. The daily news reminds us of murderous preachers, sodomizing priests, and thieving deacons.
Yes, there is still a lot of sin in the church BUT imagine how bad it COULD be without Jesus. While Jesus saves people from the spiritual penalty of sin it seems that eradicating the sin nature is not part of the salvation deal. Christians sin with the best of us.
Preachers spend a lot of time preaching about sin. The blood-washed band is warned of the dangers of playing around with the fire of sin. You will get burned. Many a preacher has said “Sin will take you farther than you want to go and cost you more than you are willing to pay.”
Preachers stress the danger of the slippery slope. A little sin will turn into a big sin. Eating one grape will just whet your taste for more. Who can stop at just one grape? Before you know it you will have eaten the whole bunch. Who can eat just one Oreo? One Pringle?
According to the preachers, God considers every sin the same. There are NO small sins with God. They do warn that, while every sin is the same in the eyes of God, some sins have greater consequences.
There is a special class of sins that preachers focus on above all others. Sexual sins. Adultery. Fornication. Homosexuality. The Big Three of preaching on sexual sin. Adultery is married sex sins. Fornication is unmarried sex sins. Homosexuality is married/unmarried same-sex sex sins.
Sexual sins are bad, I mean real bad.
Why? The slippery slope.
Having sex is like going to the Dairy Queen for a milkshake. Once you have had a Dairy Queen milkshake every time you pass a Dairy Queen you’ll want to stop and have a milkshake. (actual sermon illustration)
Men in particular are prone to sexual sin. If you listen to the preachers long enough you’ll be convinced of one thing: men are so weak that they fall into sexual sin at the slightest temptation. In fact Christian women are often berated for not being modest in their dress thereby causing their brother to sin.
Years ago a Church member was arrested for molesting his teenage stepdaughter. He told me “I couldn’t help myself.” I said “Yes you could. That’s what God gave you hands for. Use them.”
Christian men are often given a free pass on sexual sins. If the world didn’t tempt them, if TV didn’t tempt them, if worldly women didn’t tempt them, if immodest Christian women didn’t tempt them…well they would never commit a sexual sin.
It seems that Christian men are especially prone to slip sliding their way down the slippery slope. Even Jesus said that if a man looks at a woman with lust he has committed adultery already with her in his heart.
It all starts so innocently. Perhaps looking at the lingerie ads in the catalog. Next thing you know you find scantily clad women on TV shows enticing. Before you know it you are watching movies with nudity in them.
Before long you’ll get tired of R rated movies and you’ll move on to NC-17 or X-rated movies.
Then one day you’ll wake up and find your life is consumed with surfing porn sites on the internet. You’ll intimately know how to use the private browsing feature of your internet browser.
Then it happens. You cross the line from digital flesh to real flesh. You commit a real, flesh and blood sexual sin.
You are now an adulterer, a fornicator, or a homosexual.
But it doesn’t stop there. The slippery slope causes you to slide ever so quickly, doing more terrible sins as you slide along. One day, to your horror, you will have become a member of Congress. 
The slippery slope is used to put fear into the hearts of conscientious Christian men. Fear the slope. Fear the “nice ass” look for tomorrow you will be an adulterous, porn addicted man. Many a man is afraid of their sexuality as a result of such preaching.
Al Mohler, a Southern Baptist preacher and theologian writes:
“The simplest explanation for why men view pornography (or solicit prostitutes) is that they are driven to seek out sexual intimacy,” he explains. The urge for sexual intimacy is God-given and essential to the male, he acknowledges, but it is easily misdirected. Men are tempted to seek “a shortcut to sexual pleasure via pornography” and now find this shortcut easily accessed.
In a fallen world, pornography becomes more than a distraction and a distortion of God’s intention for human sexuality. It comes as an addictive poison…
And then, enough is never enough. “If I take the same dose of a drug over and over and my body begins to tolerate it, I will need to take a higher dose of the drug in order for it to have the same effect that it did with a lower dose the first time,” Struthers reminds us. So, the experience of viewing pornography and acting out on it creates a demand in the brain for more and more, just to achieve the same level of pleasure in the brain.
There ya have it. Men seek out porn because they are looking for sexual intimacy and porn leads you down that slippery slope to destruction.
Granted human beings have the capacity to be addicted to most anything. I love Goetz caramel creams. I can eat an entire bag of them. I love them. I want them. I lust after them. And one will never satisfy me.
Back to porn.
Maybe I am different from other men. Porn doesn’t do much for me. Oh, at first, it was exciting. The whole forbidden fruit thing. (I missed out on the whole Playboy phase growing up) But, after awhile it lost its thrill value. (so much for the slippery slope) After all, you’ve seen one boob you’ve seen them all. I don’t have any desire to become a rampaging adulterer. The women in the community I live in are safe. They need not fear that I am lurking in the bushes waiting to have sex with them.
Preachers do a great injustice to men by telling them they are poor, helpless creatures lacking any sexual self-control. Instead of learning about respect and self-control they are taught to fear the slippery slope.
It should come as no surprise that the rate of sexual sin within the Christian Church mirrors the world.
It’s time for Christian men to grow up. Stop fearing the naked body. Stop thinking you are an adulterer in training. Be prudent. Be disciplined. Be self-controlled.
As an agnostic I no longer concern myself with the sexual rules of Christianity. I am governed by love of my wife and family. How will doing _____________affect my marriage is the question I must consider. Will watching porn have a negative effect on my marriage? Maybe, probably not. Will subscribing to Playboy (for the articles) hurt my marriage? Probably not. Will having an adulterous affair with my neighbor cause harm to my marriage. Most certainly.
Above all I want to live a life sexually that is healthy, honoring to the body, and honoring to my marriage.
I don’t need a preacher to tell me what is right.
Someone might ask “If you are not a Christian why do concern yourself with the Christian teaching on sexuality?”
This is an important matter because the Christian teaching on sexuality dominates our culture.
It affects all of us.
The Christian teaching on sexuality works its way into our laws, our schools, and our homes.
It matters…
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