Anyone who buys the “Fifty Shades of Gray” books or goes to see the movie owes Ray Rice an apology.
You’ll have to forgive me. I don’t usually go on rants but I’m going to make a rant exception.
What’s up? On one hand media moguls pile on people like Ray Rice for beating their girl friends. Don’t get me wrong. Someone needs to pile on men like this. Maybe worse.
But, these same media moguls offer us the saga of a man who emotionally and spiritually dominates and abuses an innocent young lady. And everyone runs out to buy it or see it.
And we kind of know it’s wrong, but “it’s innocent you see.”
Yeah, it’s the emotional/spiritual equivalent of hitting your girlfriend in an elevator.
In our society we say, “Ray Rice” and everyone bares their teeth. We say, “Fifty Shades of Gray,” and everyone giggles naughtily like a little one who has swiped cookies before lunch.
Let me ask you a question. What would you do if you knew someone was treating your daughter like that? Or your future wife?
“It’s just a story,” you say. “It doesn’t do any harm.”
Your argument, then, is that what we see and what we hear doesn’t influence us to do the same things? So why do media moguls shell out millions to buy a few seconds of sight and sound on Super Bowl Sunday?
Have you looked at some of the fashions à la mode recently? Do you think anyone normal would have the idea to dress like that? (I can’t criticize. I was a teenager in the 1960’s. There was some pretty weird stuff there).
As a culture we want to have our cake and eat it too. We heap scorn on individual cases that we think devalue women or other categories of people. We feel really good about being better than those bigots.
Then we pay to go see jerks do the same thing or worse. Talk about disrespecting women and using them as objects for our own pleasure! Fifty Shades…monkey see, monkey do!
Unfortunately, there are repercussions to what we see. We are changed. Pornography is so widespread now that it is bound to change us. The sexual acts depicted causes us to think of others simply as ways to please ourselves, and we drop deeper and deeper into our isolated little world.
We are the star and everyone else performs for us.
It doesn’t surprise me that people who don’t know the Lord Jesus might be fooled by these hypocritical lies, but let’s make sure we don’t believe it.
Our culture is being changed and the wounded people who suffer these spiritual terrorist explosions will need help.
Let’s keep our heart full of the Lord and desire to obey Him with all our heart. Only then can we help those who are buying into today’s “Fifty Shades of Lies.”
Rant over.
Photo: Flickr creative commons, Karen Roe Eye