Earlier this month the U.K. press hailed as a scientific discovery that if you feed a youngsters brain with porn they will develop a sensitive area which will “light up” to such stimuli. Dr Valerie Voon, a neuroscientist at Cambridge University and a global authority on addiction, expressed astonishment as the results were similar to those hooked on drugs or drink. This led to the conclusion, “If porn does have the insidious power to be addictive, then letting our children consume it freely via the internet is like leaving heroin lying around the house, or handing out vodka at the school gates.”

Because both the viewing of this stuff and the sensitising of the brain is unseen by parents and friends it is not easily detected.

There is also the fallacy that “it’s all part of growing up”. A girl added, ‘On Facebook, you just scroll down and it’s there. If any of your friends like it, it comes up on your home page.’ The same could be said of Utube.

Another fallacy is that these things happen to other people not me or mine!

We are all involved. The fear of being found out curtails speaking about it. The U.K Prime Minister recently said it was ‘corroding childhood’. I would add it is laying the foundation for a lifelong struggle with addiction which many find impossible to break.

A third fallacy is `you are not harming anyone but yourself`. Sexually explicit material colonises the mind, produces a secretive behaviour and distances the addict from normal relationships. Unless it is acknowledged like other addictions the person lives in denial and acquires a dysfunctional identity that blights family and other relationships.

In the battle for a clean mind we are all involved – the question is which side are you on? Watching salacious material or cutting it out?

Can the Bible help?

Jesus was for cutting it out – actually cutting it off, eye plucked out and hand cut off (St Matthew Chapter 18 verses 1/9). In other words, not mutilation, (you would continue to sin with the other eye) but a separation from the problem even if it is as painful as the loss of an eye.

In Romans Chapter 1 verses 21/32 St Paul spells out how God exercises judgement over evil today. It’s not the shaking of the earth variety but three times in the passage we read “God gave them over”. Judgement in this day and age is – you choose to disobey me by the way you live then I will give you more of the evil you have chosen.

Elsewhere, St Paul emphasises that he is writing with the authority of the Lord Jesus, “For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor” (1 Thessalonians Chapter 4 verses 2/4).

St John in his first letter recognises the need to turn from the things we hide, to the light of Bible truth. “If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.”

Faith in his atoning death makes us pure in God’s sight and restores fellowship with Him and with one another.

The US of A that bastion of democracy has been stumbling to an almost ungovernable state for the last couple of weeks. Fortunately after 16 days of shutdown and just before the money ran out, normal service was resumed – at least till next year when it could all happen again.

In good government the powers that be carry the can. In this case they simply kicked the can down the road! The Republican majority House of Representatives dislike of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare for short), although it is already passed into law, have attempted to prevent its expansion by refusing to release the cash necessary to run the country.

What have the two things to do with each other you may ask? Nothing! It is simply horse-trading in an effort to get their way.

The dislike for Obamacare, which provides a modicum of health care for the poor (there are 40 million uninsured in the US), has been expressed by the outspoken Republican from Texas as being a hammock for the poor rather than a safety net! Some hammock as the benefits are paltry! However the money has to come from somewhere and this might provide a clue to explain some of the Republicans resistance to this welfare scheme. By and large it is they who control the wealth.

On the lighter side I got this Royal comment from the US.

The vagaries of human nature have not escaped the Bible. Whether it be Judas’s double dealing or Peter’s denial the charge of being guilty of feathering our own nest can be laid at our door. Usually the weakest suffer and inevitably the poor get trampled the most in the wealth stakes.

We need to join the Republicans in repentance and turn to Jesus who alone has carried the can* at the cross for that forgiveness which can enable us to freely serve others as we ought.

* “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.” (Isaiah Chapter 53 Verse 5)

The Testament of Mary Word on the Week 12^th October 2013.

With the Man Booker Prize for literature coming for grabs next week it is hard for fellow authors to resist the temptation to pick the winner. That the lot has, for at least one scribe, fallen on Colm Toíbín’s novella “The Testament of Mary” was to be expected. The Blessed Virgin is such a compelling subject that she attracts authors and playwrights like iron filings to a magnet.

Part of the attraction lies in the paucity of Scripture references enabling the imagination to engage in some creative constructions of her life and ministry. Colm Toíbín has sought to explore what was in Mary’s heart, as she is questioned by two evangelists, some 20 years after the resurrection. Her memories are at odds with their account and she wonders if multiple re-telling of the Gospel story may have resulted in some exaggerations.

Her tender anguish at the cross with her final surrender to its work plumbs the depth of her suffering which remains fresh in her mind throughout the years.

In an attempt at a corrective to the passive-submissive portrayal of Mary Toíbín has her flee from the cross. She does this because she feels unable to do anything and, rather improbably, because she wishes to save her own life.

In his attempt to rescue Mary from the image of the stone statue and give her a “real” life Toíbín takes her out of range of Biblical data by imagining the scene 20 years on. This interesting device would have worked better if he had built on the Biblical accounts rather than deconstruct them.

For example far from running away from the crucifixion Mary is to be found with her family and the disciples in prayer at Pentecost. St Luke records the scene in Acts Chapter 1 verse 13/4 “They went up to the upper room, where they were staying, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James. All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers”.

It may well be that in order to combat the overwhelming sorrow produced by contemplating the wounds of Christ some have focussed on the sinbearing (and therefore unseen) work of Christ. The descriptive language used often lacks passion.

When a person sees their sins laid on Christ and trusts that they are forgiven the expression “personal relationship with Christ” is sometimes employed to describe their new standing. Although this captures the truth for the believer can seem a rather formal way to present the struggle and inner turmoil that is the battle of faith wrestling with disobedient flesh. Perhaps we need to share some of the intensity of feelings that were experienced by Mary as she felt the sword in her own soul (St Luke Chapter 2 verse 35). The truth should never be sanitised to suit society!

It was the only way the Government could “do” the Lotto – flog it! The windfall profits exceeded the anticipated price by one third producing a total of €405,000,000! The deal with the conglomerate Premier Lotteries Ireland permits ongoing State involvement via the Post Office which continues as one of the partners.

So the country has its cake and eats it – or at least part of it in the years to the expiry of the licence.

Resulting from the relaxing of the Gambling Laws, on-line betting will become more popular and with the involvement of the UK operator “Camelot” who gets 15% of its income from this quarter, we should anticipate a similar increase here. In fact it may be more as we are reputed to spend more that most of our European neighbours on the Lotto and should rise to this challenge.

Of course it is all for a good cause. Lottery funds have flowed into many parishes to assist in creating sports grounds etc and half the sale income will go towards the construction of the National Children’s Hospital.

In the 26 years of its existence it has become embedded in the national psyche. It forms the wistful thinking of the young and the dreams of the unemployed. It has been described by sceptics as stealing by mutual consent. Economists call it a tax on the poor as it is most popular with those who can least afford it.

It is quite remarkable how betting on a random sequence of numbers can produce such wealth. It would have been the envy of our forefathers in their backbreaking toil, to obtain income without work!

Of course it is all an illusion! The only real winners are the promoters who cannot lose. The few who get something back have to be balanced against the multitudes that have got nothing.

What about the gambling in the Bible?

The soldiers at the foot of the cross played dice for Jesus’ clothes (St Matthew Chapter 27 verse 35). This was predicted 1000 years earlier and it happened (Psalm 22 verse 18). But what about the roll of the dice – does not the Bible acknowledge pure chance there? Wrong – the Bible says that we may throw the dice but its every decision is from God (Proverbs Chapter 16 verse 33).

The Bible charts a new way of looking at things in relation to God. But first the blindfold has to be removed in order to see that it is God’s world, “the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Corinthians Chapter 4 verse 4).

The faith to see comes from God and leads the one who receives it to Christ. As the poet has said;

“Upon a life I did not live, upon a death I did not die;

Another’s life, another’s death, I stake my whole eternity.”

And that’s the only stake you should ever make!