There’s been an awful lot of publicity and debate this past week about the Fifty Shades of Grey trailer. The story has a polarizing effect, drawing praise or criticism, but rarely anything in between.
I want to do something a little different than what you might expect from a faithful Christian woman writing for the FOCUS blog.
I propose that Fifty Shades of Grey is showing us too little.
St. John Paul II once said, “Pornography isn’t wrong because it shows too much of the human being, but because it shows too little.”
There is a love story that would scandalize even the most ardent Fifty Shades of Grey fans.
But wait, Amanda…is it appropriate that I keep reading?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
You will have to read onward to find out.
The story I am about to tell you is truly a colorful one.
It’s filled with passion, desire, adultery, murder, molestation, abuse, pleasure, greed, envy, power, struggle, theft, pride, incest, prostitution, black mail, backstabbing, lust, and intimacy.
Way more scandalous than some little erotic romance novel filled with BDSM (bondage & discipline, sadism & masochism) practices, right?
You know this story. You probably even have the book… next to your copy of the Fifty Shades Trilogy.
The love story I am talking about is the number one bestseller of all time and has five billion copies circulating out there opposed to Fifty Shades one hundred million.
Are you starting to get what story I am talking about here?
The shocking love story that Fifty Shades of Grey can’t touch is the story that plays out in the Bible. Most people don’t know the overarching story starting in Genesis through Revelation, let alone that it’s really one giant love story.
Who’s the love story about?
God and you.
WHAT? I am part of the story being told in the Bible?
Yes. You are.
The pages of Genesis begin this love story. You know it better than you think you do. God creates everything and then calls it good. Then He created Adam and Eve and calls it very good. Then they eat of the one tree they weren’t supposed to eat from, sin enters the picture, and their perception of right from wrong becomes twisted.
From that very moment, God begins to set the stage for a Savior to redeem Adam and Eve (including you and I) from sin and set us free for all eternity.
All that scandal I referenced above? It plays out book after book throughout the Old Testament. Don’t believe me? Spend an afternoon reading some of these:
- Genesis 4:1-16 murder
- 2 Samuel 11:1-21 adultery and murder
- Joshua 2:1-15 prostitution 1 Kings 21:1-19 murder and theft
- Daniel 13:1-64 attempted rape and lying
- Mark 6:17-29 murder and lust
Reading through the Bible will truly make your jaw drop. All these sketchy characters and their questionable behavior leads up to the most scandalous act in all of human history.
God became man in the person of Jesus Christ. He lived amongst us while we were still sinners and chose to die for us. Every single one of us. He died the most humiliating and painful death for those who loved him, hated him, or were indifferent to him…that they all might have a chance to be eternally saved from death.
Truly a scandal.
A story that Fifty Shades can’t hold a candle to. Compare them:
Fifty Shades of Grey is a love story centered on a twisted and contracted BDSM sexual relationship.
The Gospel is a love story centered on a God who wouldn’t give up pursuing us. He loved us so intensely that he set the stage for the most dramatic story ever to unfold, shady characters and all, so that in the perfect time he would come in and save the day. Jesus became man, lived, died, and rose again so that he could literally spend eternity with us.
That’s a love story worth telling, reading about, and watching on the Big Screen.
I dare anyone who is going to see Fifty Shades of Grey to watch The Passion of The Christ first…then tell me about which love story moved you more: The fantasy BDSM man, Christian Grey, and his sexual contract with a girl named Ana? Or the real God of the Universe hanging on the cross for all humanity?
St. John Paul II was right. Like it or not, Fifty Shades of Grey is literary pornography and it shows far too little. Its plot boils down to a weird sexual relationship of two individuals. All we really get to know are their carnal desires as if sex is all that matters in their growing relationship.
How many more times can that story be told? Seriously.
The Gospel, though?
Finally a story that shows all. It’s a story that shows our worth, dignity, and redemption in spite of the ways we’ve rejected God. Pretty awesome.
That’s a story that will impact the past, present, and future while Fifty Shades collects dust and lies forgotten a hundred years from now.
It’s truly a story Fifty Shades of Grey can’t touch.
