The strength of Ray Ortlund Jr.’s ministry is his warm fatherly tone and his persistent orientation towards spiritual vitality through moment-by-moment dependence on Christ. I’ve always appreciated these aspects of his writing and speaking.
This new book leans in on these strengths and applies them to the scourge of porn. The warm tone is communicated through conversational-style letters that he is writing to the reader – each chapter being one such letter. He begins with a chapter I’d characterize as a warm hug, following it up with something more like a kick in the head. When it comes to this topic, men often need both.
This results in a particular mix of ‘building-up words’ with ‘convicting words’ – and the balance between these two is something that is hard to get right. In fact, I think that probably each individual case requires a certain balance that takes into account the particulars of the case. One could imagine a certain man who needs more hugs than kicks, and other cases where the opposite is true. This is perhaps an inherent drawback to generalized writing on the subject. I wonder if the book would have been stronger if the letters had not been addressed to the unknown reader but to a particular person, real or not. The specificity of the situation can sometimes help make the advice more generally applicable rather than less, odd as that sounds. I think for example of Lewis’s ‘Letters to Malcolm’, Newton’s letters to Ryland Jr., or Jack Miller’s collected letters in that excellent book, ‘The Heart of a Servant Leader’.
There were times however when the author’s attempt to build up the reader felt forced or trite to me. For example, phrases like God “is so proud of you” and “You are impressive. You just are.” feel empty and a bit emotionally manipulative to me (pages 74, 75). I get what he’s trying to do, but since I know he doesn’t know me personally, I also know those statements are not based on anything true about me specifically. So the end result for me is the nagging sense that the author is not being all that careful about his words. If he can affirm something about me (I’m impressive!) that he really has no way of knowing, then what else in here is not based on solid truth?
Given my high esteem for Ray Ortlund these things did not bother me too much but they may be a hindrance to other readers.
I was surprised that a significant portion of the book was aimed at getting men who have broken free from porn’s grip to advocate and work for the destruction of the pornography industry. This indicates the that book’s title, The Death of Porn, is meant to signify not only the death of its influence on individual lives but the death of it as a pervasive industry. I wholeheartedly agree with that aim, and was gratified to see the author write the following: “Lobby your political leaders at all levels to investigate, expose, regulate, and limit the porn industry, as much as freedom of expression allows. How can our society tolerate revenge porn, rape porn, child porn? All of it is on the web. What else are laws for, if not for diminishing and punishing such brutality? Politics is not the highest form of power, but it is far from nothing” (page 109).
I’m not unaware that in recent years the fracturing of Evangelicalism has led to a renewed tribalism, and that Ortlund has aligned himself at times with figures whose influence on Evangelicalism is controversial, such as Russell Moore and Thabiti Anyabwile. In terms of my own political leanings and cultural analysis, I wouldn’t be at home in that camp so much as elsewhere, and I share the concerns that these figures have shown a certain drift in their theological and cultural trajectory. Unfortunately these realities are inescapable and they can’t help but color somewhat the way in which I read this material, and I know I’m far from alone in that. But more unfortunate would be to join those who are too quick to excise the authors and leaders who stray ever so slightly off the course they are convinced is the correct one. Self-doubt (I won’t venture to call it humility) and a commitment to catholicity make me unable to embrace that approach.
Better to keep reading outside whatever tribe we find ourselves most at home in, and considering with generosity of spirit what benefit can be gleaned from their teaching. God is not so foolish as to pour all his blessings into a tiny group of fallible humans, but scatters insight and grace and spiritual power according to his good pleasure.
To return to the book itself, I found it edifying and enjoyable. I think it will help many men (and women). I am convinced that pornography, and the sexual revolution as a whole, has been an unmitigated disaster not only for the church but society as a whole. Thus far we are only dimly aware of the damage it has wrought. The church should be at the forefront of recovering a thoroughly Scriptural understanding and practice of sexuality as God designed it. This begins, but does not end, with an all-out assault on the pernicious poison of pornography within the church.
Phil's Scribblings 