Jonathan Field

Free Porn With Your MetCard

I live in Melbourne, but it was ages since I last went into the CBD. Probably over a year. So I was surprised, shocked, and offended to discover that there are now women walking around in nothing but bras.

I was standing on Collins Street yesterday waiting for a tram when suddenly three women boldly flaunted their goods before me. Fortunately, at that moment my tram arrived and I stepped on board, away from the insult. Only to discover another seven women inside, dressed in white bras and panties. Barefoot even! (Could have been bikinis - hard to tell the difference these days.)

The first three women stayed outside but followed the tram, parading themselves eleven kilometres all the way back to West Preston. The same three women, at the same time, were doubtless plastered to other trams, parading themselves through other suburbs, too. And the seven women inside? I recognised them. I'd seen them somewhere before (can't place where), and no doubt they too were present simultaneously on board other trams, plastered just above eye level, inviting the world to study them.

What has the world come to?

I remember as a twelve year old (or thereabouts), writing that, if present trends in advertising continued, we'd soon enough be seeing billboards of women wearing nothing but underwear. A year or two ago, I saw my prophecy come true. Now, such sexvertising is so prevalent, it's hard to find somewhere it isn't.

What a crazy world, where a religious or sexual discrimination lawsuit can be filed just on the basis of one party allegedly being "offended", yet daily thousands and tens of thousands of men and women who do not want to see this kind of sexual stimulation shoved in their faces and are definitely offended by it, have no recourse.

Minorities rule. Majorities lose.

But if you asked the average Joe Blow Christian like me, what we should do about this offensive material, I doubt you'll find consensus.

For starters, most Christians have not moved beyond their own offense or reluctant tolerance to consider the deeper issues involved.

Example : Women's underwear is a legitimate business sector, right?

If so, surely they have the right to advertise, yes? So here's the question : What are Biblical boundaries that govern underwear advertising? Bet you've never thought about that one! But I'm deadly serious. Sure, you can write to a million underwear manufacturers and advertisers and tell them not to advertise the way they do, but if the managing director wrote back, thanked you for your time, and asked you how they should advertise instead of what they're currently doing, would you have an answer?

Interestingly, public nudity in Bible times was considered shameful, a disgrace, and a sign of punishment on an individual. Public nudity was seen as a consequence of sin. But - and here I expect a bucket load of hate mail - I think you're facing a tough up-hill battle to try and prove that Scripture calls public nudity itself sinful. And underwear ads, no matter how offensive, indisputably fall short of nudity. That's not to say this advertising is right or appropriate, but it is to say that it won't be as clear-cut as many other issues are.

But then, that's the way Jesus is when it comes to questionable matters. He goes straight to the heart. "If you just so much as look on a woman to lust after her, you've as good as committed adultery with her already in your heart." Ouch. Attitudes and motives are at least as consequential as the actions themselves. So we can raise a battery of legislation to spell out the exact rules by which advertisements may be judged, but as long as the hearts of men have evil in them, sin will still occur.

Is this a reason to not legislate?

It's a reason to not see legislation as a total solution.

But legislation is part of the answer.

Do you want your sons and daughters exposed to this daily in their tender teenage years?

Then something must be done about it.

Do you want your daughter, with enough self-image issues already, daily forced to see other 'perfect' bodies which only help her feel more uncomfortable with herself?

Do you want your sons, already facing a battery of sexual temptations, faced now twice a day, once on their way to school, and once on the way home, with an advertisement of just how nice a female body can look?

Don't I have a right to marry a girl without having seen a hundred others before her dressed enticingly? Doesn't she have a right to rejoice in my affection without fearing she's not as good-looking as the girls whose bodies have accompanied me every time I've travelled anywhere in our sexualised city?

As men, our calling is to remain pure in mind regardless the sexual bombardment around us. Unfortunately, many of us are stuck in that battle. Our sights are too low. "Personal sexual purity" is a great aim, but it should be a stepping stone to something bigger than us and beyond ourselves. Personal sexual purity should be the status quo of believing men. And it is for some. But if our ambition is to remain pure while the world goes to pot around us, how are we better than righteous Lot, vexed daily with the slew of filth around him, yet without stemming the decline for so much as a fraction of a second. Sure, Lot was saved out of the cities that were destroyed. But the cities, and Lot's possessions, and everything Lot knew and cared for was destroyed. Friends, that's where our cities are headed, at a rapid rate. And we sit back, proud of ourselves if we've managed to at least stay pure ourselves. Where is our outreach, our impact on this society to stem, and if at all possible, reverse it's descent?

Legislation is part of the picture. Grass-roots revival is the other part. We need God to re-awaken the consciences of men and women across this nation. We need people to flood back to God.

Did you know that, if legislation is not put it in place, you could have 99% of the nation committed Christians, and the 1% could still flood the marketplace with sexualised imagery. Legislation by itself is not enough, but neither is revival by itself.

There is little New Testament precedent for praying for revival. Jesus certainly never told us to. But He did tell us to pray that God will send labourers into the harvest. "How shall they hear", asks Paul, "unless one is sent?". God, send labourers! But the same One who told us to pray God send labourers, told us also to go.
Are we meant to be the answer to our own prayers for national revival? I think so.

Now let's get ultra-practical. Gather ten Christian men and women into a room, show them ten different advertising billboards from the last two years, and ask them which ones should be illegal and which ones should be allowed.

I guarantee you'll get at least five different answers!

We all agree things have gone too far, but few of us - if any - know exactly when we 'crossed the line'.

In a sense, we lost the battle years ago when we accepted skimpy 'bikinis' in our advertising, left, right and centre. If I may be cynical for a moment, what is a bikini except a bra and panties without lace? I mean to be offensive. I'm serious. In a very real way, we lost the battle when we let bikinis rule the billboards. I mean, how can you argue that those three women wearing only bras should not be allowed on the streets when, if we simply changed the fabric and called them bikinis instead, we'd say it's OK?

Our problem is that as Christians, we're not thinking about these issues.

We know things have gone too far.

But we're afraid to analyse the issues and come up with detailed, implementable solutions.

Is it possible that most Christian men are ashamed to discuss the issues, because they know their own hearts have hidden lust they seem powerless to conquer? Men whose minds, when you mention an underwear ad, fill with overpowering shame instead of being free to consider God's solutions to today's challenges. You know if it's you. And you need to deal with it. There are men who've walked this road, and become free. Lift your sights from being a Lot to being a nation changer.

For those who aren't trapped in Satan's snare of guilt and shame, have you thought through the question of what legislation should be enacted? It's all very well for a bunch of concerned citizens to stage a protest against the general decline of moral standards in advertising, but if we're not united on a specific moral standard with unambiguous rules as to what is and isn't OK, then we'll be like the band on the sinking Titanic, helping a few feel good for a moment, but the ship will still sink.

To get you started :

1) Should underwear ever be allowed to be advertised on a person, or should it only be allowed on clothes-modelling dummies, or should it only be presented as it comes in the package?

2) Should the standard differ by location? e.g. should designated (and if necessary, licensed) underwear shops be allowed to have the current slew of billboards, but only inside the shop where passersby won't see them unintentionally?

3) What about bikinis?

4) What about ads that portray people as naked, but hide their 'private parts'? (e.g. the Telstra ad from years ago where a bunch of people, supposedly naked, have strategically placed bushes and shrubs around them?)

5) What punishments should be enforceable for breaching these rules?

6) Where are you going to draw the line between a bra/bikini top and the ever-shortening girls T-shirts?

7) If you're not careful, you may successfully remove, for example, bra advertising from public places, but find a slew of singlet advertisements with smiling models instead. Should this be pre-empted at the same time? If so, what is the difference anyway between a normal singlet (nominally underwear) and a 'singlet top'?

These are just to get you started. Can you see that ten different Christians are going to draw ten very different lines in the sand? Can you see that, if we don't discuss these issues and come to a consensus, there will never be a strong and credible Christian position for which we can campaign? Can you see that if we do nothing, our children will probably think it strange to see ads where you can't see almost every square inch of skin on the models, even when the ad is just for toothpaste? (OK, I'm getting a bit melodramatic on that last point, but seriously, where to from here?

If we do nothing, I won't be surprised to see public nudity, including naked people on billboards, come in over the next twenty to thirty years. I teach primary school kids, and it's painfully apparent that they have no moral fibre any more. By the time they fill our legislature, you will be horrified to see what they allow.)

This is not a nice article to satisfy your intellectual appetite for thought-provocation. This is an in-your-face "wake up, Church!" call to action. Yes, the first action I call you to is to think and discuss. But not in the same way you discuss Lord Of The Rings, for the intellectual fun of it. I call you to answer, "How should we as Christians respond to the sexualised advertising prevalent in our day?" and specifically "What legislative boundaries should we as Christians seek for the protection of our children, families, and futures?".

It’s not about basic human kindness

Life in “lucky” Melbourne and a letter from the Salvos gets Jonathan thinking. Is kindness basic? Or can we only find a sound philosophical basis for it when we embrace the Biblical explanation of human origins?

I looked with surprise and curiosity.

The letter was addressed to my mum but had “It’s all about basic human kindness” emblazoned across the face of the envelope.

The Salvos sent it. They’re all about basic human kindness, right? That’s a primitive, right?

An irreducible concept. An axiom. Something requiring no further proof. Long live basic human kindness!

But if it’s so axiomatic, why is it so decidedly lacking? How can high-caste Indians despise and lift no finger to help the impoverished lower classes? How can moslems kill hindus and christians and – gosh! – even other moslems! How can large numbers of tribal folk follow the mutilating practice of so-called “female circumcision”?

How come in the streets of some major cities today, you can be physically assaulted and your purse or bag stolen in broad daylight in front of dozens of witnesses, and no-one does a thing?

I could be forgiven for thinking that basic human kindness is not quite so basic, nor quite as widespread as I might have thought, living my whole life in this ‘lucky’ city of Melbourne. But I suppose I didn’t look hard enough here, either.

It was eerie walking the length of my street for “March Is Red Cross Calling” last month, knocking on every single door along one side of the street, and not getting a single donation. And of course it was here that not a few ethnic rivalries from the far side of the planet have been perpetuated – these guys burning those guys’ churches and those guys burning these guys’ churches in retaliation.

But no, things really are pretty tame here. Just an hour north by plane in Sydney – isn’t that where a bunch of young men (wimps – they don’t deserve the title ‘men’) pack-raped a young woman because their religion said they could! And I haven’t begun to discuss the treatment of slaves and servants (and there are a-plenty of them around today, despite Newton and Lincoln’s best efforts), nor to delve into ghastly times of history like the French Revolution with its outrageous crimes, nor the preceding crimes which ‘triggered’ it.

No, I don’t think I’d be being too pessimistic to say that basic human kindness doesn’t seem so basic after all!

So how can an organisation like the Salvation Army even refer to such a thing? The Salvation Army, we must remember, is not “all about basic human kindness”. It is all about God’s extraordinary love and kindness, shown to and through humans.

This kindness of God is shown to every individual, whether they know it or feel it or not. “He makes His rain to fall on the just and on the unjust.” He gives light each day.

The suffering of many people is terribly great, but that is not because the kindness of God has failed. (For a much fuller treatment of the question of suffering, see the book Walking Through Shadows by Carl Wieland and Ken Ham.) But what has the kindness of God got to do with the kindness of humankind and the Salvos?

In today’s pluralistic society, it is very trendy and acceptable to refer to “basic values” that, in reality, aren’t basic at all.

Take “human kindness”, for example. Some hedonists will be kind to others on the basis of pleasure – they feel best about themselves when they’re kind and helpful to others, and so in the interests of their own greatest enjoyment, they are kind and helpful! Is this acquiescence to a “basic principle” of kindness? Far from it!

The real “basic principle” here isself-interest, and the same hedonist might be best friends with another hedonist who gets his pleasure by hacking young ladies to death. To the hedonist, the basic principle is personal pleasure, and so as long as your hacking of young ladies into pieces doesn’t impinge on my pleasure, I’m quite happy for you to do it.

But let’s face it – the pure hedonist is a minority, so let’s focus for a moment on a larger group in society: the professed atheist. To him, if he believes in kindness at all, it is because “kindness helps ensure the continuation of the species” (a debatable point in several ways, but we’ll leave that aside for now).

To the atheist, there is no “basic principle” of kindness – rather, the basic principle is survival or even dominance, and if kindness helps achieve that end, let it help!1

It is only the Bible believer who truly has a basic principle of kindness. For the Christian, the motto is be kind because God is kind.“God never changes,” cites Christian dogma, and so if we are to be kind because God is kind (and God will never cease being kind) then a principle of kindness permeates every moment of history.

It’s not a question of whether it suits us or makes us feel comfortable, nor is it a matter of assisting the continuance of the human race. And that’s where the other interesting fact about the Salvos and their “basic human kindness” comes in. The Salvos were started by committed Christians.

No, make that very committed Christians. It was in the late 1800s, during a time of major poverty in England, and they set out to bring the Gospel to - and otherwise improve the living conditions of - destitute people in London’s worst districts at the time.

They gave the love and kindness of God because they knew the love and kindness of God…because they had experienced it for themselves. They truly had a principle of human kindness, because it was based on the unchanging character of God, not mere expediency.

Fast-forward 130 years and you could be excused for not knowing that the Salvos is a Christian organisation. Kindness to all began as a moral imperative flowing from the character of God. Now to many it’s just an echo of sentiment that resonates in the heart but can’t be justified in the mind as crass philosophy has replaced the wonderful Truth of God.

Man was made to be like God (albeit much less capable!) and it is no wonder that we instinctively feel that kindness is right, but it is only when we embrace the Biblical explanation of human origins that we can have a sound philosophical basis for kindness.

1 Incidentally, many an ‘atheist’ is far more concerned with their own pleasure than with the long-term viability of the human race, so while they would profess in theory and philosophy that kindness helps the survival of the species, in practice, they would only be kind where it suits them and helps them feel good, or at least, helps them feel less bad (and, believe me, atheists have plenty of reasons to feel bad, and so quite a number do practice kindness to feel better).

Jonathan Field

Where Are All the Men?

Jonathan Field examines what separates the men from the boys: “Only He who invented manhood can tell us with total certainty what it’s all about.”

Where are all the men? Yes, where are all the men? That’s what I began asking myself, oh, I suppose ten years ago.

Where are all the men? No, I don’t just mean a person with a penis who’s life has spanned eighteen years or greater on our globe. A man would be a “father”, not just a “dad”, and the makings of a man can be seen – equally well the absence of the makings of a man – in any male long before they were ‘of age’.

What is manhood? Are we chasing a pipe-dream, like the long-promised but ill-defined “revivals” that were to have swept our nation a hundred times by now? I wonder where are all the men, but what am I even looking for? Who can tell me?

I once met a young lass born on the same day as myself – same day, and same year. With such a precious piece of history in common we spent a good deal of time getting to know each the other. Not timid was I, and having thought much on the topic, when asked by this maiden who was I and what did I do, I replied that I was, simply, a man. I further informed her that it was my opinion that I had been a man since my thirteenth birthday, and that our society encourages men to put off manhood for a good many years beyond the time they ought to have claimed it for themselves. She was clearly amused. But did that matter? I was not a man because she bestowed manhood upon me. It was mine to keep.

I hear it all around now – “We need real men!” they say, and little (and not so little) groups of males spring up here and there to, well, be men, I suppose, or at least, so they intend.

But does anybody really know what they’re looking for? And have they realised that it, “it”, the realisation of manhood, may come at the cost of many long-cherished and comfortable ways of living? “Aha! That’s the answer! Comfort! Bah comfort! The essence of the masculine spirit is wild adventure! Get muddy! Go bush! Be uncomfortable! Let us glory in pain and sweat and scars, for therein our manhood is found!”

Or are we just noisy boys throwing sand to the wind and thinking overly grandly of our estate? We enjoy our time outside, but is that all there is? Manhood is outdoor-ism?

Who can tell us? Where are all the men? What is a man? Who can tell us?

Only He who invented manhood can tell us with total certainty what it’s all about.

Sure, many are convinced they've found the answer, but most are guessing, and any success they seem to have comes from the fact that manhood is so poorly understood that almost any change to the modern western idea is an improvement!!!

At the end of the day, God makes us a man or a woman. The first man epitomises God’s plan for manhood – work, creativity, communication, companionship and replication.

The only way you can stand there and say “I am a man” with full confidence and due humility, at all times and in all circumstances, is to realise that it is God who has made you a man, not your parents in giving you an 18th birthday party, not society nor legislation.

“If God says I am, then I am.” This must become the fullest confidence of a man’s life, or else he will always wonder, “Am I man enough?”.

What is a man? Work – he has responsibilities and he bears them. He’s not found making excuses. And when the work needs to be done he’s not lounging around. Words like disciplined, focused, and diligent come to mind, although each of these is a study in itself (and we hasten to add that only in a fuller study would it be apparent that we are not advocating here a man who is always driven and can never rest!).

He has responsibilities. Where did he get them? Some by birth. Some by choice. But regardless, he lets the full penalty of failure fall on himself, and of course works to ensure that failure of responsibility does not occur. Without the acceptance of responsibility, a male will forever remain a boy, hiding behind a finger of blame or hidden by overly protective parents or friends. In either case, he misses the opportunity to grow. By attempting to remove the possibility of failure, he also removes the possibility of success, and necessarily lives a most unfulfilling existence.

Creativity. Not all men will be singers, dancers, sculptors, painters, or poets, but latent in most men and present in all is a God-given capacity to invent, to conceive of things never hitherto seen. This does not define manhood but is a reality of manhood. Those who accept before God that they are a man ought equally to realise God has given me a capacity to create. Adam in the garden chose – invented – names for many dozens or hundreds of animals. “Made in the image of God” – this means we can choose (hence responsibility) and that we can create.

Communication. Man was not made to be alone. He was not even made to be alone with his wife, well, not forever at least. Man had daily fellowship with God, but even from the first it was intended that he and his wife have children, and more men and women would fill the globe.

Man was designed to communicate with other men – and not just the transaction of business. Communication is not a mere tool for getting one’s way or winning an argument. Communication is designed to fill the soul with relief and comfort and happiness, for all parties involved! A whole book could be filled further on this topic (and many books have been) but suffice to say, one who recognises himself as a man before God should seek to communicate with God, with his wife, but also with other men, even if for no other reason that God has so designed him.

Companionship. And here I speak of that most intimate – or so it should be – companionship of a man with his wife. Again, not a mark of all men. Many men choose to live their days without this, and are equally blessed with those who claim the pleasures of companionship for themselves. Equally blessed, I say, but not identically blessed. One has one blessing, the other has a different blessing, but both, I say, are equally blessed.

This is not merely a blessing of sexual pleasure – those unfortunate souls who have entered marriage thinking it little more than a sex-fest have been quickly disappointed – but a blessing of knowing and being known, in the context of which a sexual relationship is invigorating and fulfilling. Of course this one major topic of marriage is so vast as to have dozens of sub topics, each of which has filled a multitude of books, so I touch no further on it here.

Replication. Without a doubt, the most satisfying thing a man can do is impart something of lasting value to another in a younger generation. He may physically father a child. He may invest his hours and energies in training future men and women. From the beginning man was designed to reproduce physically, and along with that, to reproduce philosophically in the training of children.

I have seen dozens of aged men in my time, and I cannot think of a case where wealth or fame is their motivating force, but I can think of dozens of men who now seek opportunities to pour their knowledge and experience into the younger generations, and find therein greater pleasure than any other thing they have done in their days.

In Lebanon I stayed with a most remarkable man of God, whom I will now simply call Suheil. He epitomised everything a man should be. He is in his late fifties, or maybe even early sixties now. One day he said to me, “Jonathan, how could the apostle Paul say ‘Imitate me in the same way that I imitate Christ’? Why do so many of us live afraid that others might imitate us? As for me, I want to live a life where I can say, ‘Imitate me, even as I imitate Christ’. I don’t believe I’m there yet, but I believe I’m getting close.”

Wow! That was exciting for me, to find a man willing to step up to the plate, to take responsibility for his own life and commit to following God’s ways so closely! To be honest, I thought he was already a pretty good role-model, but he obviously felt his own weaknesses much more than I had been aware.

Notwithstanding, could you invite others to imitate you, or would you be embarrassed?

Every man should be seeking to find God’s answers, God’s ways of doing things, to learn wisdom, to have a life so worth the living that they can happily say “Imitate me” and “Taste and see that the Lord is good”. Let your life show that devotion to God is possible. And let it show that such devotion is desirable. And you may well be surprised at the ways and opportunities you get to help impart that wisdom and depth of experience to others.

So where are all the men? I began asking many years ago, and frankly, back then, I doubted there were many. I knew I was one. And I knew a few others. But masses of folk walk past, engaged solely in the pursuit of their own pleasures, not taking responsibility for anything much. I’d visit churches and feel that the youth there hadn’t even thought about what it is to be a man of God – they were just having a good time and that was the main thing.

But every now and then God would delight me by introducing one man here, another man there. Often country folk would strike me with their sense of personal responsibility, their openness in communication, their resourcefulness (a form of creativity) and their proactivity (another evidence of a well developed sense of personal responsibility). Young Will was one such fellow. And then I began meeting them in the city too.

The brothers Luke and Andrew strike me as examples to this day. And I began to meet more and mounting volumes more of older folk who epitomise the vital qualities of manhood, and are well into that “giving back” portion of their life where they delight to invest in the up and coming generations. Ken Walker, Peter Daniels, and the list really does go on.

And I began to see that God has many men. Perhaps I wasn’t mature enough in myself to identify them in my younger years. Perhaps things have changed over ten years and there are many more men. Or perhaps I just know a lot more people now than I did then! :o)

But when I ask myself today, “Where are all the men?” my mind jumps from example to example, here and there, young and old, throughout the state and around the globe, and I say to myself, “They’re all around!”.

Postscript: So why don’t we see them more?

If there are a lot of men out there – albeit a small minority, yet still large in absolute numbers – then why don’t we see them more involved in the community, in social action, in Christian journalism, etc? But we do! Not that men can relax now – far from it because many more men are needed! As I myself become more heavily involved in these groups, I am pleased to report that any time I set my hand to a task to further God’s kingdom, I find myself squarely shoulder to shoulder with at least two other equally dedicated men of God, often from widely different backgrounds. Working with me, and me with them!

If you want the pleasure of meeting some awesome men of God, throw yourself into Christian service! No, not necessarily full-time! No, no, I didn’t say become a ‘pastor’! I volunteer one day a week, using my skills to further the work of Wycliffe Bible Translators. I teach Christian Religious Education in public schools. I run a business and get to have significant conversations with clients and employees of clients. Many significant spiritual conversations have come about as a result.

You and I are different parts of the Body – don’t expect that we’ll do the same things or put the same amount of time into it – but do start serving – take the first opportunity that arises and commit to it for a while – and you’ll be surprised as you serve what doors will open. Where are all the men? Why don’t you be one yourself – you’ll soon discover more! :o)

Jonathan Field is a child of God and makes money through professional software development. He’d love to hear from you! jonathan@100thousandyouth.com

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