Thinking About Positive Mind Set? 11 Reasons Why It's Time To Stop!

A Conversation With An Instagram Vigilante Trying To Protect Our Public Lands

We’ve all seen it — hell, some of us are guilty of it. We hear word of a beautiful natural phenomenon, like last year’s California Super Bloom, and take to our cars with our cell phones in hand, ready to stomp all over it to get an epic photo so that we can prove how “one with nature” we are. While said photo — assuming it’s lit and edited properly — is sure to garner a lot of likes, it’s often overtly destructive. And if you’re doing it as part of a branded deal for profit, it just might draw the ire of an Instagram account that is steadily gaining in popularity for calling out the harmful ways that opportunistic travelers photobomb our public lands.

The account — @publiclandshateyou — has become a sort of cyber Batman, but instead of busting clowns, the anonymous hero behind the account shines a light on influencers and irresponsible travelers who treat our public lands with disrespect for personal gain and the suspect currency of internet likes. So… clowns of a different ilk, we guess.

Look, we shouldn’t have to tell you that there is a right and wrong way to travel, but in case you’re unaware — there is a right and wrong way to travel! Visiting a public place, following the rules, and respecting the environment as to not degrade the experience for others and damage the surroundings? We’re all for that. Treating a place like your own personal trashcan and playground or acting like you’re above the rules because of your follower count? Not cool. And publiclandshateyou is here to let you know that.

We chatted with the anonymous person behind the account about how we can be better and more responsible travelers, the impact of social media on the travel space, and why his haters are so obsessed with unmasking him. I told him I’d happily refer to him as Batman for the duration of our interview, but he insisted on the more mundane, far less cool moniker “Steve.”

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Public lands are for everyone to enjoy, regardless of skill level. We were ALL beginners at some point. ⁣ ⁣ Historically, many people gained exposure to the outdoors through group hikes organized by local shops, trail clubs, or conservation organizations that were led by knowledgeable leaders. Today, Facebook groups and sites like “Meetup” have put a new age spin on group hikes, allowing anyone to organize an event and invite thousands of people with a few keystrokes.⁣ ⁣ I’ve run across a number of these large groups on hikes, as I know many of you probably have. The organizers of these events likely have the best of intentions, but good intentions do not always equal a positive outcome.⁣ ⁣ Large groups are not inherently bad. The issue arises when these groups exceed group size limits, ignore LNT principles, and disregard basic trail etiquette. These groups are often observed barging past other users, walking side by side on narrow trails to hold conversations, and trampling vegetation at viewpoints to fit a large number of people into pictures.⁣ ⁣ A quick perusal of hiking Meetup groups shows 100's of photos of people in these groups engaging in less than Leave No Trace behavior on group hikes, making it clear that many group leaders are not making a serious effort to educate attendees. ⁣ ⁣ Don’t get me wrong, more people being exposed to and enjoying our public lands is a GOOD thing! Every person who uses and appreciates our public lands is one more person who will understand the value of public lands and work to help protect them. However, if the people participating these group hikes are not getting the information required to be good stewards, the result is counterproductive.⁣ ⁣ Shared space means shared responsibility. All public land users have an obligation to educate themselves and others about how to treat our public lands with respect. Leaders of group hikes, particularly those that are introducing new users, have a further duty to educate about respectful, low impact behavior. Discussing and incorporating the Leave No Trace principles early, often, and consistently while using public lands is an excellent way to convey these critical skills.

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What was the tipping point that caused you to feel like you needed to take matters into your own hands and create this account?

Well, I think it was a build-up, but the final straw was I went for a hike with some friends out in the mountains in Idaho and we just saw one sign of disrespect after another. We saw people shortcutting switchbacks from a trail. We saw campfires that were in no campfire zones. We saw a campfire, in the height of fire season, that hadn’t been properly extinguished, graffiti carved into trees, trash left behind. And on the drive back from that, I was just kind of fuming and stewing about it and said, “Well, I think that a lot of it was due to the exposure of these places on social media.”

In the end, I thought: Why don’t I fight fire with fire? Start a social media account that’s highlighting this and why I personally believe that we’re seeing more and more of this kind of harmful and disrespectful behavior on our public lands.

How big of an impact does doing something like taking photos during a super bloom, for example, have on our public lands?

I think that the biggest impact is that a lot of people don’t understand that they are not the only person that visits these places. The super bloom is a perfect example. One person going and walking off the trail through the super bloom admittedly is not a huge deal on its own. But when that gets compounded by somebody sharing that behavior with 100,000 of their followers on social media, and then even if a 10th of those people show up, now you’d have 10,000 people engaging in that same behavior. And I think that that is really the gist of what gets missed here is that we’re not alone.

We share these public lands and one person doing it, not a big deal, but when everybody is doing it, that’s when it becomes a problem. And the super bloom, honestly, is probably the best example of that — where you have lots and lots of small actions that are adding up to something that causes visible harm. That’s quite disturbing.

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Naked in nature.  What's not to love?  There's something to be said for prancing around acting like you're the first person to walk the face of the planet, with not a stitch of clothing to hide your skin from the blazing sunshine and refreshing breeze. . Except you're not alone. You share this planet with 7 billion other people and countless other living creatures and plants. If we all did whatever we wanted without regard for anyone or anything else, where would we be?  What would this planet look like? . Going a few inches further off trail than the person before you might not seem like a big deal on an individual scale. And I suppose its not. But if everyone had that attitude, if every single person decided to go just a litttttttle bit further than the last person for that "untouched" background, it becomes a big problem. The behavior and damage we've seen at Walker Canyon (and other poppy fields) is a direct manifestation of that "just a little bit more" attitude. . Walker Canyon is a prime example of huge masses of people making bad choices that, on an individual scale, appear to have no impact. But added up, those hundreds of thousands of poor choices DO have an impact. We've all seen the pictures. And it's not pretty. . . Sure, there are bigger issues than people crushing a couple wildflowers to get pictures to share with people they don't even know on the internet. Pollution, over consumption, micro-plastics in drinking water, oil spills, deforestation, and extinction of entire species are some issues that immediately come to mind. But is it too much to believe that if people turned their small negative impacts into small positive ones that we could make a difference for the better? Good behavior spreads just as bad behavior does. It just takes a few people who are willing to speak up and thoughtfully educate those who might not know any better. Some might not be open to being told their actions are destructive.  That just means the rest of us need to step up our game to compensate. . #walkercanyon #knowledgeispower #ignoranceisnotbliss #lakeelsinore #publiclands #saveourpubliclands #saveourplanet #education #planetearth #selfish #publiclandshateyou

A post shared by OUR PUBLIC LANDS HATE YOU (@publiclandshateyou) on Mar 21, 2019 at 2:11pm PDT

What are some of the simplest things that people can do to be better stewards for the environment when they’re in public lands?

I think that the best thing that people could do to prepare is read up on the Leave No Trace Principles, understand them, and I personally believe that the most important principle is the first one, which is “plan ahead and prepare.”

That involves knowing the rules, where you’re going to go, understanding them, understanding why it’s important to follow them. All that information is available online for people to find in advance. And often it’s also available at trailheads on informational signs. So really it’s just taking that five or 10 minutes before going somewhere to understand what behaviors are acceptable and what behaviors are unacceptable at a certain location.

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Leave No Trace Principle #4 – Leave What You Find⁣ ⁣ Most of us learned in grade school that we shouldn’t take things that don’t belong to us and that if we do use something that isn't ours we should return it in the same (or better) condition than we received it. That lesson applies on our public lands as well, where plants, rocks, archaeological artifacts, and other items of interest should be left as they are found.⁣ ⁣ Trees and plants should be left unmolested. That means no carving into tree trunks, picking wildflowers, or nailing things into living plants. If you use a hammock, pick mature trees with thick bark to hang from, and be sure to use tree protectors. A 1” piece of webbing is not sufficient.⁣ ⁣ Although tempting to take a rock, sand, or a deer antler home with you from our public lands as a memory, please leave them for others to experience. If you see something interesting, take a picture and share it with your friends rather than hoarding it for yourself. In National Parks and on many other public lands it is illegal to remove natural objects, including cultural artifacts like pot shards and arrowheads which are protected by the Archaeological Resources Protection Act.⁣ ⁣ If a site requires alterations for an activity such as camping, those alterations should be minimal and reversible. Moving pine cones and branches to clear a site is fine as they can be replaced when you leave, but using a shovel to level a site and dig drainage ditches is frowned upon. Good campsites are found, not made, so if a site doesn’t suit your needs, continue exploring.⁣ ⁣ Taking one rock, some sand, or picking a few wildflowers may not seem like a big deal, and on an individual level it is not. But imagine if all 330,000,000 visitors to our National Parks last year removed a rock or wildflowers. That IS an impact. So do your part and leave our public lands as you found them. ⁣ ⁣ And this should go without saying, but leaving what you find means leaving it in the same condition you found it. Carving initials into trees, spray painting rocks, throwing holi powder everywhere, and building frivolous cairns damages our public lands and detracts from others experiences.

A post shared by OUR PUBLIC LANDS HATE YOU (@publiclandshateyou) on Aug 15, 2019 at 3:35pm PDT

Could you go over some of the other Leave No Trace Principles?

Yeah, sure. So there’s seven of them and I’ll see if I can name them all off the top of my head here. The first one — you’re putting me to the test.

It was all a set-up to test your knowledge!

The first one is “plan ahead and prepare” like I just shared with you. The second would be “camp on durable surfaces.” So that’s also an important one that also applies to the super bloom. Just continuing to follow those rules, stay on the trails, not trample the vegetation. So then your third one is “dispose of waste properly.” That’s obviously not littering but also pertains to hygiene issues like where you’re going to go to the bathroom and how you’re going to get yourself clean while in the backcountry. Fourth one, “leave what you find.” Don’t pick wildflowers, they’re there for everybody. If everybody picks a flower, there’s none left. Same with historical artifacts and things like that.

The fifth one is about campfire impacts, which basically means use established fire rings when they’re available. Don’t create multiple fire rings, they sterilize the soil, which leaves bare spots. The sixth one is to respect wildlife. That’s another big one that I have seen a lot of on Instagram, people getting too close to animals for the shot. And actually a story just came out from Yellowstone National Park the other day that two wolves were killed by a vehicle and those wolves had been habituated to humans, lost their fear of humans, and were consistently seen too close to humans and too close to the road. And they were actually killed by a vehicle within the last few days. So that was a sad, depressing story.

And then the seventh one, which kind of encompasses everything, “be considerate of others.” Think about others, think about how your actions are going to impact the people who come behind you.

Do you find that there’s an age disparity here? Because if it’s all driven by social media, I would say social media is primarily used by the younger generations. So do you think that age has an effect or do you see people of all ages breaking pretty simple rules when you’re out there?

I think that it’s all ages, but I think it’s in different ways. For example, I would say that the older generation might not treat the land with respect because there weren’t as many people using our public lands 30 years ago and those statistics are very easy to find. Visitation has grown exponentially within the last few decades. So they might think, “Oh, my actions… There’s plenty of public land for everybody, whatever”. Whereas the new generations are engaging in those same behaviors, but doing it for different reasons, which are, “I want to get the best picture and I don’t really care, or I’m not really thinking about how getting that picture can impact the land”.

Do you think Instagram has had any positive effects on the travel space?

That’s a tough one. I do think it has had positive effects. I think for one, more people are visiting our public lands. I think that that’s a good thing. It’s made our public lands more accessible. It’s helped get that information out there. Unfortunately, I think that overall it’s been a negative because the focus on social media, and specifically Instagram, is about sharing the pretty pictures that other people are going to like rather than sharing information about why these areas are as beautiful as they are, and why they’re so special, and why we need to treat them with respect.

So I think that getting more people out there has been great and ultimately will be a good thing. But I think currently a lot of what’s being shared on social media is missing that educational component, which I personally believe is the most important thing that should be shared.

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Instagram has been called “the friendliest social network ever”, and I think that accounts on this platform are accustomed to being able to post whatever they want without any critical feedback. The prettier the picture the better, no matter what laws/rules had to be broken to create it. The few people who are willing to voice their critical feedback are usually ignored, told they are just being negative, or that they need to stop policing “art”. . If you think adults deserve to be coddled, to have their hands held, or should be ignored when they repeatedly lie and break the law, there are plenty of accounts you can follow that conform to the status quo and take that approach. @publiclandshateyou isn’t one of those accounts. I call it like I see it. Is the approach here salty, sarcastic, and snarky? Yes. Is it effective? Yes, I think it is. I understand that no one is perfect. People screw up. I screw up. And that’s ok. Life is a learning process, however when the response to a harmful mistake is excuses, ignorance, and lying rather than learning and growth, there needs to be a level of accountability. Unfortunately, IG & FB have decided that preservation of our environment is not a priority and have chosen not to provide a way to report illegal/harmful actions on our public lands. That leaves it up to us, the peers of people who post harmful actions, to voice our opinions and make it known that we don’t support illegal and harmful actions on our public lands. The goal isn’t to bully, insult, or make people feel bad, but to show with polite and educational dialogue that we don’t support illegal and harmful behavior on our public lands. The goal is to change the social norms around what is acceptable on our public lands, and that change requires a lot of voices. Change never happens by following the status quo. People have to get out there and stick their heads out. Is that going to make some people uncomfortable? Yes. But our public lands don’t have their own voice, so that means people like you and I need to step up and be that voice, speak out for what we believe in. No one is going to do it for you and our public lands are not going to protect themselves.

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Let’s talk a little bit about the obsession your critics have with unmasking you. Why do you think this is such an important part of the fight against your Instagram account?

I really don’t know. I guess that the reason is that a lot of these influencers feel threatened by the account. These large influencers, with hundreds of thousands of followers, haven’t really had anybody holding them accountable. So what the Public Lands Hate You account has done is it has aggregated all of those people who want to hold others accountable into one spot. And that collective voice is now large enough to start holding these influencers accountable. And as we’ve seen, a number of influencers have lost sponsorships, which translates to money in their wallets.

And I understand that stings and I understand why they want to have the account shut down.

I don’t necessarily understand their obsession with finding the one individual behind the account. Ultimately, I don’t think that that’s going to accomplish anything for them, but more power to them. As I’m sure you saw, they thought that they found who it was within the last two days. They were sorely wrong. They still haven’t admitted that they were wrong but I think that they’re wasting their time.

But Hey, if they want to spend their time doing that instead of researching rules on public lands so that they can be better influencers, well that says more about them than it does me.

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Despite what many people seem to think, I do enjoy seeing people use our public lands.  It’s not my goal to keep people away from our parks, forests and waterways, but rather to encourage people to use these places wisely to relax, explore, learn, and reconnect with our natural world in a responsible way. With that in mind, tomorrow is 4/20, and that means its time to… . Go visit your favorite National Park Service unit for free!!!! . What did you think I was going to say? 🤣🤣 . That’s right, in honor of the start of National Park Week all of the 419 National Park Units are free tomorrow, Saturday 4/20!  That includes the 112 units that normally charge a fee! That’s right, all National Parks, Monuments, Preserves, Historic Parks, Battlefields, Memorials, Recreation Areas, Seashores, Lakeshores, other sites managed by the National Park Service are free. The vast majority of people in America live within a three hour drive of one of these sites, so I encourage you to get out there and check one of them out.  The map in the third photo shows the distance to many of these sites.  The map is 7 years old, so only 349 of the current 419 parks are represented, but you get the idea.  There are plenty of options and there is sure to be a park that has something of interest to everyone! Get out there and visit these national treasures but please do a little research before you go.  Are pets allowed?  Are certain areas closed this time of year? Do certain trails require permits?  And if it’s been a while since you’ve visited one of these places, brush up on the seven Leave No Trace principles as well. 1. Plan Ahead and Prepare 2. Travel and Camp on Durable Surfaces 3. Dispose of Waste Properly 4. Leave What You Find 5. Minimize Campfire Impacts  6. Respect Wildlife 7. Be Considerate of Other Visitors If during your travels you see people breaking the rules or the LNT principles, feel free to speak up and say something.  Not everyone knows how to act responsibly, and a friendly reminder and education can go a long way towards protecting our public lands and getting people to think more about the impact of their actions! #leavenotrace #nationalparkweek

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What would you say the ratio is between people who have a negative response to the criticism and those who take it as an opportunity to learn?

It’s a curve. And what I’ve found is that the smaller the account is, the more willing people are to listen to criticism. And I’m saying when I make that criticism in private in messages where nobody can see it. You saw the story that I shared that showed a mature response from somebody where I privately called them out for their behavior. I see that a lot more in the smaller accounts. The larger the account is, the more likely I’ve found that it is that I will be blocked or be told to go F myself. And I believe that that’s because these influencers know they have something to lose. And a lot of the times it’s because I’m calling out an ad that they’ve been paid for and they don’t want to lose that ad revenue and I get that. I really do.

But, they shouldn’t be sharing stuff like that. And when they do, they’ve got to understand they’ve got to step up and own their mistake. And I’m all about that. I’m okay with mistakes, just own them and share educational information with others so that they don’t make the same mistake.

To answer your question more directly, I would say that for larger influencers, we’ll say that with accounts over 10,000 people, I would say positive responses are maybe 20% of them. The other 80% generally will try and sweep it the rug and pretend it never happened.

What has surprised you the most since creating the account?

Aside from the number of people who feel the same way I do, the level of entitlement that a lot of these large influencers feel has probably been the biggest surprise. I had no idea that some people would, especially people who are making their living on public lands and sharing pictures of our public lands, could have this public face where they pretend or they seem to care so much about the land, but then when they’re called out for doing something harmful, they choose to ignore it and continue engaging in that behavior because it’s good for the likes and it’s good for their follower count. So for me, that’s been most surprising and… at the same time… most depressing.

Why do you think it’s everybody’s personal responsibility to better treat the environment?

I think it’s everybody’s responsibility because it’s everybody’s land. It’s public land. They’re there for everybody from all backgrounds to enjoy. And I don’t believe that a small number of people who are making a living off of public lands should be allowed to disburse false and harmful information to literally millions of people every day because that collective impact impacts everybody’s ability to go and enjoy our public lands.

When I have a day off, I want to be able to go on a hike and not see trash and not see trampled meadows. I want to be able to enjoy it without having to see that kind of harmful behavior.

You’ve been to almost every US National Park. Which is your favorite and why?

Oh boy, you’re going to make me play favorites, huh?

If you forced me to pick one favorite, I would probably go with Redwoods. And the reason for that is that I just find those trees to be so majestic, the setting to be so quiet and calming. And you can just walk through these redwood groves and just look at these trees and know, “Wow, these trees have been here for a thousand years. They’ve been here way longer than I’ve been here. They’re going to be here way after I’m dust in the ground”.

And for me, that really is a relaxing place and also really drives the point home of why we need to respect these places because they’re not just here for us now. They’re here for our children and our children’s children to enjoy and preserving them should really be of the utmost importance.

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Leave No Trace Principle #8 – Share Responsibly⁣ ⁣ I’ve personally adopted this 8th principle, and I encourage you to adopt it as well. Social media is creating new ways to share and celebrate our public lands, but reckless and irresponsible sharing can and IS having a tangible negative impact.⁣ ⁣ Sharing responsibly means think about WHAT, WHY, and WHERE you’re sharing.⁣ ⁣ WHAT – Are you sharing content clearly showing behavior that is responsible and legal? Use of Photoshop and “camera angles” to hide the truth and make your content appear to be something it’s not gives others the wrong idea about what’s acceptable on our public lands. If pets are required to be on a leash, why Photoshop out the leash and send the message that off leash pets are allowed?⁣ ⁣ WHY – Are you sharing because you love a place and want to share information about that place to encourage others to visit, enjoy, and preserve it? Or are you sharing exclusively because it’s a pretty, eye catching location that will get more people to enter a contest?⁣ ⁣ WHERE – Are you sharing a location that can handle a potential influx of visitors if your content goes viral? Norris Geyser Basin in YNP is equipped with boardwalks, signage, and staff to help prevent resource destruction from huge quantities of visitors. A remote hot spring in a wilderness area? Not so much.⁣ ⁣ If you feel the need to geotag a location, PLEASE consider the three W’s. Geotagging gives everyone the EXACT location of a natural feature without any relevant context or information. Would you give the keys to a Ferrari to someone who has never driven a car before? No? Then why would you give the exact location of an environmentally sensitive area to someone who may not have the necessary experience or knowledge to safely visit that area and treat it with care and respect?⁣ ⁣ If you do want to geotag a location on your public lands, consider tagging the local visitors center or ranger station, where others can get all the information they need to visit safely and responsibly!⁣ ⁣ So share your favorite public lands! They belong to YOU! But please remember, what you share on social media CAN have impacts in the “real” world. #lnt

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What Is Sexual Immorality? Discover Its Meaning and Consequences

Meaning of Sexual Immorality

As defined in the Baker's Evangelical Dictionary, Sexual Immorality is...

"Interpersonal activity involving sex organs that does not conform to God's revealed laws governing sexuality. The account of creation (Gen 1:1-28) includes reproductive activity as an essential part of the developmental scheme. This important function is given special prominence in the narrative describing the creation of woman (Gen 2:21-24). In a process cloaked in mystery, God takes an aspect of Adam and fashions it into a genetic counterpart that is specifically female, and which matches Adam's maleness for purposes of reproducing the species. Adam and Eve are thus equal and complementary to one another, of the same physical and genetic composition apart from the slight difference that governs the characteristic nature of male and female fetuses. God tells them to "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill all the earth and subdue it" (Gen 1:28)."

C.S. Lewis, many years ago in his book Mere Christianity, described our contemporary struggle with human sexuality in the following words:

The Christian idea of marriage is based on Christ’s words that a man and wife are to be regarded as a single organism—for that is what the words “one flesh” would be in modern English. And the Christians believe that when He said this He was not expressing a sentiment but stating a fact-just as one is stating a fact when one says that a lock and its key are one mechanism, or that a violin and a bow are one musical instrument. The inventor of the human machine was telling us that its two halves, the male and the female, were made to be combined together in pairs, not simply on the sexual level, but totally combined. The monstrosity of sexual intercourse outside marriage is that those who indulge in it are trying to isolate one kind of union (the sexual) from all the other kinds of union which was intended to go along with it and make up the total union. The Christian attitude does not mean that there is anything wrong about sexual pleasure, any more than about the pleasure of eating. It means that you must not isolate that pleasure and try to get it by itself, any more than you ought to try to get the pleasures of taste without swallowing and digesting, by chewing things and spitting them out again...

In simple terms, sexual immorality is essentially the engagement in sexual acts outside of the sanctity of marriage, the divine union of creating and fostering life. Continue reading to learn the practical and spiritual consequences of becoming a slave to your passions when succumbing to the temptation of sexual immorality.

Sexual Immorality and Biblical Teachings

You and I can’t read a newspaper, open a magazine, turn on a TV or go to a movie without being barraged with sex. We cannot avoid this topic, and fortunately, God gives us the content for our conversation. God, through the inspiration of His Holy Spirit, addresses this issue time after time in His Word, all the way from Genesis to Revelation.

He does it in a way that is primarily positive if we take the time to hear what He is really telling us. The apostle Paul confronts the issue head-on, as he writes to a church made up of men and women living in a society every bit as sexually distorted as ours, if not more so.

Shun fornication! Every sin that a person commits is outside the body, but the fornicator sins against the body itself. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body (1 Cor. 6:18-20).

Three action principles leap out of this biblical passage.

Action Principle #1: Face the reality of your own sexuality and your vulnerability to its distortion.

A lot of trouble comes when we repress our sexual feelings. They are there. All of us have them. Some of us let them run free rein, getting ourselves into trouble. Some of us deny we have those feelings, pushing them down underneath the surface, only to find that they pop up at strange moments when we least expect them.

Paul doesn’t beat around the bush. He keeps bringing up this topic because he knows both the positive and negative realities of our human sexuality. We are all vulnerable. This fact has been driven home to me as I have observed several close friends in the ministry who have stumbled into sexual immorality, with the results being catastrophic for their personal and professional lives. Fortunately, the gospel is one of healing and restoration. In a couple of these situations, the marriages have survived and even been strengthened. But the pain and the ongoing side effects continue to be felt, both within their nuclear families and in the extended family, the Church of Jesus Christ.

Fortunately, I was raised in an environment that talked freely about one’s sexual vulnerability. I made some early commitments as a teenager to live according to biblical teachings. Although it was a struggle at points, I found the Holy Spirit was capable of empowerment. You and I must be aware of our own vulnerability. The posture of self-righteousness that looks down at others who have stumbled into sexual sin is the epitome of spiritual arrogance and, frankly, sets us up for a fall.

I urge you to face the reality of your own sexuality and your own vulnerability to its distortion. It is important that we look at ourselves in the mirror and see ourselves as we are, created by God as sexual persons, healthy, vital, alive, but also engaged in spiritual warfare in which that sexuality can quickly become distorted.

Action Principle #2: Deal honestly with the biblical theology of your sexuality.

Paul wrestles with this as he writes, “‘All things are lawful for me,’ but not all things are beneficial. ‘All things are lawful for me,’ but I will not be dominated by anything. ‘Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food,’ and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is meant not for fornication but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us by his power” (1 Corinthians 6:12-14).

This is saying that you and I are more than animals. We are not just made up of body parts and nerve endings. You and I have the freedom to do things, not just the way they come naturally, but the way you and I were created by God to do things.

Far from being negative, the apostle Paul was a proponent of freedom in Jesus Christ. Throughout his missionary journeys, as he established churches, he had to struggle with legalistic Judaizers who wanted to tie up the new believers in Christ into knots of Levitical laws. Paul was a proponent of freedom in Christ. He continually articulated what was the essence of the Old Testament teachings. His theme was that God had designed us to be fully human. We are more than animals. We have the privilege of living at a much higher level of existence.

At the same time, Paul was very aware that this teaching of Christian freedom could be distorted, so he quotes a saying: “All things are lawful for me.” Then he adds a new dimension. He states, “...but not all things are beneficial.” He then rearticulates the statement, “All things are lawful for me.” But then he states, “...but I will not be dominated by anything.”

Do you catch the delicate balance of this? Freedom can be distorted into a license. A license can then be distorted into the destruction of others and one’s own self-destruction.

One of the greatest New Testament teachings on Christian freedom is Paul’s letter to the church at Galatia. In it, Paul urges the believers to not again submit themselves to a yoke of slavery. He begs them not to step back into a religion defined by do’s and don’ts, void of a personal relationship with the Lord. He exhorts them to freedom, not to a freedom that is license. He writes, “For you were called to freedom, brothers, and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another” (Galatians 5:13-15).

Action Principle #3: Sexual sin destroys. Flee from it!

Paul writes, “Shun fornication! Every sin that a person commits is outside the body; but the fornicator sins against the body itself” (1 Corinthians 6:18). Sexual sin, by its very definition and reality, is dehumanizing. You become an animal. You declare yourself to be nothing but body parts and nerve endings. It destroys you, and it destroys others.

Why would God be so strict? Is He an angry old grandfather somewhere up in the sky who wants to destroy our fun in life? Not for a moment! He created sex. He gave it to us as a positive, fulfilling activity. He wants it to be channeled for your very best interest. Far from His commands being negative and inhibiting, they are guides to the healthiest kind of sexual living possible. In fact, even if one is not a Christian and has no respect for biblical teaching, there are some good, common-sense reasons for avoiding premarital or extramarital intercourse

7 Reasons to Avoid Sexual Immorality

One reason to avoid premarital or extramarital intercourse is the possibility of pregnancy.

Yes, even with “the pill,” the frequency of unwanted pregnancies continues to increase. What is more tragic than for a child to be brought into this world unwanted? I have watched young couples, who once thought they were in love, struggle with the decision of whether or not to marry. There is no foolproof method of contraception. Many couples are not well enough informed. Sometimes romantic feelings prevent necessary precautions. Although the pill is considered by most doctors to be foolproof, persons taking it are not. Either because of simple forgetfulness or some deep-seated inner motivation to conceive in order to hold on to that fellow, a woman who thinks she’s safe may become pregnant.

The second reason for avoiding premarital or extramarital intercourse is the danger of disease. The venereal disease has not been checked by modern medicine. The increased incidence of sexual promiscuity has brought about a tragic soaring incidence of this. Venereal disease is exponential in its increase, as society is less and less careful about sexual behavior. And we have not even mentioned to this point the topic of AIDS and the havoc of death that it is bringing throughout the world, in both the homosexual and heterosexual communities. The fact is that AIDS, genital herpes, syphilis, hepatitis, and pelvic inflammatory disease are tragic realities in our world.

And if you want to read a tragic story of what venereal disease can do to a person, read William Manchester’s biography of Winston Churchill, in which he describes how Churchill’s father, Lord Randolph Churchill, contracted syphilis through premarital sexual involvement. He describes how this promising British politician gradually eroded in the very public eye and, over a period of years, self-destructed and died. You read a few stories like that from secular biographies, and they make you think that God’s ways, far from being negative, are positive.

A third reason to avoid premarital or extramarital intercourse is that many men are driven to sexual conquests to prove their masculinity. I pity the woman who gets trapped in this false situation. If only the average young woman could listen in for a few moments to the conversation in a men’s locker room, she would take much less seriously the romantic pleadings, “If you really love me, you wouldn’t say ‘no.’” And now the stereotypical view of men being more interested in sex than women is no longer the case. How often we read about women who, having no desire for a love relationship and marriage, are simply on the market looking for the ideal male by whom they can become pregnant.

The fourth reason for avoiding premarital and extramarital intercourse is that it can be personally destructive, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually. Premarital and extramarital sex is habit-forming. In most cases, it is not something a couple does once or twice and quits doing. It develops a personal interdependence wherein no real ultimate commitment has been agreed upon. It is an agonizing experience for a pastor to deal with the emotional, psychological and spiritual fragmentation, which so often is the experience of the man or woman who then gets jilted.

I would be the first to acknowledge that sometimes people seem to walk through the maze of various sexual relationships seemingly unhurt, settling down in marriage, having children and appearing to live happily ever after. But as a pastor, I more often see the casualties of a person who invested themselves in that other person, taking the relationship more seriously, believing that it had a future, and ends up in deep depression, often spiraling into other addictive behaviors. Sex is much more serious a matter than some of us would be willing to admit. It is symbolic of commitment, even when that commitment is not really there.

The fifth reason to avoid premarital or extramarital intercourse is that it is not a reliable test of sexual compatibility. Many a man has told me, “I would never marry a woman without trying her out first.” He might just be surprised to find that there’s a major difference between sex outside and inside marriage. The secrecy surrounding premarital sex often heightens one’s excitement. Needless to say, both will be on their very best behavior, knowing that their failure to perform could lead to the end of their relationship. How different is sex in a marriage where both have the security of ultimate commitment? Sex is not geared to one’s having to meet a particular standard. It is meant to share in the most intimate way possible a way which will procreate and also bring personal fulfillment. A normal healthy man and a normal healthy woman, from both a psychological and physiological standpoint, should be able to find sexual compatibility. Premarital experimentation will not necessarily assure it. In fact, it is more likely to injure or at least detract from ultimate sexual compatibility.

A sixth reason to avoid premarital or extramarital intercourse is that it often creates an obsessive interest in sex. I’ve talked with couples who have slipped into this relationship before marriage to find that sex is about all they think about. Whereas they used to have fun dating and being with other people, their life is now geared toward sex. This is no way to live. A happily married couple spends a very small fraction of their time having sex compared to all the other activities that fill their lives. Obsessive interest in sex is abnormal.

And a seventh reason to avoid premarital or extramarital sex is that it can have a marring and spoiling effect on later marriage. What I mean by this is that it can breed a later misunderstanding between two people who were weak before marriage, giving in to their impulses. There is always uncertainty. You know that your partner could once again be weak and move into an extramarital affair.

The Consequences of Sexual Immorality

Yes, sexual sin destroys. Claim the help of the Holy Spirit to flee from it, to shun it. You can’t play with fire without being burned. It is difficult to go right up to the line without stepping over it. Those lingering lunches with someone other than your husband or your wife can begin to set a chain of events into motion for destruction. Pray about how you act, how you dress, the signals you send and the signals you receive. Dedicate yourself to God in a way in which you claim His wisdom and sensitivity to that which would hurt another and hurt yourself.

Two Old Testament biographies come to mind. One was a man who played with his sexuality and that of others like a cat plays with catnip. His name was Samson. Read his biography—such a gifted man with so much potential. What he didn’t do was flee, shun immorality. Look at the price he paid.

Another was Joseph. Alienated from his own family, a slave in a foreign country, he stayed close to God. He knew the standard God set sexually. When his employer Potiphar was out of town on business, Potiphar’s wife made her move. On previous occasions, she had flirted with Joseph. This time, she attempted an all-out seduction. What did Joseph do? He literally fled from her presence, ran away from her. No one gave him the “Moral Man of the Year Award” in Egypt. In fact, he went to prison, accused by her of rape. So angered was this rejected woman that she fabricated a story. But God honored Joseph’s faithfulness.

What is the intention of this message? It’s twofold.

One, it is to faithfully portray God’s view of what He created you to be as a sexual human being in a way that does not push you toward asceticism on the one extreme or sexual anarchy at the other extreme. It is to challenge you to claim the help of the Holy Spirit to keep yourself faithful to Jesus Christ and, in the process, be faithful to yourself and others, urging you to flee fornication, remembering that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.

Two, it is to minister a word of God’s grace if you have cut corners. God is in the business of welcoming you home if you’re willing to repent. To you, God offers His good news of forgiveness. He accepts you as you are. He gives you a clean slate.

You may bear the scars on your memory of actions and thoughts that countered His will. Yet He is willing and He yearns to transform you into a right relationship with Him. He promises to remove your sins as far as the east is from the west and to give you a brand-new beginning. He wants to lift you out of that grocery list of brokenness, which Paul gives in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 when he writes, “Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers-none of these will inherit the kingdom of God. And this is what some of you used to be. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” 

Excerpts for this Article were used from Sexual Immorality: Beyond Body Parts & Nerve Endings by John A. Huffman Jr.

Use the following link to print a personal copy of this text to share with loved ones. Sexual Immorality: Beyond Body Parts & Nerve Endings

Louis de Bernières: why I believe in Brexit

At the age of 20, in June of 1975, I became one of the young people who voted to confirm our membership of the European Union. In 2016, my generation voted to bring us back out. Why did we change our minds? There are several reasons, but the main one is simply our loss of sovereignty.

I was personally comfortable with “sharing sovereignty”. The European states were democratic, I felt there was common cause between us, we had a shared interest in an enduring peace between us, and nationalism seemed an unmitigated evil, especially when combined with an ideology.

My own comfort gradually disappeared as it became clearer that our lives were increasingly being shaped by officials whom we had not elected. We had joined the “Common Market” and been told that it was all about free trade, which always sounds like a good thing.

Half the Labour party was opposed to it, however. Remainers have enjoyed depicting Leavers as little Englanders and rightwingers, but there are also impeccable leftwing reasons for opposing membership. I remember the big posters enjoining us to “Say no to the Bosses’ Europe”, and the Labour manifesto of 1983 declaring that we would leave if they were elected. They were worried about food pricing, the Common Agricultural Policy and restrictions on socialist industrial policy.

Labour party stalwart Michael Foot speaks at a ‘Get Britain Out’ event in Cardiff in 1975 © Mirrorpix

I also remember that the Scottish nationalists were against membership, perhaps because it was obvious to them back then that being governed by an unelected government in Brussels was even worse than being governed by an elected one in Westminster.

In any arranged marriage a couple sometimes makes the most of a bad job by working hard at pretending to be in love. Even after I perceived the deception, I was arguing that we needed to be part of something that could counterbalance the US and the Soviet Union. My parents had campaigned to join but became sceptical long before I did. This was because they had not anticipated such things as the damage to our fishing industry. More importantly, they felt outraged at having endured two world wars only to end up being subject to laws not drawn up by our own parliament. It was easier for continental Europeans to compromise on democracy because they do not have the advantage of being protected, as we are, by the mere fact of being an island.

As time passed, I came to share my parents’ anxieties. Having researched and written extensively on the two world wars, I increasingly developed a sense of the vastness of the sacrifice, and therefore of how sacrilegious it would be to erode our democracies. I once took my father to visit the battleground in Italy where nearly all his comrades were wiped out in one heroic and doomed attack; 20 tanks destroyed in five minutes. It was a war for the right of nations to self-determination.

Since reunification Germany has become the hegemonic power in Europe; in view of what happened twice in one century, is it unnatural that some people are wary of this? I used to think that one day we would have a proper European parliament. Now I realise that, small-minded as we are, many people would only ever vote for a candidate from their own country.

Like a lot of people who are still Remainers, I had committed a category mistake. I thought that loving the EU was somehow the same thing as loving Europe. I loved Europe’s great cities, its cuisines, its landscapes, its composers and philosophers. I wanted to be Sartre and Camus rolled into one, I wanted to sit outside a taverna on the Plaka, being Theodorakis. If people asked me what I was, I would say “European”.

I am European by culture and inheritance. Perhaps unreasonably I rate our continent’s culture more highly than anyone else’s; I speak French fairly well, and Spanish and German rather badly; my favourite composers are Bach and Beethoven. When I was 18, I travelled all over Europe with a piece of pink card that I bought at the village post office. Now, in part thanks to Islamist terrorism and Angela Merkel’s quixotic humanitarianism, the Schengen arrangement may have to come to an end; the free movement that we all loved the most about the EU may be lost because of the threat to security that is built into it.

Free movement was a double-edged sword in any case. It was fabulous for middle-class families who wanted cheap nannies, gardeners and cleaners, but it alienated the working classes because their neighbourhoods were suddenly and radically changed. There is an area of Ipswich, for example, where there seems to be nobody but eastern Europeans, hanging about, smoking in little knots. To many locals it looks threatening, even if it isn’t. In places such as Lincolnshire it became normal not to recruit from local employment exchanges, but directly from Romania. It is probably true that the indigenous British did not want to do most of that kind of work anyway, but it still sparked resentment.

My daughter Sophie (aged 12) recently asked me if after Brexit Europe would be further away, as if we might be towed into the distance on a steel hawser. She doesn’t know that you cannot be towed away from more than 2,000 years of cultural, social and historical entanglement.

England’s attitude should be that of a sensible lover: if you love me, stay; if not, I’m better off without you

What you can row away from is a troubled political and economic project that has never surmounted the difficulties left behind by the 2008 crash. The eurozone contains incompatible economies, and so it is impossible to fix an interest rate or a general economic policy that fits them all. Greece could have got out of its difficulties expeditiously if it had retained the drachma and been able to devalue.

You can row away from delusions, such as that the EU has maintained European peace, when it was very obviously Nato, with the US providing the majority of the manpower and funding; or the delusion that we cannot rebuild our links with the Commonwealth countries we so shamelessly left in the lurch in the Seventies; or make new agreements elsewhere quite quickly; after all, we will not need the unanimous agreement of 27 other countries.

You can row away from an economic area that is not so much a free-trade zone as a protectionist one. Although today the EU offers preferential terms to many developing countries, it has traditionally helped to keep the developing world undeveloped by charging low tariffs on raw materials, and high tariffs on manufactured goods. The US does the same thing. That’s how the west prevents developing countries from industrialising and competing with us. The EU is still encumbered by the CAP.

You can row away from an economic zone that since reunification has been dominated by Germany. Euros pour into Germany but are not recycled to the periphery. You cannot, however, blame Germany for having the largest economy in the eurozone, and for finding other countries too exasperating to subsidise any further. The French, of course, will be delighted by our departure, because they will become correspondingly more important.

I bumped into David Owen last year. The former foreign secretary told me he had become a Leaver because of what had been done to Greece. That is exactly what finally did it for me too; a whole country reduced to penury for years on end; a country that elected a government on an anti-austerity ticket and was instantly overruled and humiliated by Brussels.

For people like me, with an old-fashioned classical humanist education, Greece holds a special place in the heart. At one time Greece was the only country in Europe that still stood beside us in the second world war. Greece’s humiliating defeat of Mussolini was the beginning of his downfall. After that, his troops lost their confidence and their ideological certainties. During the second world war, the Third Reich looted Greece so thoroughly that they even collected up all the pianos, but, some few years afterwards the Greeks forgave the Germans their war debt. Corrupt as Greece was, she deserved better than to be punished so severely for the crime of having been admitted to the eurozone before she was ready for it.

Now the Conservative party has a new start, as does the country, which at last has a leader who exudes energy, good humour and optimism, and pulls impossible rabbits out of hats even as his detractors scoff. The next rabbit may be a decent trade settlement. No doubt this will be difficult, but it is evident that it only will be accomplished by someone who is positive enough to assume that it can be.

Police guard parliament amid anti-austerity riots in Athens, 2011 © Eyevine

The logic of Brexit should take us further. It has been increasingly obvious to me and fellow Leavers for many years now that the English would be better off on their own. It seems ever more likely that Ireland can be reunified, because all the very good reasons for the North resisting this have gone; the Republic is no longer a corrupt, backward country, it is an energetic vibrant place where anyone would love to live, including me. We are an important trading partner; if Ireland were being strictly rational it would also leave the EU and opt for an Anglo-Irish economic zone.

England has no good reason for wanting to cling on to Northern Ireland, or to Scotland either. The English attachment to Scotland is a sentimental one, but the Scots have fallen out of love with us, and inevitably the English will sooner or later have had enough of the grandstanding of the nationalists. The English have noticed that their own nationalism is the only one that is routinely denigrated and despised, and that also grates.

The English have developed their own “cultural cringe”. I search my memory for its origins and think that it dates from the time when English football fans were notorious all over the world. The flag of St George became the emblem of chanting, rioting, racist rightwing oafs, and so the rest of the English renounced it. I couldn’t travel in France without people wanting to reproach me with les ooligans anglais. Being English was a matter of shame.

In Scotland the Saltire flies everywhere. The English should have reclaimed their flag and thought more about what Englishness is. It is at one level a love of landscape, a rubbing along of like-minded people, a shared language rich in dialect and figures of speech, a love (like the French) of the absurd. The English have lost their sense of themselves as an ancient shared culture, however. In Ireland, Wales and Scotland, the children learn their national dances and songs at school and at home. In England, I doubt if a single child could recite the first verse of “Greensleeves” or knows what a maypole is. In English schools history is taught in a strangely episodic manner — Roman, Tudors, second world war — so students have no continuous historical narrative and get by on what they pick up from misleading historical dramas that they find on their screens. They don’t know how much they don’t know, or how one thing connects to another.

The English don’t even know their country geographically. Most southerners have little interest in what goes on Up North, and most northerners wouldn’t be able to find Guildford on a map.

The trick is to know the difference between nationalism and patriotism. Nationalism is always at somebody else’s expense, whereas patriotism depends upon nothing but itself. “My country, right or wrong” is a road to Hell. “I love my country anyway” is something altogether different.

How the Scots would prosper without the pound, and outside the EU, with possible tariffs between us on the border, is anyone’s guess, but that would not be England’s problem. With any luck even if the Scottish do leave, it seems likely that the Welsh would stay in the union, either out of sentiment or self-interest.

England’s attitude should be like that of any sensible lover: if you love me, stay; if not, I am better off without you. The English should shrug, and agree that it’s understandable that everyone should prefer their own mess to somebody else’s order, because, after all, that’s how we feel ourselves. The English have never formally been asked whether or not they would prefer independence from the other countries of the UK, or even if they would like their own parliament, and it is high time they were.

And so at last, we leave the EU, despite the tireless rearguard actions of ultra-Remainers. We are the rats that left the EU first, and we are probably not the last. But we are not leaving Europe. That is an inconceivable impossibility.

The end of Great Britain also seems to be a distinct, and perhaps even a desirable prospect. However, our neighbourhood of nations will remain a family, bound together by the dialectic of our history, by the uniting in death of far too many of our soldiers, and by our shared cultures. This kind of union is far more valuable, deep and durable than any faltering economic and political experiment could ever be.

People are talking about a “new relationship” between the UK and Europe. If you think that a relationship is all about trade agreements and extradition treaties, then clearly something “new” must be come up with. But the EU is not Europe. Let’s not be confused. Our relationship will be as it always has been, more than 2,000 years old, an oscillation between the polarities of love and hate, respect and disrespect, admiration and contempt, co-operation and churlishness, fascination and disregard, depending upon what providence throws in our path.

No family is constituted and determined by written agreement. The Germans and the French, the Portuguese and the Spanish, the Scottish and Irish, we’re a family whether we’re in the EU or not. Rearranging the fences between our houses does nothing to alter the fact that we are, and always have been, in the same village.

Louis de Bernières’ latest novel ‘So Much Life Left Over’ is published by Vintage

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