Continuing from last Saturday’s post, writings of Neal A. Maxwell in 1981 *Why Chastity II, or “Despair cometh because of iniquity.” (To start at the beginning of this series, see *Why Chastity (Preamble paragraph of last week. . . .
When we leave the light of each commandment, our perception of the real problem is blurred and our prescriptions are bound to be flawed. In no instance is the blurring more evident than with regard to the seventh commandment. For instance, there is a great concern, with justified cause, about the abuse of prostitutes and the terrible problems of child prostitution, and child pornography. One scarcely hears, however, any mention of keeping the seventh commandment in order to solve these dreadful problems—though it is the ultimate solution. The immediate retort is that since there are so many who do not hold with divine prescriptions or who are too weak to comply, other remedies are needed. Religious restraints are viewed as impractical! The keeping of the seventh commandment, however, would at once erase all the problems associated with prostitution, child prostitution, and pornography. Yet, the more distance societies place between themselves and keeping the seventh commandment, the larger and less manageable these problems become. ~Neal A. Maxwell, Not Withstanding My Weakness (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1981), 94-96 (Now continuing. . .)
To assert that there is some other way than adherence to the divine standard that has come down to us through the centuries in our Judeo-Christian heritage is to introduce the inevitable rationalization that relativism always brings: if infidelity is not really wrong per se, then why cannot every individual walk “in his own way,” determining that which pleases him or her and that which gives sensual pleasure—even if it be child molestation or masochism? A nonmoral ground is no ground at all! A pervert will be unimpressed by ethical relativism’s norms. Besides, inner slackness finally dooms outer enforcement, for enforcement officials are not only dwarfed by the enormity of their tasks, but also become less effective as the definition of crime becomes less and less legally and behaviorally clear. One has only to pause and wonder about what the role of a vice squad would have been in Sodom and Gomorrah! The breaking of the seventh commandment was the beginning of the end in Camelot.
In a society with declining tastes, standards will continue to be lowered as some new appetite or fashion makes a particular political thrust felt either by nonenforcement or in permissive legislation. Caesar, ever attuned to the roar of the crowd, is always ready to sanction the cry of another crowd even when it chooses a behavioral Barabas.
To equate Eros with charity, the highest form of love, is to regard love mistakenly. The selfless atonement came through charity, not a lesser form of love. True love is the centerpiece attribute in both the first and second commandments—the attribute on which every commandment and law hang! Therefore to misunderstand the true nature of love is to misunderstand life. To be unchaste in the name of love, is to destroy something precious while pretending to celebrate its existence. Some say they are “for” love—but a rogue policeman is “for” law and order just as Benedict Arnold was “for” America.
Another of the consequences of gross sexual immorality with its desensitization is that it begins to rob man of hope, despair quickly enters in, for as one prophet said,“Despair cometh because of iniquity.” (Moroni 10:22.) Thus iniquity and despair are terrifyingly self-reinforcing.
More than we know, the alienation abroad in the land is due in significant measure to the gross sexual immorality—before which faith, hope, and charity all fall, for that special triad of virtues is savaged by unchastity. Immorality enthrones selfishness, the implacable foe of charity.
There is some interesting mortal wisdom concerning this slackening of standards with regards to chastity and fidelity. This is cited not because we rely upon it for enunciatory truth, but because it is often necessary to speak to people after the manner of their understanding.
Charles Unwin, a British sociologist who labored at both Oxford and Cambridge, studied dozens of civilizations and was bold enough to forecast “in so many words that, in the struggle between nations, those who cling to chastity will, in all likelihood, keep the upper hand—last, but not least, we shall add, because they try to keep intact the family which promiscuity . . . .(as well as the war between sexes and the tension between generations) tend to destroy.” (The Human Life Review, Spring 1978, p.71.) The French historian Ernest Renan said succinctly: “What gives one people the victory over another, who has it to a lesser degree, is chastity.” (Ibid.)
John Lukacs observed that sexual immorality is at the very center of the moral crisis of our times—“it is not merely a marginal development.” (The Passing of the Modern Age, New York: Harper & Row, 1970, p.169.)
~Neal A. Maxwell, Not Withstanding My Weakness (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1981), 96-97
(continued see Why Chastity IV)
