I’m no longer convinced that you can call our trajectory toward a “Sodom” society a downward spiral. It seems more like a greased, strait-lined slide. The opening news story in my RSS reader this morning was entitled, “Court Upholds Prisoners’ Right to Porn.”

According to the report: “The Supreme Administrative Court in Stockholm last week ruled that the Swedish Prison and Probation Service had no right to deny a rape convict access to his porn magazines.”

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You have to be kidding me. The top court made a ruling, that cannot be appealed that a convicted rapist cannot be denied pornography? How is it possible that anyone could come to this sort of asinine conclusion? How could it be that any clear-headed human being would think a violent sex offender should have every right to stuff his lust with the kind of material that would serve only to fuel his passion to recommit his crime? Judges. The educated elites of Swedish culture made such a decision.

On the other side are the prison officials. No doubt they lack the intellectual prowess of the judicial branch of Swedish government to determine what is best for the moral rehabilitation of violent criminals. According to the report, “Prison officials had argued that reading porn would interfere with the man’s rehabilitation program. They also said the magazines posed a security problem for staff and other inmates because they could increase the risk of the man relapsing into criminal behavior.” Duh.

However, the Supreme Court said, the prison officials could not make the case. They could not prove that pornography would increase a sexual offenders potential to offend again or put anyone else in the prison at risk. Perhaps these judges would be more convinced if they served as the offender’s cell-partner for a week. How soon will Sweden’s slide straighten out our own spiral toward Sodom?

There it is, the odor of relativism and the stench of the post-modern mindset, making its way into the crevices of its own logical conclusions. This story brings another illustration of the “being given over” idea in Romans 1:18-32, and how a culture is trapped in its own depraved logic. How desperate our world is for the gospel and issues like these remind us of the need for aggressive prayer and disciple-making. The crush of a Christless world view will no doubt be felt more and more and thus our call for a greater intensity in being thoroughly flavored with the counter-cultural nature of the gospel of Jesus Christ. One wonders how mere moralism or the “be like the culture” church crowds will adjust when our own society finally embraces the logical musings like those in the high courts of Sweden. Our spiral is quickly becoming a slide.

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