What to Think of 50 Shades of Grey

This week’s release of the movie, “Fifty Shades of Grey,” based on E. L. James’s novel, prompts me to offer some words of mourning, caution, hope, and prayer.

You may be aware of the “success” of the Fifty Shades series—over 100 million copies of the book have been sold worldwide. Of course, a profit-driven entertainment industry is ready to print or project anything that will make money. So if readers/viewers want to hand over their cash to get lost in a fantasy of sexual exploitation and abuse, the publishing and movie industries are more than happy to deliver the grim goods. Chalk it up to entrepreneurial chutzpah and clever marketing, I guess. Anyhow, in our culture of greed, moral chaos, and spiritual confusion, this darkness shouldn’t surprise us.

And yet, “Fifty Shades” does bring a great wave of sorrow upon all who trust in Jesus and value his honor: sorrow at the disdain for Jesus’ wise, loving teaching that lust is destructive and sex belongs in marriage (Matt 5:28; 19:4-6). Sorrow for the hearts of E. L. James, the publishers, Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson (lead actors), the film’s cast and crew, and for everyone else connected to the project. These are men and women made in God’s image (Genesis 1:26-27), and who will only find and spread misery as they extract sex from the beautiful, God-given safety and joy of marriage. Pray for E. L. James and Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson.

I appreciate Kevin DeYoung’s direct and practical counsel about this movie: “There is nothing gray about whether a follower of Christ should see 50 Shades of Grey. This is a black and white issue. Don’t go. Don’t watch it. Don’t read it. Don’t rent it.” Instead, pray for an outpouring of God’s grace in the lives of his people (including all in our church family), that we might know the joy of purity and love in Christ, and that we might find our greatest satisfaction, far and away, in knowing and obeying the Lord. Pray as well that God will take this brazen distortion of his soul-satisfying design for our lives and turn it for good in surprising ways: pray for a wave of dismay to overcome viewers, and a new yearning to arise in people’s hearts saying, “Is this really what we long for?!”