In May 2008, a Sydney art gallery featured some nude photographs of 12 and 13-year-olds by artist Bill Henson. The papers were flooded with unflattering images of police action against the artist. The intelligentsia rushed to the barricades, all chanting the same mantra. The politicians and other community leaders were caught expressing popular, but indefensible sound bites. As usual, the question of censorship arose. How should we think about it as Christians?
Censorship is a very dangerous and undesirable blunt instrument: we can never be certain of the truth if people in power censor communication. Christian concern for the truth means we have to tolerate dreadfully painful and untrue things being said about our Lord and Saviour. Our opponents trade upon this tolerance in a way they dare not with other groups.
But this recent debate reveals one big change since the 60s. Back then, a group of French atheistic intellectuals argued for the decriminalization of pedophilia. Most of society thought it unthinkable, and so did not discuss it as a possibility. Now, everybody knows it is more than possible, and nobody is seriously arguing for it, though some people want to lower the age of consent. At least we agree on something: pedophilia is absolutely wrong.
All now agree that society must protect itself and its most vulnerable members. Pedophiles are often predators using the open honesty of the community to reach their victims. Families, friends, schools, churches, scouts and other organizations that are built and that operate on trust have had to change in order to protect the innocent.
But in a multicultural society, there is very little agreement about morality. It is the creative community that has license to explore the nature of the human condition. But they have no central philosophy or ethics by which to conclude anything is right or wrong—good for humanity or bad for society. Their only commitment is to their own self-interested freedom. They want our protection to say whatever they like without bearing responsibility for the consequences.
So what makes something ‘art’ and what makes something pornography? The problem is usually posed in the impossible question “Where do you draw the line?” There is no answer. There is a thing called pornography, and there is a thing called art. You can recognize the difference when the two extremes are put side by side, but there is no clear dividing line between the two. Beautiful art can be pornographic, and pornography can be artistically beautiful.
The value of most visual representations lies in the context in which they are shown. The medical textbook and the art gallery are very different to the home computer and the ‘adult’ movie house. A confronting image in an art gallery may be unacceptable on an office computer. A crucifix in an exhibition can be an important and challenging work of art, but the same statue in the front of a church can be idolatrous and corrupting. In the computer age, we cannot control where any work will be shown.
But art is more than self-expression. When we place it in galleries for other people to see or when we use a controversial photo to advertise an exhibition, it is a social activity. Its value lies in its impact on the viewer. One of the fundamentally weakest arguments against censorship is that art never harms anybody. If it can do no harm, it can do no good either. If it can do no harm, it cannot enhance, ennoble or help anybody. This argument is like the stupidity of the claim that advertising (e.g. for tobacco or alcohol) does not affect consumer behaviour. If the argument were vaguely true, nobody would spend any money on advertising.
Viewers, however, differ. As the Scripture says, “To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure” (Titus 1:15). The viewer brings their innocence and corruption to any work of art. It is hard to blame the artist for other people’s corruption. And yet the artist should know of our common corruption, for there is no temptation that is not common to man (1 Cor 10:13). The intelligentsia should know the failure and weakness of humanity.
Churches should have done better in protecting children in their care because Christians teach the universality of sin. We of all people oppose the humanistic idealism of trusting in the goodness of humanity. It was to our credit that we thought pedophilia was an unthinkable taboo that nobody would break. But we were shown to be seriously wrong in that estimation. We should have been as vigilant in our auditing of relationships as we have had to be with auditing accounts. Our credibility has taken a great blow.
But the artistic community would gain greater credibility if they took more responsibility for the consequences of their work. They would be more believable in their moral outrage if they unleashed it on some subject like pornography, prostitution and pedophilia, rather than in defending their right to offend the historical norms of society. Artistic photographs of nude 13-year-olds in the context of today’s struggle with pedophilia and the sexualization of children is, at the very least, socially insensitive, if not culpably irresponsible. The Bible says God has made everything beautiful in its time (Eccl 3:11); this is not the time.
