A Formidable Challenge

In the cry for freedom in pleasure, we come up against the obvious.






Malcolm Muggeridge did. He took the action of resigning as Rector at the University of Edinburgh and it was fuelled by a moral struggle – this one straw broke the camel’s back so to speak – the supplying of contraceptives to the student body (this was thirty years ago).

“So dear Edinburgh students, this may well be the last time I address you, and this is what I want to say – and I don’t really care whether it means anything to you or not, whether you think there is anything in it or not, I want you to believe that this row I have had with your elected officers has nothing to do with any puritanical attitudes on my part. 

I have no belief in abstinence for abstinence's own sake, no wish under any circumstances to check any fulfilment of our life and being. But I have to say to you this: that whatever life is or is not about, it is not to be expressed in terms of drug stupefaction and casual sexual relations, however we may venture into the unknown it is not I assure you on the plastic wings of Playboy magazine or psychedelic fancies."

Take a look at an insightful comparison made by Neil Postman in Amusing Ourselves to Death, where he compares the effects of George Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's Brave New World.
http://www.recombinantrecords.net/docs/2009-05-Amusing-Ourselves-to-Death.html

I know I do not have to belabour the point about a disconcerting truth that is being revealed survey after survey showing that in our private lives there is very little difference between those who claim to be followers of Christ and those who don’t. Preachers have reached into that pocket on more than one occasion.

Sigmund Freud : I have found little that is good about human beings on the whole. In my experience most of them are trash, no matter whether they publicly subscribe to this or that ethical doctrine or to none at all. That is something that you cannot say aloud, or perhaps even think.

I think Sigmund was having a bad day for this statement is somewhat harsh and overstated maybe, but not completely off the mark. We all, if we are honest, flounder for lack of clear direction and inner strength in a world of changing and multiplying options.

Back to more questions --
How can we find the delights that our hearts yearn for without victimizing ourselves in the process?
How can life be enjoyed with out profaning it in the process?

Here is what we know about pleasure --

• There is the pleasure of listening

• The pleasure of seeing

• The pleasure of taste and touch

• The pleasure of feeling and knowing

• The pleasure of being

Would this God who made such ecstasy in purity possible, deny us direction in pleasure?