Part 1: A Malformed Thesis—My Religious Confusion Story

(Excerpt from Chapter Three of my book Confession All)

…In my worst moments, whispers circled, choking any semblance of regret, allowing my favorite sins to appear nearly innocent: At least you’re not shooting heroin or sleeping with prostitutes. As if my forms of escaping reality, filling voids, and sidestepping God’s commands were somehow better.

Regardless of where I landed, with every episode of gorging and decadence, victimhood comforted and convinced me to remain selfish, ready to escape upcoming challenges. No matter the intensity, a buzz accompanied all sin. A strong buzz was sought after resetting; a stronger buzz was chased when a strong buzz no longer cut it; and a strongest buzz was hunted when a stronger buzz fell short. Three weeks on, one week off; two months on, four days off; three days on, one day off. No matter the category of sin, I never had a grasp of self-control. I was attempting to catch an eel with oil-soaked hands.

Rebellion won. It always won, even if incrementally.

I continued this process as often as I liked, with as much flexibility as I liked, until I found a Bible translation I liked, or until I found “conflicting” verses that provided an opening for sin to thrive. After all, an apparent contradiction cancels itself out, right? To a cunning layman it does. 

For example, I reasoned, The Bible never outrightly says masturbation is wrong. But I have heard people reference “the body is a temple.” Also, masturbation is essentially sex with yourself. Oh, well—if it was so important, wouldn’t the Holy Spirit ensure such a large topic was explicitly covered? Hmm.... 

Nevertheless, I’m sure I’d have found another, “more important” verse to smother it anyway. Hey, wait, the Bible does say a wife and husband rule over each other’s bodies, right? The NIV translation says the wife yields her body to her husband. So, reasonably, in the absence of this, masturbation must be encouraged. After all, the only time sex should be avoided is during a time of mutual consent—which has never happened. So that’s settled. I should become a theologian! I cracked the code! 

Even while periodically abstaining from pornography, masturbation was perfectly okay in my mind. I’m sure I thought, There’s no way this is wrong. I clearly haven’t gone blind (certainly not physically), as they used to joke about at school. Sure, I need a break from my phone screen, but I can think whatever I want, right? I’m not looking, just picturing. See, I do care. 

And just like that: an Eddie-made doctrine. A self-interest necessity disguised as virtue. 

I also must have occasionally reasoned the impossible: masturbation can be detached from lust and selfishness. 

Regardless of my internal rationale, I never viewed pornography as a betrayal but as a response to Ashley’s refusal and rejection of me. And if not betrayal, it was entirely within my rights to do whatever necessary to fulfill my natural impulses. Resulting damage did not register—ever! Probably because my plan was to carry it to the grave. I must have thought actions couldn’t hurt if they were only in secret. 

The best part: Ashley said she wasn’t refusing or rejecting me (definitely not the way I thought), but that she was nervous and wondered why my love for her was absent. I was covertly investigating verses about conjugal rights rather than exploring how husbands are called to love their wives. My love for her was highly conditional at best and non-existent at worst. 

What should have been black and white was grayish to me. Within margins of gray were a half dozen gradients. Compared to black or white, a variant of gray was purple. Then, of course, a half dozen purple variants arose. Compared to the original gray, they might as well have been toasters or peacocks. Because I disregarded God, my decisions got poorer, while my camouflage got richer. As Saint Augustine said, “The punishment of every disordered mind is its own disorder.” 

Eventually, I was left with an amalgamation of pride, shame, cowardice, and arrogance. Upset with this chaotic reality, I was half-tempted to create yet a new color, unique for my present situation—until my desires and confusions gained more intensity, then the process reset, and I’d look to redefine my so-called color, sprinting further and further from sacrifice. 

However, somewhere I knew of God’s nature to liberate, not enslave, humans; yet, surrendering to Him seemed as difficult as crossing Niagara Falls on a tightrope. I could not fathom how He paired unconditional love with discipline, so I collected excuses in a quiver. When I’d feebly reach for an arrow, I’d pull out phrases: You’re justified—go ahead; No one expects perfection; I’m sure everyone else does the same thing; Why does God ask you to face temptations only for you to have to resist them? What does it prove? Why do you even have intense desires if you’re meant to control them? If certain actions are so excusable because of teenage hormones, what about adult hormones? 

This mindset was timely when considering one of God’s most fundamental directives: sex is designed for one-flesh marriage and primarily ordered toward procreation and life-long unity. The Bible makes this abundantly clear across the Old and New Testaments, yet I easily warped or outright ignored this teaching in an effort to justify or dismiss sexual sin altogether, acting like laws collapsed on themselves when I felt victimized. Add some doses of trauma and “It’s natural!”, and my reasoning became impenetrable. 

So, I did what any disillusioned, prideful, guilty party would do: I created my own absolute truth, while living like there’s no such thing as absolute truth. While sprinting from authority, I made Scripture submit to my will. I scoured the internet and studied Bibles to discover opinions that closely resembled mine—unsurprisingly, I easily found them. I chased synonyms, commentaries with multiple interpretations, and those who had their own “modern” versions of Scripture, morals, and values. It’s where I found “ironclad” verses to back ever-lenient theories. 

There were “Christian” books endorsing every sexual practice known to man; therapists who encouraged pornography within marriage (i.e. with mutual consent, defilement is left to the couple’s interpretation); and, like a dog chasing its tail, Bible translations that rendered God’s directives softer and softer (lest the Christian community be judged for bigotry until it perfectly matches Society’s Ever-Mutable Laws). 

To adhere to the world’s conclusions, Christianity must adjust, right? Decrees must subtly become a disease; discipline must be seen as oppressive. 2 Peter 3:16 warns of this: “There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.” 

I found people just like me researching just like me, who led more people just like me into a chasm of Biblical relativism (similar to creeping gradualism, a term used by Kitty Werthmann regarding Nazi Germany’s steady, calculated takeover of Austria). 

The Bible is your oyster. 

This twisting of Scripture allowed my conscience to breathe happily, even if yet again seared with an iron and reconfigured by shame. After all, I was only committing digital infidelity—the kind where I cheated with dozens of women without the burden of secret texts, phone calls, and miscellaneous cash withdrawals. 

Even when I felt I wasn’t committing the most commonly judged or ridiculed sins, I did not want to be corrected. I was a self-professed Christian unwilling to surrender my life, so I effortlessly rejected clear Biblical definitions of sin. I say “clear” in hindsight; I was blissfully defiant. Mental gymnastics aside, God’s commands were obvious; especially regarding those related to sexual behavior, there was no excuse. I used convenient, encouraging verses from the very epistles that exposed my sins and called for contrition, yet was selective in my seeing and hearing. 

Whenever sexual sin was mentioned at a church service, it was vague. The common phrase—“Maybe you’re looking at things you shouldn’t be looking at...”—was often wedged between other sins like drug abuse and greed. Because I assume discussing such issues at length was too shameful (even without kids in the congregation), kindred sinners could get “real” in small, private gatherings. Group-confessionals, if you will. Societies, clubs, groups, etc. It made sense at the time. Who wants to feel naked among those who don’t sin the way you do? 

Because I did not want to get tackled holding a football of disgrace, any mention of sexual sin was passed laterally to other men. Those guys need help, not me. I’m not sure what I was thinking—maybe, As long as it’s not with an actual person, I’m fine. Oddly, when recalling the times pornography was discussed at church, I can’t picture myself sitting next to Ashley. I must have mentally left the building. 

Like church, the Bible was great when it suited me. When it didn’t, I easily rationalized and excused sexual immorality: I am visual and have needs my wife does not understand; drunkenness: I’m traumatized; and lying: I need to protect myself from rejection. 

Saint Augustine stated, “If you believe what you like in the gospel, and reject what you don’t like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself.” 

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux added, “He who constitutes himself his own master, becomes the disciple of a fool.” 

Conjuring loopholes in my head was comforting. I started with temptation, then objectification, then masturbation, then cohabitation, then fornication, with an overarching theme of adultery via lust. Rinse and repeat. I matured from crawling to sprinting without much effort. It didn’t take much creativity—only a gateway and a deviant mind. Quite easy when everything is viewed as a contract, at best. 

Alone, with my Bible alone, my interpretations were all that mattered. An inch, a foot, a yard, a mile. 

I praised God while engaging in the opposite of His commands. 

“All is vanity and a striving after wind” (Ecclesiastes 1:14).