Queries & Comments

Pornography in BAR

As a Sunday School teacher of twelve- and thirteen-year-old youths, mostly boys, I find the photographs that accompany the article “What Happened to the Cult Figurines?” BAR 15:04, by Ephraim Stern, revolting and totally inappropriate for a “Biblical” magazine.

Your magazine has always been used in our Sunday School class. How can this kind of photo be necessary?

The photo with the woman holding her breasts is not as offensive as the one with the woman pointing to her genitals. The obviously pregnant figurines are in good taste and one can still use your magazine as a teaching aid in church classes, but the photo with the woman pointing to her genitals is, as you say, “explicit” and, as I say, disgusting and offensive to your women readers and to any person who has subscribed to your magazine for Biblical learning. As a Christian, I cannot accept this as a necessary part of learning.

Let me end by saying that I also am an artist, and find that the human body is a thing of beauty that God created. But pornography is not part of God’s creation. If these kinds of photos are in your magazine, then how can one teach young boys that purchasing pornographic books is wrong. They will only say, “Look at the picture that was in that Biblical magazine, it’s the same thing.”