“God of Grace and God of Glory,” ELW 705 and LBW 415
Devotion
Harry Emerson Fosdick wrote this hymn in 1930. Although circumstances are different today, do we not still encounter “hosts of evil round us” (v. 2), “warring madness” (v. 3) and “weak resignation” (v. 4)?
As insidious as some of the evils Fosdick may have had in mind is the phenomenon of internet pornography. It seems innocent. But in reality, it involves entrapping vulnerable young people for use as others’ sexual objects. It does violence to all concerned. And it affects our members severely. (For example, one group of lawyers said in 2003 that online porn was a factor in half their divorce cases.) Alerted too late to Nazism’s agenda, people in Fosdick’s day learned that evil can be immobilizing.
Likewise, if we don’t talk about the evils of pornography, then we can’t bring Christ’s liberating message to bear on it. Christ bore our sins. He overcame evil. Humbly and wisely, we love by inviting him to help us with this.
Prayer
Jesus, you took on deceit, pride, fear, sin, violence and death itself. Give us the grace to be brave and prudent leaders in our churches and our nation, where we are so entangled with sexual exploitation and sexual addiction. Amen.