Religious views on pornography are based on the broader views of religions on topics such as modesty, dignity, and sexuality. Different religious groups view pornography and sexuality differently.
Christianity Biblical scholarship
There is no direct prohibition of pornography in the Bible. However, many Christians base their views on pornography on Matthew 5:27–28 (part of the Expounding of the Law): Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.J. Gordon Melton (1989), The Churches Speak on Pornography: Official Statements from Religious Bodies and Ecumenical Organizations, Gale Research, p. xxi-xxiiArthur J. Mielke (1995), Christians, Feminists, and the Culture of Pornography, University Press of America, p. 57-58,62Ronald David Lawler, Joseph M. Boyle, William E. May (1998), Catholic Sexual Ethics: A Summary, Explanation & Defense, Our Sunday Visitor Publishing, p. 30Larry J. Nelson, Laura M. Padilla-Walker, Jason S. Carroll (2010). Ralph L. Piedmont, ed. ""I Believe It Is Wrong But I Still Do It": A Comparison of Religious Young Men Who Do Versus Do Not Use Pornography". Psychology of Religion and Spirituality. American Psychological Association. Vol 2 (3), p. 137. DOI 10.1037/a0019127
It contains one of the Ten Commandments, Exodus 20:14 or Deuteronomy 5:18, which is also used often as a supporting verse to condemn pornography.Susan Cebulko (2007), The Impact of Internet Pornography on Married Women: A Psychodynamic Perspective, Cambria Press, p. 43,
Michael Coogan reports that, based on his past experience, the campaign against lustful thoughts had the consequence of razoring the Song of Songs from the Bibles available for seminarians.
Ken Stone cites Origen's words to say that reading the Song of Songs may stimulate lust to 'fleshly' readers: "But if any man who lives only after the flesh shall approach [the Song of Songs], to such a one the reading of this Scripture will be the occasion of no small hazard and danger. For he, not knowing how to hear love's language in purity and with chaste ears, will twist the whole manner of his hearing of it away from the inner spiritual man and on to the outward and carnal; and he will be turned away from the spirit to the flesh, and will foster carnal desires in himself, and it will seem to be the Divine Scriptures that are thus urging and egging him on to fleshly lust!" Stone adds that "the heavy use of food imagery in the book is no barrier to a positive 'pornographic' interpretation."Ken Stone (2005), Practicing Safer Texts: Food, Sex and Bible in Queer Perspective, A&C Black, p. 107,
Richard Hess explains Carey E. Walsh's view as: "Walsh has determined that the emphasis of the Song lies in the expression of desire between two lovers. It is not sexual consummation that is most important, but the desire itself that drives the lovers together. In this she distinguishes erotica from pornography. The latter is concerned only with sex, and in this it is qualitatively different from the Song. Here sex plays a secondary role to desire. Whether there is any sexual activity at all in the poem—and as a fantasy there may be no such reality here—the key to the Song remains with the desire that drives the reader to appreciate the time of waiting. Hebrew experience placed the greatest value on passion."Richard S. Hess (2005), Song of Songs, Baker Academic, p. 32, Saying that the Song of Songs is "erotica", not pornography, she argues that both are different in at least three ways: (1) Erotica inclines toward "emotions and internal worlds" of a subject to seek empathy, while pornography's "emotional flatness" aims at sexual gratification; (2) Erotica focuses on yearning to reach "consummation", which may occur in "tortuous delay", while pornography is only about the "acts" to reach it as soon as possible and "a frenzy of repetition"; (3) Erotica uses imagination as the "invisible and ever-active participant" without revealing the "mystery of love", while pornography is no more than an explicit story of sexual intercourse.Carey Ellen Walsh (2000), Exquisite Desire: Religion, the Erotic, and the Song of Songs, Fortress Press, p. 42-45,
Roman Catholicism
The magisterium of the Catholic Church interprets Matthew 5:27–28 to mean that since the purpose of pornography is to create lust, it is sinful, because lusting is equivalent to adultery. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains:Pornography consists in removing real or simulated sexual acts from the intimacy of the partners, in order to display them deliberately to third parties. It offends against chastity because it perverts the conjugal act, the intimate giving of spouses to each other. It does grave injury to the dignity of its participants (actors, vendors, the public), since each one becomes an object of base pleasure and illicit profit for others. It immerses all who are involved in the illusion of a fantasy world. It is a grave offense. Civil authorities should prevent the production and distribution of pornographic materials.CCC 2354.
Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, before he became Pope John Paul II, wrote in Love and Responsibility: "Pornography is a marked tendency to accentuate the sexual element when reproducing the human body or human love in a work of art, with the object of inducing the reader or viewer to believe that sexual values are the only real values of the person, and that love is nothing more than the experience, individual or shared, of those values alone." Edward Sri explains about the topic of art and pornography, which is discussed in the book by contrasting Michelangelo's works with Playboy, by saying that "good art leads us to a peaceful contemplation of the true, the good and the beautiful, including the truth, goodness and beauty of the human body", while pornography "stirs in us a sensuous craving for the body of another person as an object to be exploited for our own pleasure" and, if it is left uncontrolled, "we will become enslaved to everything that stimulates our sensual desire".Edward Sri (2007), Men, Women, and the Mystery of Love: Practical Insights from John Paul II's Love and Responsibility, St. Anthony Messenger Press, , p. 29,119 When one constantly views pornography, which is focused merely on "the visible and the erotic", and reduces the human person to what is visible with the eyes, he or she will have difficulties relating to people of different gender in real life, since he or she would have become accustomed to seeing them as "objects to be used".Anthony Percy (2005), Theology of the Body Made Simple, Gracewing Publishing, , p. 63
In a series of lectures called the Theology of the Body, Pope John Paul II argues that some works of art depict naked individuals without evoking lust, but "makes it possible to concentrate, in a way, on the whole truth of man, and the dignity and beauty—also the 'suprasensual' beauty—of his masculinity and feminity", and that such works "bear within them, almost hidden, an element of sublimation". He insists that pornography is problematic since "it fails to portray everything that is human".Christopher West (2003), Theology of the Body Explained: A Commentary on John Paul II's "Gospel of the Body", Gracewing Publishing, , p. 234-235
Eastern Orthodox
Eastern Orthodox Church forbids pornography along with premarital sex. Looking lustfully is equal to adultery by Christ's teaching, and linked to prostitution too.Position on pornography. myocn.net. Retrieved 2019-10-20."Sveti WiFi: Ruska crkva svima nudi besplatan internet" [Holy Wi-Fi: Russian Church offers free Internet for everyone] (in Serbian). B92. Retrieved 2019-10-20."Mitropolit Amfilohije: Pornografija je opasnija za ljude od bilo koje droge" [Metropolitan Amfilohije: Pornography is more dangerous for humans than any addiction] (in Serbian). nezavisne.com. Retrieved 2019-10-20.
Protestantism Harry Reid notes that, during the Reformation, "Calvin's aim was straightforward, if ambitious; he wanted to create a perfect Christian community where everyone looked after everyone else... He persuaded the council to legislate against adultery, prostitution, pornography, gambling, drunkenness and much else."
According to Manetsch, the Genevan Consistory regularly censured literature they deemed dangerous for public morals, including pornography. Oboler also notes that pornography was censored in Geneva and Puritan New England in order to defend against "ungodly eroticism".
Max Weber argued that there was a concern that eroticism was a kind of idolatry that went against God's rational regulation of sexuality through marriage alone.
Martin E. Marty notes that, today, both mainstream and evangelical Protestants remain overwhelmingly opposed to pornography and that you will find "very, very few theological statements that go light on pornography."
According to Addicted to Lust: Pornography in the Lives of Conservative Protestants (2019) written by Samuel L. Perry, professor of Sociology and Religious studies at the University of Oklahoma, Conservative Protestants in the United States are characterized by a "sexual exceptionalism" related to their consumption of pornography due to certain pervasive beliefs within the Conservative Protestant subculture, which entails cognitive dissonance associated with the unfounded conviction to be addicted to pornography, psychological distress, and intense feelings of guilt, shame, self-loathing, depression, and sometimes withdrawal from faith altogether.
Perry's book received widespread media coverage and his findings were criticized by Lyman Stone of the Evangelical magazine Christianity Today, which asserted that both the quantitative and qualitative statistical data collected by Perry demonstrate that the consumption of pornography in the United States is significantly lower among church-attending Protestant Christians compared to other religious groups, and declared that "Protestant men today who attend church regularly are basically the only men in America still resisting the cultural norm of regularized pornography use".
Lutheranism In 1990, the Lutheran Church of Australia condemned pornography by publishing an official position on "X-rated videos".