“Everyone has a secret…” states ABC’s webpage of it’s hit TV show Scandal.
The quick witted protagonist Olivia Pope commands a firm of “fixers” who take in Washington D.C.’s elite of the elite. Politicians, Socialites, Businessmen alike hire the services of Pope and Associates to either hide their dirty laundry or clear their name of wrongful accusations. As viewers taken through twists and turns throughout the different episodes, there is a constant underlying plot, a thread that holds everything else together.
Adultery.
As Olivia Pope navigates her team and her life through sticky plot lines of murder, lies, gossip, and conspiracies, Pope maintains a illicit affair with the President of the United States, who is married.
God gave humanity ten simple laws or commandments to live by. They weren’t given out of mode of mastery over us but out of love. They were designed to ultimately make us a happy and safe. One of the ten commandments specifically deals with adultery or as we call it today, “having an affair”. The act of sex between a married man and another woman who is not his wife or a married woman sleeping with a man who is not her husband. In fact the command was simplified to five words in Exodus 20:14 “You shall not commit adultery.”
In an age where equality of gender, race and sexuality are some of hottest buttons, the show Scandal seems pulls no punches in dealing with these issues and in doing so it masks a larger issue that actually destroys families, men, women, children and communities.
Over 40% of today’s marriages have been affected by infidelity whether by one spouse or by both. What is even more worrisome is that 68%-75% of Men and Women admit that they would have an affair if they didn’t get caught.
It is really hard to look at these stats and not wonder the influence the entertainment industry that is over sexualized, has on marriage infidelity. In the case of Scandal, the affair between the President and Olivia Pope is so romanticized that the viewer finds themselves rooting for the couple as if it was a tragic love story, a modern day Romeo and Juliet.
“Scandal isn’t out to make adultery OK,” states the shows creator Shonda Rhimes. As the episodes play out, the the affair never seems to die out or even be called out as morally unacceptable. “It’s not finished yet” says Rhimes referring to the illicit affair in future episodes.
When Christ ministered on earth, all 10 commandments were still intact, as they perpetually are, but what Jesus did was break them down even further. He explained that the five word commandment, “Thou shalt not commit adultery” meant not only committing the physical act of a marriage affair but also the emotional and psychological. Jesus said “But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
BAM!
If you even look at a person lustfully in your mind you have already gone the full mile. Is it possible that an extramarital affair can take place without any physical contact? Is it possible that we can be just as guilty before God as the adulterer, by just a mental fantasy or even passively viewing an affair taking place on the screen?
Have you heard of mirror neurons? Formerly known as ‘Monkey see, Monkey-do’, researchers have found that we mirror any behavior that we see, whether live or on a screen, in our cortex. It is as if our cortex says “ I can do that”, and actually mirrors how it would play out the action. Just by pure science and research, this brings huge validation to Christ’s breaking down of the Seventh Commandment.
“He who finds pleasure in dwelling upon scenes of impurity, who indulges the evil thought, the lustful look, may behold in the open sin, with its burden of shame and heart-breaking grief, the true nature of the evil which he has hidden in the chambers of the soul. The season of temptation, under which, it may be, one falls into grievous sin, does not create the evil that is revealed, but only develops or makes manifest that which was hidden and latent in the heart.”7
Are we condoning wrongful sexual behavior with shows such as Scandal or countless other programs and movies that place no value in marriage fidelity? Are we giving credence to actions of infidelity, actions that destroys the family unit that God created to be a representation of the family unit in Heaven. Are we turning a blind eye to sexual immorality which rips innocent childhoods apart? Are we playing the ignorance card for the sake of entertainment?
More than ever is Satan out to destroy families. He wants to destroy husbands, wives, children. Ultimately it’s his aim to destroy the image of God in humanity. Let’s not give him the foothold by passively allowing programs such as Scandal hold our attention. Let’s not give him the opportunity through programs like Scandal, to suggest to our subconscious that sexual immorality culturally acceptable.
Paul has such a strong admonition to mental purity, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, Philippians 2:5 and again in Colossians 3:2 “Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.”
Finally,
“Whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.” Philippians 4:8.
– http://abc.go.com/shows/scandal/about-the-show
– http://www.statisticbrain.com/infidelity-statistics/
– http://blogs.indiewire.com/shadowandact/shonda-rhimes-rejects-claim-that-scandal-oks-infidelity-but-fitz-olivia-are-not-finished
– Wired for Intimacy, William Struthers, pg. 96
-Thoughts from the Mount of Blessings, Ellen G. White. Pg. 60
