by Anna Kitko, Ratio Christi Regional Director for Tennessee and South Carolina It has long been understood in the trauma counseling field that men, women, and children, are lured into abusive sexual relationships by a process known as “grooming.” This process is the way perpetrators persuade, coercively, a victim who is unaware that they are the subject of a malicious agenda that ends in their abuse. Clinicians and counselors alike see cases such as these regularly. As mournful as this is, the somber reality is that without the public’s regular training on how to identify grooming in action, generation after generation will not only continue to experience abuse, but will actually become accustomed to the abuse as the regularity of such sin becomes normative. Christians in our culture have experienced this before. For example, far too many Christians minimize abortion. Many have somehow rationalized and minimized its practice. One major reason why is that we have allowed ourselves to become desensitized to its practice, giving in to secular cultural pressure. From an apologetic perspective, this is crucial to understand if we are to formulate our role within our culture. It is the work of Christians everywhere, and the historical role the Church has played, to respond to the culture in which we live. Day after day, year after year, exposing the errors of our times with the plumbline by which we measure the world: the Word of God. Our society is plagued with a warped and bent understanding of true love, it’s many expressions, and the myopic lunacy of postmodern thought. Is it then any wonder that our discussions of sexual expression have moved past the LGBT movement and onto pederasty. Not familiar with this term? Let me explain. Remember my rule: Satan is not very Creative. Because of this we should be watching for how sin is promoted as “new” or “enlightened.” Is sin often simply repackaged? Read more from Anna Kitko in Lauren Daigle: A Case Study in and Ancient Heresy. If you make a regular study of Hamartiology, or the study of sin, you will notice that ancient and otherwise forgotten movements tend to be repeated by consequent generations. Because each generation experiences what I can only describe as “adolescent arrogance” and the idea that they, and they alone, are the chief end of civilized and enlightened decorum, this means that they repeat ancient sins. Turns out that generational arrogance breeds beasts. Pederasty is a sin as old as time. It is the active process of an older male, selecting a pre-pubescent or pubescent boy for the satiation of carnal and erotic acts. At the point where the adolescent boy is old enough, they, in turn, are to select a boy for themselves; and so on and so forth. So regular was this practice that we have references from the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and Persians all the way to the Celts and as far as China. Geography has never been a limiting factor for perversion. And neither is time. Every generation has seen pederasty, in one or more of its many forms and the present is not immune. So ancient a sin is this in fact that we have secular sources documenting that as early as the 2nd century BCE, the only civilization that was not guilty of this disgrace was the Jews themselves: “ greatly surpassing all men are mindful of holy wedlock, and they do not engage in impious (or: impure, immoral) intercourse with male children, as do the Phoenicians, Egyptians, and Romans, spacious Greece and many nations of others, Persians and Galatians and all Asia, transgressing the holy law of immortal God, which they transgressed.” (3:594-600 Sibylline Oracles) The Word of God has always been distinctive from cultural norms, even to the point of the Oracle at Delphi recognizing its divine power.

Recently, a boy of 11 years old was dressed in drag and placed on a stage to dance in front of grown men for the purpose of gratifying their erotic urges. This little boy was then invited to dance on daytime public television for the celebration of his purported sexuality. Dear reader, and do not miss this, this is societal grooming for the normalization of child abuse. Pederasty is being reborn. Notice that something as abhorrent as this happenstance has been met with little to no outcry from those advancing this very old sliding-scale of sexuality. First “love” is stripped of its many inherent facets: holiness, protection, intimacy, and self-sacrifice, to be understood wholly as erotic desire. Then “love” is dragged through the mire of being understood as nothing more than between consenting adults, gender, species–and number of partners be damned! Finally, adulthood will slowly be eroded away as consent, love’s final glimmer of hope, is shredded in order to include erotic relationships with children. It is a grievous thing, dear reader, to remain silent as the character of God (“for God is love” 1 John 4:8b) is marred in such a way. We must stand firm in our dejection of societal grooming. We must stand firm with our Savior. We must stand firm with the chorus of saints past, proclaiming with increasing and unyielding boldness, “But if you cause one of these little ones who trusts in me to fall into sin, it would be better for you to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone hung around your neck.” (Mark 9:42) We must not remain silent as our little ones become targets for abuse.
Anna Kitko is a Christian Apologist who specializes in Cults and New Religions. Her writing ranges from solving biblical difficulties to training people how to avoid coercive persuasion from aberrant Bible-based groups. She is an avid reader of Christian history and loves to point out ancient heresies being re-packaged and re-distributed in our culture. In addition to being a Regional Director for RC, she personally directs the chapter at University of Tennessee-Knoxville. Anna can be contacted at annakitko@ratiochristi.org. Did you enjoy this read? We’ve got more at the Ratio Christi Blog.