USA Today recently published an article that conservative critics declaimed as attempting to normalize pedophilia. 

The article makes several claims, including: (a) pedophilia must be distinguished from sexual child abuse or molestation, since it is an attraction not an action; (b) “pedophilia is determined in the womb” and because it is inborn, it isn’t something that people can choose; (c) there are ways to enable a person with pedophilia to never act on their inappropriate sexual attraction, such as destigmatizing the attraction and “self-control and compensatory strategies” that are learned through therapy.

These claims straddle the line between truth and lie so subtly, it’s worth parsing out where the author lands on a truth and where they fall short.

Truth: Pedophilia is sexual attraction to children.  Lie: Pedophilia is only sexual attraction to children.

The definition of pedophilia according to Merriam Webster is much broader than simply sexual attraction to children; it is: “sexual perversion in which children are the preferred sexual object” whether in fantasy or activity.  The authors correctly distinguish between child molestation and pedophilia.  Not all child molesters commit crimes out of attraction.  Not all pedophiles act on their desires. But just because pedophilia is not the only (or even the major) cause of child molestation doesn’t mean it should not be negatively viewed as a cause. To reduce the definition to simply fantasy, and not acknowledge the perverse activity, is to ignore the connection between our mind and body and the influence that our thoughts have upon our actions. The argument wrongly implies that pedophiles are not responsible for their thoughts, nor are their perverse sexual thoughts harmful if they remain in one’s mind.

In order to rightly deal with pedophilia, we need to call it what it is: sin.

And, since our secular modern world has purposefully lost sight of the term “sin,” I’ll provide a brief definition.  A good, short understanding of what sin is: rebellion against God’s law.  That definition assumes both the existence and authority of God.   But one doesn’t need to acknowledge the existence of God in order to commit sin.  The New City Catechism defines sin as “rejecting or ignoring God in the world He created, rebelling against Him by living without reference to Him.”  Wayne Grudem characterizes sin as a failure to conform to the moral law of God in act, attitude (desires of our heart), or nature.  Sin is a falling short, an ontological parasite (as Norm Geisler terms it) on the good, a failure to glorify God fully.* Its nature is total: sin has crippled human nature in every aspect (thought, desire, will, body) and will dominate every individual who refuses to believe in it. 

If we define pedophilia as sin, it isn’t good enough to simply have fantasies of sexually abusing children but never act on them.  The thoughts themselves debase another human being and pervert the thinker.  Additionally, unchecked sinful thoughts lead to sinful actions. 

Truth: Pedophilia can be inborn.  Lie: Social de-stigmatization and psychotherapy are enough to enable a person to control pedophilia.

Defining pedophilia as a sin helps to confirm what science is trending towards affirming, namely that some people are born with an innate sexual attraction towards children.  Pedophilia is inborn because sin is inborn.  Scripture teaches that we are all born sinners by nature.  We are naturally “children of wrath” (Ephesians 2:3). King David confesses to have sinned when a baby (Psalm 51:5, 58:3).  Whatever good we have retained from the original creation (for example, the ability to reason, to freely choose between good and evil through the use of our will, to feel good emotions such as love or compassion) is marred and corrupted by a tendency towards sin. That corruption is complete, pervading our intellects, desires, motives, and physical bodies (Grudem, p. 497).  The corruption of sin occurs from birth; human beings don’t need to learn how to sin.  We are not socialized to sin. 

This natural tendency towards sin means that we cannot do any spiritual good before God, and any good we do towards other human beings is fraught with potential for failure or harm. It isn’t safe to try to normalize understanding pedophilia without a truthful definition of what pedophilia is and how it can be conquered.  We cannot conquer sinful tendencies—desires, lusts, thoughts—through our own skill.  We can’t do so through modern psychology, or stronger civil laws, or even more religious education.  What we cannot do, God can in us (Phil 2:13).  When nature fails, we must turn to the Creator of nature.  Thus Christians affirm that belief in sin helps us make sense of evil in a way that neither excuses the wrongdoer nor leaves them helpless to their nature. 

Truth: Environment can affect whether a pedophile acts on their desires.  Lie: When pedophiles do act on their desires, the blame lies in an environment that is hostile to their desires.

The author implicitly acknowledges the problems with their emphasis on thought, not action, in their later qualifications.  While they find the thoughts of pedophiles blameless, they try to blame the activities of pedophiles on childhood head injuries, mistreatment, or neglect; genetic mental disorders (particularly from mothers); or social stigmatization that discourages individuals from seeking out therapy.  Thus, the argument implies that if we focus on removing these social ills and providing adequate therapy, pedophiles will not actively harm children.

There are several problems with presenting this argument on pedophilia to our current culture. Many moderns wrongly assume that if there are defects or problems with nature, they can be overcome by human skill.  We pridefully think that our knowledge (psychology) or institutions (social structures and opinions) are wholly adequate to remedy the shortcomings of nature and eradicate the physical threats posed to us by natural forces. These assumptions are the height of hubris.

By not believing in sin nature and instead substituting our own capacity to conquer the negative effects of sin, we have deconstructed any potential environmental limitations on our sin. Those in favor of normalizing pedophilia want to do so in a context that has purposefully rejected many of the institutional restraints on sin that God’s common grace established.  Civil laws do not effectively restrain child sexual abuse; many of us live in communities where registered sex offenders also live after serving short prison terms (Romans 13:1-7).  The modern family has been almost wholly annihilated through the feminist sexual revolution, divorce allowances, and abortion; the lack of intact families contributes to increasing child sexual abuse (Hebrews 13:4, Ephesians 6:1-4).   

In sum, those promoting de-stigmatization of pedophilia have rejected the environmental factors that God intended to prevent acting on the errant desires.  Instead, they want to pretend that a pedophile will be constrained in an alternative environment—one that supports the wrong thinking while punishing the actions that result from those thoughts.  It is, at best, a convoluted argument that portends disastrous results.

So we need to strengthen the restraining orders on human sin while also acknowledging the limitations of those restraints and our need for divine grace.  We need to acknowledge the truth about pedophilia—it can be a natural desire for some from birth, but it is also fundamentally an evil desire that needs conquering, not compensating.  These truths will help to shape the consciences of the next generation to recognize and refuse temptation to sexual deviancy. 

*For those that take scripture as their authority, see the following: I John 3:4, Romans 1:18, Jude 15, Ephesians 4:18, Ephesians 3:23.

Works Cited

Geisler, Norman.  Systematic Theology: Vol 3, Sin and Salvation.  Minneapolis: Bethany House, 2004.

Grudem, Wayne.  Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine.  Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994.