Editorial
Forbidden Lies
Speaking Truth About the Sexes Is Not Optional
“Let your yes be yes and your no be no,” says Jesus. “Anything more than this comes from the evil one” (Matt. 5:37). For Satan was “a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks what is false, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44). Recall the primal lie, uttered that death might be brought into the world: “You shall not die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:4–5).
Should one small taste cost us paradise? One small offense, a technicality perhaps, a feint, a tactical gesture? Surely not, says Milton’s Satan:
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Anthony Esolen is Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Thales College and the author of over 30 books, including Real Music: A Guide to the Timeless Hymns of the Church (Tan, with a CD), Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture (Regnery), and The Hundredfold: Songs for the Lord (Ignatius). He has also translated Dante’s Divine Comedy (Random House) and, with his wife Debra, publishes the web magazine Word and Song (anthonyesolen.substack.com). He is a senior editor of Touchstone.
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more on sex from the online archives
27.3—May/June 2014
Facts versus Stereotypes About Love & Marriage in the Land of the Free by Allan C. Carlson
25.4—July/August 2012
The Corrosive & Far-Reaching Fallout of the Sexual Revolution by Anthony Esolen
31.6—November/December 2018
on the Church's Response to the Anti-marriage Tide by Diane Woerner
more from the online archives
36.4—Jul/Aug 2023
Our Political Void & the Disintegration of Truth by Michael Hanby
34.1—January/February 2021
What the World Needs Now It Hardly Knows by Anthony Esolen
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—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
