Forbidden Lies

Speaking Truth About the Sexes Is Not Optional

by Anthony Esolen

“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, . . .

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Anthony Esolen is a professor at Magdalen College of the Liberal Arts in Warner, New Hampshire, and the author of many books, including Life Under Compulsion (ISI Books), 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 Press, 2019). He has also translated Dante's Divine Comedy (Random House). He is a senior editor of Touchstone.

more on sex from the online archives

31.1—January/February 2018

Mere Sexuality

Getting Sex Wrong Is a Foundational Error by James M. Kushiner

32.5—September/October 2019

Feral Sexuality

on the Inhuman Transformation of Transgenderism by Anthony Esolen

31.6—November/December 2018

Of Single Importance

on the Church's Response to the Anti-marriage Tide by Diane Woerner

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