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
33.1—January/February 2020
Speaking Truth About the Sexes Is Not Optional by Anthony Esolen
28.2—March/April 2015
Man, Woman & the Mystery of Christ
An Evangelical Protestant Perspective by Russell D. Moore
32.4—July/August 2019
Does Biblical Language for Man Matter? by Stephen F. Noll
more from the online archives
33.3—May/June 2020
Maternal Body: A Theology of Incarnation from the Christian East by Carrie Frederick Frost
Fertile Ground: A Pilgrimage Through Pregnancy by Laura S. Jansson by Agnes R. Howard
25.6—Nov/Dec 2012
The Loss of Aristotelian Logic & the Social, Moral & Sexual Consequences by Peter Kreeft
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—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
