How is a story about bondage supposed to be liberating to women?

A naive woman is drawn into a relationship with a mysterious, alluring, sexy billionaire with a dark side. Against her better judgment, she allows him to seduce her deeper and deeper into his chamber of horrors and to coerce her into degrading acts.

The basic plot of Fifty Shades of Grey also serves as a metaphor for what is happening to millions of people who are opening themselves up to its world of dark, abusive, demeaning, perverse sexual practices.

It started in 2012 with a self-published e-book that eventually became a trilogy. Overnight it became the UK’s fastest-selling paperback in history and made millions for its author, a suburban British mom. It has been translated into 52 languages, and has sold over 100 million copies.

Released in time for Valentine’s Day—as if it was the perfect date movie—it raked in more than $94 million in the United States alone over the four-day weekend.

Moviemakers rushed to cash in. This past weekend, the Fifty Shades of Grey movie smashed box office expectations—in spite of awful reviews. Released in time for Valentine’s Day—as if it was the perfect date movie—it raked in more than $94 million in the United States alone over the four-day weekend. The media joined in: Establishment news programs, respected publications, and popular websites tripped over themselves in the rush for an audience share by reporting on the movie as if it were just another Star Wars installment.

If you want a snapshot of the moral climate in America and Britain, look at the frenzy over Fifty Shades of Grey. Just don’t look too close. This entertainment juggernaut has quite suddenly brought sadomasochism into the morning shows, the newsmagazine on your coffee table, and your local school hallways.

Women are collectively paying millions to absorb its message—a message that on its face is explicitly damaging to women. But in the same sense that the “heroine” of the series finds the destructive irresistible, so do Fifty Shades of Grey fans.

The story sends deeply confusing and toxic signals, glossing terrible evil with an alluring, mysterious veneer. It dusts violence against women with glamour. It entices women to subject themselves to unhealthy relationships and/or to participate in harmful sexual practices. A study published in Journal of Women’s Health last summer found that readers of the series are much likelier than nonreaders to be in abusive relationships.

Somehow, though, the purveyors of this entertainment have convinced themselves that this is empowering and liberating women. That is ironic, when its overt theme is subjugation and bondage. Ask a woman who has been abused or raped how empowered she feels by it.

In a truly galling segment on its daily news show This Morning (click here to see it),cbs News audaciously conflated the twisted sexual “submission” depicted in Fifty Shades with the “submission” wedded wives give to their husbands under God’s laws for marriage in the Bible. As if this satanic sex phenomenon weren’t bad enough, cbs used it to deceitfully slander the Book that stands against it.

The Bible is absolutely contrary to everything Fifty Shades of Grey represents. This film exemplifies society’s unrelenting stampede away from biblical morality and truth.

The Bible is absolutely contrary to everything Fifty Shades represents. This film exemplifies society’s unrelenting stampede away from biblical morality and truth.

In a literal sense, Fifty Shades of Grey exposes the true nature of the sexual revolution: It is alluring—and it leads to bondage. It enslaves people to sin. Romans 6:16 says, “Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?” Evil is a drug. People become hooked and constantly crave stronger doses. Fifty Shades is drawing millions deeper into that dark world. What they don’t see in the movie they can read in the book. And what they can’t read in the book is a click away on the Internet.

The Bible commands men to curb our lusts. It directs us to commit to family. It commands us to protect women and children, to safeguard them from predators. Fifty Shades of Grey wallows in lust. It ignores family. It idealizes sexual predation. It sends the message that women want to be dominated sexually. It glamorizes abusive, repugnant selfishness gone wild. The success of this series demonstrates and accelerates society’s efforts to exempt men from our biblically mandated responsibilities toward women and children, and to encourage us to gratify our appetites, however wicked, without thought to consequences.

The Bible contains the viewpoint of the Creator of sex. He commands that it express nothing but love, outgoing concern and affection between a committed husband and wife. (Herbert W. Armstrong wrote beautifully about this in The Missing Dimension in Sex—we strongly recommend this book and will send you a copy for free.) Fifty Shades of Grey is the exact opposite. This is the war on women.

The husband-wife relationship is a human-level embodiment of the beautiful relationship between Jesus Christ and the Church (Ephesians 5:32). The “submission” enjoined in scriptures like Ephesians 5:22; Colossians 3:18 and 1 Peter 3:1 has absolutely nothing in common with the perversions of sadomasochism—and if the people at cbs were honest, they would admit that.

The Bible never permits husbands to abuse their wives or treat them unlovingly. Over and over God commands a husband to love and honor his wife, to give himself in sacrifice for her (Ephesians 5:25; Colossians 3:19 and 1 Peter 3:7). He is to be her self-sacrificing leader, putting her needs before his own. And his authority is not absolute. His wife submits “as is fit in the Lord,” within the bounds of God’s law of love. God is the ultimate authority, and any person’s demands that undermine that authority should be disobeyed (Acts 5:29).

Nothing upholds the honor and dignity of women like the truth of God. Right now, nothing is bruising and staining it quite like Fifty Shades of Grey.

Society has discarded God’s absolute morals and embraced a world where everything is a shade of gray. There is darkness in everything, and it holds the world in its thrall. But there is no darkness at all in God (1 John 1:5). He tells us to flee fornication, to come out of evil, and to walk in the light. He wants to break the chains of sin on your mind. He truly liberates the captive, and frees those who are bound (Isaiah 61:1).

This truth should be self-evident: There is such a thing as evil—and Fifty Shades of Grey is wretched, dark evil. Don’t be seduced by it. Stay away from bondage. As Jesus said in John 8:32, 36, “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. … If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”