Not every topic deserves a 4,500-word essay. But important topics do. And few topics are more important for Christians today than the scourge of pornography. Matthew Lee Anderson’s essay on this topic is worth the time.

Anderson reminds us that while pornography “may represent a less vicious deviance than that which murder depends on, [it] trades on the same destructive, dehumanizing impulses. And comparing the two disturbs our complacent, lazy acceptance of pornography as a benign and harmless form of amusement.”

It’s not easy to talk about this hidden-yet-pervasive sin. But Anderson both exposes the stupidity of porn while also upholding all that is good, true, and beautiful about God’s design for sexuality. Whether or not you’re gripped by the sin of pornography, we all—to greater or lesser degree—are deceived by the pornographic spectacles and lies around us. Devote some time to reading Anderson’s longform piece and prayerfully consider how we, and those we’re called to minister to, can be awakened from the stupor of sin and live as those in Christ with hearts set free.