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Rating a book is the same thing as censoring it. Hollywood does not make X or NC-17 because they are not marketable. Theaters will refuse to show them. What that means is that the CARA, the Classification and Rating Committee have chosen which movies I may see and which I have not. It works the same way as taxing certain luxury goods of which we disapprove. Taxing cigarettes and alcohol is simply an underhanded way of trying to decide what is good and evil for the individual.

Books should be beyond that simplistic and ignoble attitude. Books should offend! The Bible offends some people. It reminds them that they are sinful creatures that are ethically and morally damaged, and that they need a loving a merciful God to forgive them of their sins and drag them kicking and screaming into paradise. I do not want anyone telling me I shouldn't read the Bible because it contains multiple stories of incest (Tamara and Reuben, or the daughters of Lot, for example), witchcraft (sorceress of Endor), cold-blooded and savage murder (slaughters galore in the Old Testament), or political correctness (the injunctions against homosexuality come to mind). And be assured that if CARA gets its hands into the matter,it will condemn the Bible for being offensive.

But what about those books that children might get into that are patently incorrigible. Well, one person's Harry Potter is another person's Chronicles of Narnia. In other words, parents should draw the line by paying attention to what their children are reading. You see, if we allow CARA to rate books, then bookstores will purchase and place those books depending on the rating. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe has depictions of animal cruelty, sorcery and violence. With a negative rating, a book like that might never reach the hands of all the children who would love it and be enriched by it because of the decisions of a governing body that has no internal review, no oversight by the public and no limits of any sort.

This is a practical censorship: keeping a book from being read because of its content. This is what every totalitarian regime has done since the nineteenth century. The Soviets ban a book because the government knows what is bad for you and doesn't think you are smart enough to decide for yourself. If your son finds a book to violent, or the language offends him, rest assured that you have done a magnificent job in helping him to be sensitive and moral. If, on the other hand, he can be corrupted by reading a book which has some bad language, sexually explicit moments or gratuitous violence, then I would offer that he has not been brought up to recognize evil, or to understand its consequences.

My son, 13 is very tender-hearted. He wouldn't hurt anyone's feelings if he could prevent it. When he reads a book in which characters are being nasty to each other, he always brings it up as something evil that they should not be doing. He also recognizes that there will be consequences to those evil acts, even if the author doesn't necessarily explore them. He sees evil things for what they are. He understands the purpose of fiction, and doesn't take it seriously if there is no intent to be serious. I think a lot of grownups miss that point.

So, if the tv show offends you, turn it off. If the sight of bare skin bothers you, don't go to the nude beach. If you don't want to read books with harsh language, shop at a Christian book store exclusively. If you accidentally pick up a book that contains a naughty word, then don't continue to read! But donate it to the library because not everyone shares your tastes or sensibilities.

Learn more about this author, John Devera.
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