The people of Newburyport, Massachusetts were scandalized in the summer of 2004 when their mayor, Mary Anne Clancy, admitted to an affair with a married gym teacher. Clancy never imagined her tryst would be discovered. It only lasted a few weeks, there was never any physical contact, and all the evidence could be erased at the touch of a button. But when her husband Brian found the romantic e-mails his wife had exchanged with her paramour, he followed the man home, assaulted him, and then found himself in jail.

The ensuing headlines gave readers a look at a still largely hidden but rapidly growing threat to American families: cyber-infidelity, “the act of engaging in acts of a romantic or sexual nature with an individual or individuals through electronic or virtual communities, i.e., as established through dating websites, email discussion lists, interactive games, chat rooms or newsgroups.”1

The Internet has proven to be full of both promise and peril for Christians.2 On the one hand, the ease of communication, wealth of information, and worldwide audience it offers have made it a powerful Christian resource. Thousands of websites are devoted to proclaiming the gospel and to teaching doctrine. Pastors post their sermons online, churches organize ministries through e-mail, and Christians are readily able to connect with people from all over the world for evangelism, missions, and prayer. On the other hand, the Internet has become a seedbed of secret sin.

Cyber-adultery, says one author, has become “a huge, huge issue . . . You’ve got this box on your desk that is accessible all the time with little or no effort. That just makes it too easy for a lot of people to communicate. People sneak down to their computers while their spouse is sleeping. . . . They don’t have to meet someone at the bar.”3 Sadly, a husband no longer has to sneak out of the house to commit adultery. All he has to do is stay up a little later than his wife.

Marriage is under assault from all quarters. From skyrocketing divorce rates, to homosexuals’ demands for married status, to a vast and general indifference toward this ancient institution, marriage as a pillar of American culture seems to be tottering on the edge of destruction. People have forgotten why it matters, and this national ignorance will only deepen as more husbands and wives find themselves enmeshed in the dark side of the Internet, hopelessly confused about what marks the line between “surfing” and infidelity.4 Already, some are beginning to excuse Internet sex, arguing that because most of these cyber-affairs never lead to physical encounters, they are actually “safe infidelity.” But infidelity is infidelity where the Word of God is concerned and adultery is adultery.

The Bible teaches that adultery is first and foremost a sin of the heart’s imagination. “[A]nyone who looks at a woman lustfully,” said Jesus, “has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matt. 5:28). Adultery does not require physical intercourse. It is a matter of broken vows, shattered trust, and ruined families. It is betrayal, and putting the word “cyber” in front of it does not make it any less real or any less devastating or any less evil.
 
Footnotes:
 
1  Marlene M. Maheu, “Women’s Internet Behavior Providing Psychotherapy Offline and Online for Cyber-Infidelity,” TelehealthNet, September 1999, http://telehealth.net/articles/women_internet.html (accessed July 22, 2005).
 
2  See Kairos Journal article, “The Heart Sin of Internet Pornography.”
 
3  Marilyn Gardner, “Is It Cyber-Flirting or Cyber-Betrayal?” The Christian Science Monitor, August 19, 2004, 15.
 
4  Thankfully there are accountability measures to help Christians with this struggle, such as Covenant Eyes, http://www.covenanteyes.com/.
from Kairos Journal

The First Baptist Church of Perryville is located in Cecil County, 1 and 1/2 miles east of Rt. 222, 4800 West Pulaski Highway, Perryville, MD.