The Epstein files have shone a light on the depth of man’s depravity. Only the Gospel can fix it

When the latest tranche of Epstein files began circulating, the public response was horror and grief. That some of the most powerful men on earth used their wealth and influence to procure vulnerable girls for sexual exploitation feels almost too grotesque to absorb. 

More harrowing is that it’s not the first time we’ve seen this kind of story. 

Not on a Caribbean island, but on the streets of Rotherham and other English towns. On Epstein Island, the victims were flown in while the perpetrators enjoyed champagne on the beach. In Rotherham, the girls were picked up from care homes, and their abusers drank cheap alcohol in grotty flats. But strip away the scenery and budget, and what remains? Powerful men abusing vulnerable girls for sexual gratification, confident they would not be stopped.

The settings differ. The sin is the same. It is the capacity for man’s depravity on full display. And these are just the most famous examples. 

The deviant sexualisation of the West

Human potential for causing harm upon others is alarmingly limitless in a fallen world. The scale and horror of the crimes perpetrated on Epstein Island and by immigrant gangs in broken Britain are immeasurable. These perpetrators hailed from lifestyles and cultures foreign to our own. But the creep towards depravity in our own everyday society is telling, and must be tackled.

In 2021, Pornhub identified and removed more than 21,000 images and videos featuring child sexual abuse from its platform. Twenty-one thousand. Exploitation has been industrialised and digitised. It is not confined to the elite  – it is available on demand.

A 2024 study found that 1.8 million British men had likely engaged in child sex abuse online – enough offenders to form a single file line from Glasgow to London. 

“Incest” is among the very top trending genres of porn consumed on Pornhub – up from just 1% of porn created in 2006. 

For decades now, Western culture has been catechising us in a new sexual creed: liberation without limit. We’re told “anything goes”, that this is “freedom”, and that moral boundaries prohibiting sex are dated and wrong. We’re told sexuality is now an “identity”, and any restraints as such are immoral. 

A train is freest on its tracks. Remove the rails, and it does not soar into the sky – it derails into chaos.

When sex is reduced to appetite, and appetite is treated as sovereign, man will always find a way to feed it. And when it is fed, it grows. Few people start off addicted to violent porn – but many who take a step even into soft porn end up in darker corners than they could have known. Those 21,000 images of child sex abuse were being viewed by men who failed to repress a growing appetite for the increasingly perverse.

How did we get here?

Christianity has never been naïve about this. Scripture does not assume that we are basically good and only occasionally misguided. It teaches that the human heart is fallen – that without restraint, formation and grace, we bend towards selfishness, sin and depravity. 

When “self” is our God, there are no boundaries to serving our impulses. When we follow a Holy God, He invites us to leave our wickedness behind and, through His strength and grace, walk in goodness instead. 

The apostle Paul’s warning that people would become “lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God” (2 Timothy 3:4) feels uncannily true. The sexual revolution promised that shedding Christian morality would usher in an era of authenticity and freedom. Instead, we have built an economy on arousal and limitless sexual access. Humans become slaves to their desires. 

According to a 2025 study, 82% of men in the UK watch porn, and over a quarter said they couldn’t quit it for 90 days. Over half said it was having a negative impact on their mental health. Last year, British porn site OnlyFans took over £50 million from the pockets of London subscribers alone.  

When sex is reduced to appetite, and appetite is treated as sovereign, man will always find a way to feed it. And when it is fed, it grows.

To remain stimulated stimuli must intensify. The world of porn spills over. A recent meta-analysis published in the Journal of Communication shows concrete evidence that consuming pornography increases the likelihood of physical sexual aggression. Boys exposed to violent pornography are 2–3 times more likely to perpetrate sexual violence within teenage relationships.

Every day, 25 rapes are reported to the police just in London alone. Police recorded over 209,000 sexual offenses in England and Wales last year. Sexual violence in our towns and cities is at a record high.

Christianity offers a radically different vision for human sexuality. It insists that sex is not merely physical but covenantal. It belongs within the lifelong, faithful union of marriage. It teaches that the body is not property to be consumed but a temple of the Holy Spirit. It calls us not to indulge our impulses but to crucify them. “Take up your cross,” Jesus says – not “follow your desires.”

When Christianity shaped our collective moral imagination, sexual self-control was considered a virtue. Of course, abuse happened – sometimes, sickeningly, even among those performing piously on the outside. But a shared moral grammar named that wrongdoing as sin. 

As that grammar erodes, so does our capacity to restrain.

A train is freest on its tracks. Remove the rails, and it does not soar into the sky – it derails into chaos. The decline of Christian moral teaching in the West has not meant freedom, but the removal of cultural guardrails around our most powerful instincts to sin – with the consequences being most disasterously felt by the most vulnerable. 

Without Christ, appetite reigns. With Him, even our darkest impulses can be redeemed.