George Smith started a recent column with the popular phrase, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me." Smith wrote about a Lewiston grandmother threatened with jail for refusing to return a library book for young people that contains graphic images portraying sex.

The book also describes sex for young people.

It is endorsed by the radical pro-abortion group Planned Parenthood and titled, "It's Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex and Sexual Health."

Smith's popular phrase is the mirror image of the truth. This is borne out by the power of symbols, images and words. God Himself is the Word, according to Christianity. The truth is that sticks and stones can break only my bones, but words (ideas) can kill me body and soul (eternally).

That is why Jesus said, "I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart." He goes on to urge that eyes be gouged out, and hands cut off, if looking leads to wrongdoing.

Words matter. George Smith knows this. So does JoAn Karkos.

I am tempted to believe that the Smith's and Karkos' positions are of equal merit. Karkos wants to protect innocence and purity in childhood. Smith wants everyone to have access to controversial ideas. He writes against censorship. I wonder if they are both correct?

It is obviously wrong to believe there is no such thing as an evil idea. Words are not neutral things. Indeed, words are the most powerful force on the planet.

Smith makes a bow in this direction when he writes, "Please don't misunderstand. I believe strongly that parents ought to censor what their kids read, see and experience. In fact, in today's liberal society, this is essential to the maintenance of healthy values and morality."

Many people believe that this book belongs in the library because it is not pornography. The intent of the book is not to sexually arouse the reader.

I would respectfully suggest that arousal is the only subject of this book. The book is written from a materialistic (amoral) viewpoint with the intent to support sex outside of marriage (if that is what the parents or individuals choose.)

Folks who defend this idea believe what Smith wrote in his column, "I know many of my conservative friends oppose sex education at school. They're wrong. It works, particularly when presented in age-appropriate information by the right teachers."

I credit Maine's sex educators with respecting the moral values of families. Genuine efforts are often made to honor these moral values. I'm thankful for that.

However, since adults in our culture have decided to hold children to a higher sexual standard than they hold themselves to, we are living through a period when a Catholic grandmother demonstrates more courage and clear thinking than sex experts.

We have evolved to the point where we worship sex instead of God. Materialism is more important than religion. As we worship progress, Christianity gets thrown under the bus. Religion, we believe, is less real than the tire that squashes our morals as they lie prostrate before the oncoming bus.

We think that the way to our children's hearts is through education, when it is actually through faith. Faith is the assurance that what we hope for will come about and the certainty that what we cannot see exists.

We hope for sexual purity and fulfilled hearts for adults and children but we don't see it ever existing so we publish books like this one. What we have here is not censorship. This is a failure of imagination.

We can't have certainty about what we hope for because the furthest we choose to look is the image of two people having sex. What matters is what our faith reveals. What matters is the love, truth and purity that we achieve by faith. Science, education and the material world are not capable of delivering what only right living will produce.

A picture is worth a thousand words. A thousand words testify to the power of the image of a devoted Lewiston grandmother going to jail over a thousand educational pictures of "benign" sex.

Michael Heath of South China is executive director of the Christian Civic League of Maine.