Pornography is the elephant in the pews, says Craig Gross, who produced the video and whose sermon is featured in it.
“The statistics say that 48 percent of Christian families are dealing with the issue of pornography in their home,” Gross says. “I would say the other 52 percent are just unaware of it being an issue in their house.”
Gross is the founder of XXXChurch.com, a Christian ministry that tries to help people resist pornography. He says Christians know there’s a problem: His website has as many as 300,000 visitors a week. But churches are squeamish.
Certainly the Anglican Communion Institute is free to express its opinion, of course, it has absolutely NO official connection with the Anglican Communion … even if its name might imply otherwise.
Post above in wrong place. Odd as I was reading a different article.
We are now going through the Financial Peace Univeristy by Dave Ramsey. A common criticism of Evangelical Christians is that their divorce rate is the same as the general population. Debt and pornography seem to be hitting the Christian family as hard as the general population which would explain it.
Approximately 100% of American homes have a television(s) in it. If you turn the thing on, you are automatically one of those dealing with pornography. You need to go back to one of the “oldies” cable channels to gain some perspective on “how far we have come”. Pornography is not just more available now, we are soaked, drenched in it. Stuff flashes up on the internet that would have curled hair 50 years ago. MTV programs things that even the more “enlightened” get a little squeemsih on.
Like handling money, alcohol, medicines, it takes prayerful discipline to cope with all this. And by all means, one should not be supportive towards those who are shooting this at us. Christians seeking to turn their lives around from this stuff need to be proactive in turning off provacative programs and commercials. If you can’t change the culture, you can be accountable to yourself.
No. 4: “Approximately 100% of American homes have a television(s) in it. If you turn the thing on, you are automatically one of those dealing with pornography.”
Oh, I don’t know. My students think that I am turning Amish, but this is my situation:
1. a computer but no Internet at home
2. a television but no cable at home
Results:
1. I have no access to online pornography at home, and when I’m writing a book or article, I can concentrate because I have no access to e-mail, news reports. TitusOneNine, stock reports, etc., either.
2. My television sans cable means that I receive two PBS stations. They do not carry any pornography. The very rare glimpse of a naked something-or-other is of course very much part of the story and a welcome relief in an otherwise dry landscape. Thus: a home can indeed have a television but no pornography.
Back to 1. My computer at the College has filters, I suppose, that keep unwanted ads etc. away. Much better than when all this started 15 or so years ago. I do not go looking for porn: it’s wrong, it’s not likely to endear me to my employers, and it would only coarsen and diminish and devalue my experiences of the real person.
I haven’t felt any loss by not having cable or Internet at home. Quite the contrary. More time, more freedom, fewer demands pulling me in different directions. Life’s demands push toward complexity and complications; I push back with attempts at simplification and focus. But, yes, choices have to be made, one of which is not to go along with the crowd.
#3,,,,
Where were the AngloCatbolic stats?? Their population must be so small as to be statistically insignificant.
(admittedly mostly off topic)
robroy – I hope the FPU course is as much a blessing to you as it has been to my household. My marriage is far better in ways neither of us knew were problematic. We have led the class at our church since taking the course at another church – now in our fourth class. It is a great privilege. The one tie-in to the topic of this thread is here are two areas where otherwise intentional Christians are being sucked down by being washed in an ungodly cultural norm.
But David (#5) PBS has problems too. First, you and I support its editorial point of view with our tax dollars; no other broadcasting agency (radio, tv, or internet) can claim that! Second, their point of view is VERY slanted and leans away from an orthodox Christian position. MIght as well have NO tv at all.
Yes, there most certainly needs to be a great wall of separation between education and state.
But to the issue, why is talking about something the equvalent, to so many people, of a cure? Surely Eve did not enhance her outcome with Satan with discussion.
Has our culture made an idol of education and information in that these are held above every other virtue and being? It is not by knowing that we are born in the Spirit but it is in knowing that we can take that gift. Satan has only corrupted our minds just a little bit.
Don
I certainly agree that pornography is one of the most secret and most pervasive addictions in our churches. I’ve found no more effective and available help than that offered by Dallas Willard.
His introduction to the V-I-M pattern for spiritual transformation may be found online in an article titled, [url=http://dwillard.org/articles/artview.asp?artID=119]”Living a Transformed Life Adequate to Our Calling.”[/url] It’s a shorter version that he treats at length in his book “Rennovation of the Heart.”
The V-I-M pattern is applied to pornography addiction in an article entitled, [url=http://dwillard.org/articles/artview.asp?artID=133]”Beyond Pornography: Spiritual Formation Studied in a Particular Case.”[/url]
These are excellent resources. At least I’ve found them helpful in learning discipleship to Jesus. Of course, Willard’s main trilogy–“Hearing God,” “The Spirit of the Disciplines,” and “The Divine Conspiracy”–is available for those wanting more than Willard’s internet articles.
In addition, James Bryan Smith’s “Apprentice Series” by IVPress–“The Good and Beautiful God,” “The Good and Beautiful Life,” and “The Good and Beautiful Community”–put Willard’s main ideas in an accessible form. I read “The Good and Beautiful God” over Christmastide and am going to use it for our parish Lenten study.
After re-reading my post, I should probably clarify. That second sentence should read: “I’ve found no more effective and available help to offer in counseling situations than that offered by Dallas Willard.”
By God’s grace, I’ve not had to wrestle with this particular problem. But I know that I’m certainly not immune. I find that my sympathies run close to #4 in that I find most television programming and many commercials are often too sexualized for me.
Okay, first of all, I haven’t had a tellie since 1967 … but I’ve been active on the internet for 20+ years (pre-Gopher for you geeks). I guarantee the porn number is not 100% because it has not tempted me. Not at all.
Does that mean I’m particularly virtuous? Probably not. Hint: my primary means of interacting with the world is AUDITORY, and my second is kinesthetic. I am just not a visual person, and most porn aimed at men is overwhelmingly visual. Girlie porn is mostly in their minds — romance novels — but their hearts wander outside their marriage just as often as those of their menfolk.
The few times porno-crap has popped up on my screen — and I’ve had to hard-kill to get out because each attempted X-out led to something even worse — I’ve been struck with how fake and utterly unrealistic it all is. I simply do not understand the attraction.
Somehow a real wife, with whom I work, laugh, argue, dance and otherwise share the utter ordinary-ness of daily life … is a much more attractive — and stimulating — option than something which looks even more fake than the original ‘King Kong’ of 1933.
Okay, so now to the, er, “money shot.” Let’s assume that visually-dominated males have an “orientation” towards promiscuity, particularly when stimulated visually. Is not a large part of the [i]Christian[/i] male’s spiritual journey learning how to overcome that “biologically controlled” orientation?
[i]Porneia[/i] is [i]porneia[/i] and you get no slack or extra grace just because that [i]porneia[/i] has you lusting after men rather than women. The Christian journey is all about overcoming our natural “orientations” in order to live the healthy and rewarding life to which we are called in Christ.
TEC, however, wishes to grant special dispensation for queers’ “orientation,” abjectly manifested in PB Griswold’s statement that “if Gene Robinson had done what he did, but with a woman, he would never even have made the secretary’s cut for bishop.” [paraphrase from memory]
A great help to me has always been Augustine’s [i]Confessions[/i].
Let’s not blame TV. There is a plethora of wonderful programming options that aren’t the least bit lascivious. Moreover, the advent of the V-Chip and the fact that there are parental controls on the cable, satellite, and gaming console devices mean that you can self-censor what comes into your home to the highest possible standards.
I dumped cable TV and subscribed to Netflix. Oh my, I wish this service was available when my son was growing up! I am SO impressed by the huge number of quality movies, documentaries, and non-Hollywood titles available. I’m finding that I watch less TV but what I watch is precisely the type of programming I enjoy rather than simply settling for the best of the worst. (Btw, if you haven’t seen “The Kite Runner” or “Creation,” they’re available on Netflix streaming.)
No. 14. Amen. And I forgot to mention that I subscribe to Netflix; it is an excellent service, I’ve found.
On a somewhat related note, it’s worth highlighting Traffick 911, a Christian group working to end trafficking of young women and girls for sex. This weekend in particular they’re working with airlines to train their crews to spot girls being flown into Dallas for the Superbowl crowds: see here.
David Hein, I second your thoughts in post 5 above. I’ve been TV-less since 1991. When people ask where I have the time to do X, Y, or Z, I tell them I don’t have a television, and they understand right away. While I believe TV use is an extreme problem for America, I also observe from personal anecdotal experience that the number of TV-resisters is higher than one might think.
I googled “pornography” out of curiosity. I had never tried it before so I wondered what would come up. Among other things, I read several pieces about how enormous the total income was for the porn operators- bigger than Goggle and Apple and all that. I was astounded at the sums. It simply shows, I suppose, how Americans choose to spend their money, and I conclude that even the poor in America have enough money to throw at hard core porn.
I tried a porn website and got the predictable excesses. I had never seen one before, though, so I wanted to see what I was missing. Not much it turns out, because it appears that all sexual excess and athleticism is much the same. Over and over without the clover. But there is a strange fascination in it however, like waiting for huge wrecks in auto racing or for fights at a hockey game. But such is man’s nature – but who ever doubted THAT? We all have the potential, I suppose, but we simply suppress it because it is addictive, once indulged? Whatever happened to self restraint and self discipline?
Question: Do women watch as much as men? Or at all?
Second question: Why has it multiplied so fast in so short a time? Larry
On your first question, Larry, no, I don’t think so. It’s more complicated with women. We like romance, a plot, something much more than exaggerated sex organs.
From my own life, what the heck. When I was much younger, my fiance at the time brought over a soft porn movie once, thinking it would be fun and sexy to watch. Well, I couldn’t stop laughing. When the female “star” was first exposed, my reaction was “oh my, those are SO not real.” I found the cliches and cheesy dialogue (what there was of it) extremely funny and couldn’t help trying to find a plot. There was no sexual effect on me but I had a great time laughing.
Maybe that’s a big difference between men and women. Men are so immediately turned on by the physical appearance and, for them, a large pair of breasts can compensate for other inadequacies in a woman for quite a while. A strikingly handsome man may turn a woman’s head but it’s the manner and personality that will or won’t hold us for longer than a few minutes.
The only women I have known throughout my life who were as physical and superficial about sex as many men can be are women who had low self-esteem due to early trauma or abuse. Whereas most women perceive sex in the context of some sort of relationship (even a brief one), the friends I’ve had who thought nothing of “hooking up” with men they just met didn’t view themselves as “worthy” of relationships. Sex was something that made them briefly feel good and desirable.
Now, that’s only my perception and I’m middle-aged. Honestly, I’m astonished by the “hook-up” culture that seems to be growing prevalent among young women today. Still, I don’t think young women today would be much interested in porn because they seem to be rather “empowered” to do whatever they want in real life. Why that’s the case is a completely different topic for another day.
We have no cable TV. I really don’t understand how a Christian father and husband can let it invade the house. I do have internet (obviously) and the prevalence of porn is concerning. The average age that kids see porn on the internet is 11. My kids aren’t quite there, but I am taking steps to protect the castle.
Ross, thank you for the links. We have supported an organization that helps young Thai women escape sexual slavery. I was pointed to the [url=http://www.crosswalk.com/news/commentary/11626629/]article by Chuck Colson[/url]. The organization takes the women and girls and teaches them to make jewelry. Valentine’s is coming up and their website is here; [url=http://www.wonderfullymadejewelry.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1&Itemid=104 ]Wonderfully Made Jewelry[/url].
I was watching [url=http://www.anglican.tv/content/cam2cam-bishop-gregory-venables]ABp Venables latest cam to cam interview on Anglican TV[/url]. He starts out quoting ABp Michael Ramsay that the one place that the one place we could identify God and engage God is under His judgment. (BTW, I am looking forward to the “best weekend of the year”, [url=http://anglicanmensweekend.org/ ]Anglican Men’s Weekend[/url] on where ABp Venables will be the speaker.) I think that those who pharasaically say, “Look at that sinner, I am glad that I am not he” miss the point. If any Christian is trapped in the sin of pornography (or debt), then we all have collective sin. Judge not lest ye be judged means that we can’t say that this or that person’s sin is their own sin. It is our sin, too. If someone buys a prostitute’s services in Dallas for the Superbowl weekend, we have contributed. We have not spoken out boldly enough against the horrors of sexual servitude. Our silence contributes the secular society’s lie that it is a victimless crime. We have not prayed for the delivery of the victim and that the perpetrator would come to repentance.
#18 Larry Morse:
You might want to take a few moments and run a scan with your anti-virus software. One of the few ways that porn resembles the real thing is that it’s easy to catch various sorts of unpleasantness; a lot of porn sites are laden with viruses.
As for women and porn… well, based on the women I know, all that one can safely say is that women, like men, vary enormously in their tastes. There does exist porn marketed towards women — and I don’t mean the stealth kind, like certain romance novel imprints; I mean out-and-out X-rated material. Somebody is buying it.
But why its explosive growth? It’s everywhere. and it did not used to be.
But oh oh, I hadn’t thought about viruses. Geez, another STD. Larry