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It is a topic that many people are somewhat uncomfortable discussing and yet, like a cancer, it is ravaging our society at a rate like never before. Indeed, it has reached pandemic levels, especially in the morally loose cultures of North America and Europe. And sadly, despite what we’d like to think, the church has not remained immune. While we prefer to give attention to safer topics and the finer points of theology, it is highly likely that a significant number of professing Christians are literally being slaughtered by their consumption of pornography.
In 2007, ChristiaNet.com performed an anonymous survey that uncovered some shocking results. In short, 50 percent of Christian men and 20 percent of Christian women were found to be addicted to pornography. The age demographic most affected is those between 18 to 34 years old.
It should be stressed that this was not a poll of society in general, but evangelical, church-going individuals, professing Christ as their Saviour. The numbers for society in general are worse, but not as dramatic as you might think.
You might dispute whether these numbers would be reflected in the specific church you attend, and you might be right to a degree. Let’s assume that you halve the numbers – this is still a problem (for example, instead of 50%, just 25% of men are addicted to pornography) that should not be ignored.
How Can This Be?
We live in a society that is absolutely saturated with sexuality and vanity. Everywhere you look, you are being affected with imagery that desensitizes us to the principle of modesty and self-respect. The message delivered especially to young women is that if you want to be valued, you must appeal to men on a sexual level.
But this aspect alone does not account for such as substantial uptick, especially among Christians. It would be good to recall that the early church was born in an age that pornography and all manner of immorality was widespread. Even many secular historians have attributed Rome’s fall to its steady moral degradation, among other major contributors such as economic debt. Sound familiar? Many of the cities Paul visited, such as Corinth and Ephesus, were in terrible moral condition, as evidenced through some of his epistles. What went on in pagan temples within these large cities is too sickening to detail. He did not just ignore this issue, but addressed it head-on.
To the Colossians, he admonished: “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.” (3:5).
The Apostle Peter called it war: “Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.” (1 Pet 2:11).
And of course, the Lord Jesus himself said: “I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.”
But here is a key consideration: they did not have the World Wide Web to contend with. One of the people who oversaw the poll, Clay Jones, has observed: "Technology (the Internet) has allowed pornography to flood the market place beyond a controllable level."
With an Internet connection in virtually every household, and sometimes multiple computers spread throughout the home, pornography is little more than a mouse-click away.
After you’ve been desensitized with a steady stream of provocative material emphasizing sexuality in your day-to-day life, your definition of what pornography is actually becomes more and more graphic. For an example of this, consider the movie Gone With the Wind. In the late 1930s, when this movie was first released, it caused a major stir because it showed a scene in which the stars of the movie kissed. Compare this to today. As our morals become more and more decayed, there is hardly a peep made as mother, father and children sit down together and watch all manner of sexual content displayed through television and video. Like many other things, a bolder sexuality has become an accepted part of society.
When a person logs onto the Internet, there are the pervasive ads, pop-ups, e-mails and other lures to snag you. If you click, you can soon become hooked on “soft” pornography. Then you want a little more, and a little more. That’s how addiction works. Pornographers know it. They distribute this “soft” version of fornication, oftentimes for free, because they know minds will become more and more numb to it, build up a “tolerance,” and then want something a bit more perverse the next time.
Consider that pornography accounts for more revenue than anything else on the Internet. It is big, big business, and this industry does not discriminate among its patrons – everyone is welcome.
The Impact
Apparently, it is not unusual for men, who generally make up three out of four Internet porn users, to waste hours viewing increasingly worse forms of degradation.
Engaging in viewing pornographic material is not only God-dishonouring and sinful, but it also leaves a terrible scar in the mind of the viewer and has significant impacts on his family, whether they know about it or not due to how he treats other family members, especially his wife.
In addition, this type of activity is spiritually draining. When a person’s conscience is constantly bombarded with addictive behaviour they know is wrong, there are only two things that can happen: you can sear your conscience by justifying and excusing yourself for a time or carry such a weight of guilt that you become withdrawn and your countenance is adversely affected. Neither of these options is comforting. All of us are sinners, and will continue to be so until we take our last breath, but what we ought to do is war against presumptuous and continuous sinful activity that destroys our relationship with a loving and holy Father.
Our enemy would like nothing more than for you to be crushed under the weight of guilt that this type of activity can produce. It is addictions like these that cause people to think they are without hope of being saved, but this is not the case if we decide to address it and eradicate it from our lives.
What You Can Do
In our church, our pastor spends a lot of time dealing with the concept of true conversion, as opposed to religious reformation or conformity to a set of outward principles. What we cannot overcome in a lifetime of effort, the Lord can accomplish by genuinely converting us – if we are willing to submit to Him. We are active vessels in this process and we must do all we can to flee the very appearance of evil, refuse to give place to the Devil, while embracing teachings that deal with godly lifestyle.
If you are engaging in the viewing of pornography, this is an area that you need to clearly identify as sin. This seems obvious to most, but oftentimes, a person who has desensitized themselves to pornography can actually justify their activity to a degree. The fact is that it is a sin and it must be repented of.
Remember, repenting does not simply mean saying sorry, but reflects a change of mind and heart. God is able to affect this change in your desires, but He will not force His way.
Human nature wants to get as close to a temptation as we can. The Bible tells us to get as far away from it as possible. We must remember we are engaged in a spiritual warfare and walk accordingly.
You may not be able to break off this addiction alone, so speaking to a mature trusted person, like a pastor or elder, would be advisable. Each church should be able to effectively deal with this sin, just as other sins and addictions are dealt with. Whatever you do, face the problem head-on and deal with it as you would deal with cancer. Pray and ask the Lord to deliver you. Even if you’ve tried before only to lapse back into this habit, do not leave it alone.
If you have to get more radical – like getting rid of your computer or Internet connection – do so. That was Christ’s instruction. After explaining that simply looking lustfully can constitute adultery in the verse before, He said, “And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.” (Matt 5:29).
We are living in a time where access to sin and sinful material has never been easier. If you are a parent, do not allow your children to have computers and Internet in their rooms. That is begging for trouble for multiple reasons, beyond just pornography. If age-appropriate, speak with your children and be open as to what is happening in our culture as they probably already know much more than you anyways. If you are concerned or would like to monitor Internet activity to get a sense of what is happening when you’re not around, it is recommended that you install a program like SpecterPro that allows you to monitor websites visited, emails sent, and online chats (an excellent program). Always remember, this won't solve the problem, if there is one, but simply expose you to what's really happening.
For yourself, you get a program or add-on to your Internet browser that blocks objectionable material, such as ProCon Latte on Firefox. But nothing is as effective as you deciding this is just not the filth you would like to fill your mind with. It will not stop you from doing what you want to do.
Be vigilant and keep lines of communication open. Pray for your children and build into them a strong sense of modesty and self-worth, both by teaching and modeling these values yourself.
Pray for the young people in your church and model an example of godliness.
In a 2001 release of TheMidnightCry magazine, we produced an article that may be of benefit to you in addition to this one: Satanic Intrusions in the Home. These articles are not intended to be a comprehensive study of the pornography pandemic, but hopefully serve to open eyes as to how much of an issue this is, even within the church.
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