There is little question that one of the most devastating results of the sexual revolution has been the proliferation of pornography in all forms, and the huge number of casualties as a result of this. Countless men have become enslaved to porn, and countless marriages and families have been busted up.
If a group of aliens wanted to find a way to demoralise society, neutralise men, destroy marriages, and subvert a culture, they could scarcely come up with anything better than the porn plague. It is as damaging as it is as pervasive. And the really tragic thing is that there are just as many Christians getting caught up in this as non-Christians.
So serious is the problem that long-standing Christian author and apologist Josh McDowell has just launched a new website to help those struggling in this area. Here is how one news item reports this: “Apologist and author Josh McDowell launched Just1ClickAway.org, a new website to raise awareness about online pornography which he says is a problem big enough to cause the downfall of the church. ‘The downfall of the church will not come from a lack of apologetic teaching; it will come from disintegration of the families in the church,’ says a video posted on the website, which was launched this week, just in time for summer vacation when students’ media consumption significantly increases.
“‘The greatest threat to the cause of Christ is pervasive sexuality and pornography,’ McDowell, known as an articulate speaker, said in a statement Thursday. ‘Today we have, by and large, lost control of the controls because an intrusive immorality is just one click away from our children. With just one keystroke on a smartphone, iPad, or laptop, a child can open up some of the worst pornography and sexually graphic content you can imagine. There’s never been such access in history.’
“McDowell, who has written or co-authored 120 books since 1960, backs his claims with stunning statistics about the destructive impact of pornography on the Christian family. More than 1 billion pornographic websites are one click away, and the average age of first-time viewers of pornography is 9 years old. About 80 percent of 15- to 17-year-olds have been exposed to hardcore porn, and the adult pornography industry reports that 20-30 percent of their traffic comes from children. More shockingly, half of all Christian families report that pornography is a problem, and 30 percent of pastors have viewed pornography in the last 30 days.”
At the same time that McDowell was launching this site, respected evangelical leader Albert Mohler penned a two-part article on this same topic. He especially focuses on how porn viewing and addiction is busting up Christian marriages and families. It is well worth reading in full, but let me here offer some substantial quotes from it:
“The intersection of pornography and marriage is one of the most problematic issues among many couples today–including Christian couples. The pervasive plague of pornography represents one of the greatest moral challenges faced by the Christian church in the postmodern age. With eroticism woven into the very heart of the culture, celebrated in its entertainment, and advertised as a commodity, it is virtually impossible to escape the pervasive influence of pornography in our culture and in our lives.”
He continues: “The bottom line is that, in our sinfulness, men are drawn toward pornography and a frighteningly large percentage of men develop a dependence upon pornographic images for their own sexual arousal and for their concept of the good life, sexual fulfillment, and even meaning in life. Medical research can document the increased flow of endorphins, hormones that create pleasure in the brain, when sexual images are viewed. Given the law of reduced effect, greater stimulation is needed to keep a constant flow of endorphins to the brain’s pleasure centers. Without conscious awareness of what is happening, men are drawn into a pattern of deeper and deeper sin, more and more explicit pornography, and never-ending rationalizing, and all this started when the eye first began its perusal of the pornographic image and sexual arousal was its product.”
He concludes the first part of this article as follows: “Pornography represents one of the most insidious attacks upon the sanctity of marriage and the goodness of sex within the one-flesh relationship. The celebration of debauchery rather than purity, the elevation of genital pleasure over all other considerations, and the corruption of sexual energy through an inversion of the self, corrupts the idea of marriage, leads to incalculable harm, and subverts marriage and the marital bond.”
In the second part he begins by noting the biblical understanding of marriage and sexuality: “The Christian worldview must direct all consideration of sexuality to the institution of marriage. Marriage is not merely the arena for sexual activity, it is presented in Scripture as the divinely-designed arena for the display of God’s glory on earth as a man and a wife come together in a one-flesh relationship within the marriage covenant. Rightly understood and rightly ordered, marriage is a picture of God’s own covenantal faithfulness. Marriage is to display God’s glory, reveal God’s good gifts to His creatures, and protect human beings from the inevitable disaster that follows when sexual passions are divorced from their rightful place.
“The marginalization of marriage, and the open antipathy with which many in the culture elite approach the question of marriage, produces a context in which Christians committed to a marriage ethic appear hopelessly out of step with the larger culture. Whereas marriage is seen as a privatized contract to be made and unmade at will in the larger society, Christians must see marriage as an inviolable covenant made before God and man, that establishes both temporal and eternal realities.”
He continues, “A biblical worldview understands that God has demonstrated His glory in both the sameness and the differences that mark men and women, male and female. Alike made in the image of God, men and women are literally made for each other. The physicality of the male and female bodies cries out for fulfillment in the other. The sex drive calls both men and women out of themselves and toward a covenantal relationship which is consummated in a one-flesh union.
“By definition, sex within marriage is not merely the accomplishment of sexual fulfillment on the part of two individuals who happen to share the same bed. Rather, it is the mutual self-giving that reaches pleasures both physical and spiritual. The emotional aspect of sex cannot be divorced from the physical dimension of the sex act. Though men are often tempted to forget this, women possess more and less gentle means of making that need clear.”
He finishes with these words: “Pornography is a slander against the goodness of God’s creation and a corruption of this good gift God has given his creatures out of his own self-giving love. To abuse this gift is to weaken, not only the institution of marriage, but the fabric of civilization itself. To choose lust over love is to debase humanity and to worship the false god Priapus in the most brazen form of modern idolatry.
“The deliberate use of pornography is nothing less than the willful invitation of illicit lovers and objectified sex objects and forbidden knowledge into a man’s heart, mind, and soul. The damage to the man’s heart is beyond measure, and the cost in human misery will only be made clear on the Day of Judgment. From the moment a boy reaches puberty until the day he is lowered into the ground, every man will struggle with lust. Let us follow the biblical example and scriptural command that we make a covenant with our eyes lest we sin. In this society, we are called to be nothing less than a corps of the mutually accountable amidst a world that lives as if it will never be called to account.”
Exactly right. Porn is clearly a mega-problem both in and out of the church. We need to take it absolutely seriously. To help in this area, I present in another article some terrific, practical resources which we all can benefit from: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2012/06/02/countering-the-porn-plague-selected-resources/
http://www.christianpost.com/news/josh-mcdowell-launches-website-to-fight-porn-churchs-no-1-threat-75584/
http://www.albertmohler.com/2012/05/29/the-seduction-of-pornography-and-the-integrity-of-christian-marriage-part-one-2/
http://www.albertmohler.com/2012/06/01/the-seduction-of-pornography-and-the-integrity-of-christian-marriage-part-two-2/
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