Fighting Pornography Among Christians

Now Religion in the News—a report and comment on religious trends and events being covered by the media.

This week’s item is from the Associated Press, February 12, 2004, with the headline “Battling Pornography among Christians: Dallas—Chocolates are always nice, and a diamond necklace would be delightful, but a Dallas-based ministry thinks it has a better idea for Valentine’s Day. ‘Her gift for Valentine’s? Stop looking at porn!’ proclaimed billboards put up by Net Accountability, a nonprofit software company that aims to help Christians confront the secret sin of pornography.

“If national surveys are any indication, it is a personal battle waged by millions of Christians. Almost 18 percent of people who call themselves born-again Christians admitted visiting Internet porn sites according to a 2000 survey of 1,031 adults by the evangelical group Focus on the Family.

“In a 2002 pastors.com survey, more than 50 percent of responding pastors reported viewing pornography in the previous year.”

Tom: Dave, let me add a little bit more information to this article. I looked up Net Accountability, and the idea, by these—people who are concerned about it, and it’s really something to be concerned about—but the idea is that web users who have a tendency toward this, they share their records online, their online activity, with let’s say, a friend, or a spouse, or somebody that they can be accountable to, so as they’re searching the web, the report of that goes on the other person’s computer so they can sort of check them out.

Now, again, this is a serious problem in the church, but is this the way to go about solving this problem?

Dave: Well, Tom, you know that I’m computer-challenged. I scarcely know how to get on the web. I do know how to punch in Google Search, if I’m looking for something in a book or whatever. I’ve never had pornography pop up on the Internet, although I do….

Tom: Well, you’re not a big email user. These things—but they do come in, Dave…

Dave: …come in emails, do they?

Tom: …if you have email, it’s—there’s almost no kind of filter that can keep it completely out.

Dave: I don’t use email. But if someone from the Jerusalem Post were listening, which they aren’t, I’d like to complain because I’ve almost stopped going to the Jerusalem Post web page—I like to go there and get the latest news from Israel, but every time you do, you get so many of these ads.

Tom: Well, that’s another way that this stuff comes in.

Dave: Yeah, but I’ve never seen pornographic ads, but all kinds of things. Well, there are some “boy meet girl” ads, or something, Jewish romance sites, or whatever. But no pictures on them. But…

Tom: How does a believer who got caught up in this—how does he deal with it? And is this an issue—we’re going to solve this problem? Or, Dave, is it an issue of their growth in Christ, their maturity in the Lord, their love for the Lord?

Dave: You know, I don’t think that it’s going to be conquered by somehow squelching it. In other words, Satan comes along and says, “Come on.” You say, “No, I’m not going to.” “Come on.” “No, I’m not going to.” “Come on.” “NOOO!” And the harder you say no, the more you are admitting that he has something you want. And ultimately, you yield. And that’s not the way. I need to be crucified with Christ. I need to be dead to this world, to the flesh, and so forth, through Christ.

And you can run 15 naked dancing girls up and down in front of a dead man and he doesn’t even sit up in his coffin. So, the solution is not to have someone keeping tabs on me, because how do you know I’m going to be honest? Maybe I won’t be frank about what I’m really doing. Tom, I think I need to draw near to Christ. I need to really be born of the Spirit of God. I need to be in love with Him.

Tom: So all of this loses any excitement, any temptation…

Dave: Exactly…

Tom:  Because you’re overwhelmed by the love of the Lord. And, Dave, this isn’t just wild-eyed thoughts here. This is reality. This is true. Can’t we love Jesus to the point that these things—we lose interest in these things that might attract the flesh?

Dave: Jesus said, “If you love me, you’ll keep my commandments.” And I can remember when I was first engaged to my wife now of nearly 54 years, finding out that it was her birthday and I had forgotten to give her a gift. And I—we never paid attention to birthdays in my family, but she was obviously offended about something, and when I finally found out what it was, I can tell you, I could have broken the Olympic record in the 800—well, no, it was farther than that—I ran down into Westwood Village, you know, we were at [Dave and Tom simultaneously] UCLA. Right. To get her something for her birthday. I wouldn’t want to do anything that would offend her at all! I mean, that really hurt. And if we have that relationship with Christ—and He is more attractive to us than anyone else—and we want to please Him—if I love Him with all my heart, then how could I possibly displease Him? I wouldn’t want to!

Furthermore, these things are so pitiful. They are deceitful lusts that drown men in destruction and perdition, the scripture says. So, I think the solution lies in drawing near to Christ and loving Him and knowing Him, rather than somehow I’m going to grit my teeth and I’m going to overcome this, and I’m going to have somebody watch me to make certain…

I think that that’s the road to defeat, actually.

Tom: Right. We want the conviction of the Holy Spirit to be that—the One who watches over us and brings conviction. Dave, and there are so many examples of Scripture, and I think, to me, you know, you say I’m a young man, 20 years younger than you are, but I think about Joseph and Potiphar’s wife, and the continual temptation that was there for him, and it wasn’t something in his imagination. She was there and she was real and she was continuing to come after him. Well, how did he handle it? He fled from her. That’s what we need to do.

Dave: Yeah. “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” So we now have the power of the Holy Spirit, but we need Christ, and it’s not in my strength, but it’s in His strength. But I have to love Him. And “If you love me, you’ll keep my commandments.”