[Vision2020] Porn Rampant Among Evangelicals

[Nicholas Gier]

‘Porn Epidemic’ is ‘Sweeping the Church’ says Evangelical Leader

By Bill Berkowitz, Jan 22 2016

Published on The Smirking Chimp (http://www.smirkingchimp.com)


“Well, ya got trouble, my friend, right here, I say, trouble right here in
River City. … With a capital "P," … and that stands for porn!” –
paraphrasing The Music Man


The Iowa Caucuses are just around the corner and frankly I’m surprised
that, given the predilection Christian evangelicals have for pornography,
Donald Trump didn’t turn to Jenna Jamison – especially since she declared
her support for The Donald back in November of last year -- rather than
Sarah Palin.

There’s an evangelical Christian movement afoot and its immediate concern
is not combatting abortion, same-sex marriage, or re-defining religious
freedom. It’s a movement aimed at conquering Christian men’s penchant for
pornography. Regardless of whether this addiction is a product of an attack
by Satan, a plot devised by communists in the 1950s, or just plain old
twenty-four/seven Internet accessibility, pornography is grabbing hold of
Christians and shaking up the evangelical Christian community.


Recently, evangelist John McDowell told ASSIST News Service that the “porn
epidemic” is “sweeping the church.” According to McDowell of Josh McDowell
Ministries, "At least 78.8% of all men that attend evangelical churches
watch pornography. Probably 80% of all evangelical youth pastors also watch
pornography, and now, the greatest increase is among women and young
ladies. It's killing us. 64% of all Christian families have an acute
problem with pornography. 67% of all divorces now are directly related to
pornography. Almost every time you hear of a pastor leaving a church asked
to leave it's because of pornography.”


The conservative Lifesitenews.com recently reported that a Barna Group
survey commissioned by Josh McDowell Ministries, found that “21 percent of
youth ministers and 14 percent of pastors … admit they struggle with
pornography.” The same survey found that “twelve percent of youth pastors
and five percent of pastors admit they are addicted to [I]nternet porn.”
Barna also found that “teens – both boys and girls – view porn weekly, and
41 percent have ‘sexted’ a sexually explicit image.”


A survey conducted by Christianity Today found that “at least 50 percent of
Christian pastors are struggling with [pornography].”


Pastorswives.org calls porn addiction "one of the fastest growing problems
in the lives of North American pastors today."


Author Steve Farrar has written: "A number of years ago a national
conference for church youth directors was held at a major hotel in a city
in the mid-west. Youth pastors by the hundreds flooded into that hotel and
took nearly every room. At the conclusion of the conference, the hotel
manager told the conference administrator that the number of guests who
tuned into the adult movie channel broke the previous record, far and away
outdoing any other convention in the history of the hotel."


In an attempt to draw attention to this scourge, McDowell’s Ministry, in
partnership with Covenant Eyes, is hosting the "Set Free Global Summit" on
the impact of pornography in the church. The Summit will take place in
Greensboro, North Carolina, April 4-7.


*The Battle Plan for Purity*


Meanwhile, another evangelical enterprise, KingdomWorks Studios, recently
announced with flair that it has developed an important tool to enable
Christians to fight pornography addiction; a 6 DVD set called The Battle
Plan for Purity.

A hyped-up trailer for the 6 DVD set starts off with relentlessly ominous
music, followed by shots of a jet fighter plane streaking across the sky,
while a menacing battery of anti-aircraft guns – manned, it appears, by a
crew of Asians -- lay in wait. Up pops a series of flashing headlines
trumpeting the DVD’s arrival: ”For The First Time In History, A Cinematic
Teaching Series on Sexual Purity, Is Here To Give Men, The Battle Plan For
Purity.”


In the trailer, Dr. Doug Weiss, PhD, author of Clean says, “The church is
in the sexual battle of its life.” Dr. Ted Roberts, founder of Pure Desire
Ministries International, and the star of the DVDs states: “You take just a
standard cookie cutter Christian, don’t do this, don’t do that …it won’t
work.” Dr. James Reeves, Senior Pastor, City on a Hill Church warns: “It’s
gonna really sweep through the church like a tsunami wave of destruction of
the family.”


Former U.S. Marine fighter pilot Dr. Ted Roberts is the undisputed star of
the show. Roberts claims to be providing Christians with the tools they
need to fight their addiction to pornography. And he’s doing it in style,
dodging a battery of obstacles as he pilots his jet fighter toward freedom
from pornography.


According to the KingdomWorks Studios website, “The Conquer Series,
unrivaled in its scope and authority, is a life-changing, 5-week
discipleship study that lays out the battle plan for purity. It provides
men with biblical strategies, scientific facts and insight on how to use
God’s weapons to become conquerors. For the first time in history, a
cinematic teaching series on sexual purity is here to help men get to the
root of the sin, while offering proven principles and practical tools to
walk in freedom from sexual sin like pornography.”


An email -- sent out via the auspices of Christianity Today magazine –
announcing the project pointed out: “The porn industry knows that it cannot
survive, unless more users become addicted to their material. They are also
specifically targeting more Christian communities, which is partly why the
Bible belt leads the nation in consumption of porn. The porn movie Fifty
Shades of Grey, heavily targeted the Bible belt with advertising and PR,
which is why their highest concentration of box office ticket sales came
out of the south. Number 25 in the Current Communist Goals from the book
The Naked Communist published in 1958 is, ‘Break down cultural standards of
morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion
pictures, radio, and TV.”


Dr. Ted Roberts maintains that watching porn on a regular basis is a “brain
problem.” “We tell men to try harder, pray harder, love Jesus more. But,
what starts off as a moral problem, quickly becomes a brain problem.
Telling a man to try harder is only tightening the ‘noose’ of bondage.” For
an anti-porn pitch, that’s a pretty enticing metaphor to simply toss out
there.

Will Satan have his way? Will the communist “plot” finally be realized?
Will the Josh McDowell sponsored anti-pornography conference or the
KingdomWorks DVD series stem the tide? Stay tuned.
_______

About author Bill Berkowitz is a longtime observer of the conservative
movement. His Conservative Watch columns document the strategies, players,
institutions, victories and defeats of the American Right.


-- 

A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they
shall never sit in.

-Greek proverb

“Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity.
Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance
from another. This immaturity is self- imposed when its cause lies not in
lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without
guidance from another. Sapere Aude! ‘Have courage to use your own
understand-ing!—that is the motto of enlightenment.

--Immanuel Kant
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