It may not be reported on your local news station, but pornography is destroying families and demoralizing our country.
Pornography is a $13 billion dollar per year industry. Forty million adults in the U.S. visit pornography Web sites regularly.
Perhaps the most shocking statistic of them all is an estimated 50 percent of Christian men admit they’re battling against pornography, and over 30 percent of Christian women admit they intentionally accessed Internet pornography.
“Oftentimes people that are more prone to sexual addiction are people that came from sexually repressed families. Unfortunately a lot of ministers came from that background and they themselves have sexual addictions,” said Carol Sheets psychotherapist and certified sexual addiction therapist for Indianapolis Psychiatric Associates at Clarian Health.
The Bible states in Genesis 1:28-“be fruitful and multiply.” In essence, God said to have a lot of sex and make babies, according to Pastor Monib Thomas of Lord of the Harvest International Church.
“We’re sexual beings but Christians should know the word of God, know what God says about pornography and fight vehemently to close the door to pornography,” said Thomas. “I hold Christians to a higher standard than I do a non-believer, because (porn) is contrary against the word of God and the lifestyle of a Christian.”
Many people believe if you’re professing Jesus as your Lord and Savior pornography should be the least of your worries, but the reality is that porn doesn’t choose its victims.
Gospel music phenomenon Kirk Franklin admitted to his obsession to porn years ago on the Oprah Winfrey Show. When Franklin was 15 he began getting serious about his faith and went to his pastor to talk about his battle with porn.
“He sat back in his chair, and he took a puff out of his cigar,” Franklin remembered in a previous interview. “He said, ‘Oh, you’re young, you’ll grow out of it.’ He had no idea he spoke death into my life. That shut me down because (I thought), ‘Well, someday I’ll grow out.’ (Instead) I grew in deep.”
Pornography, like any other addiction, is progressive and it continues to get worse over time. One cannot expect “to grow out” of it. However, children are growing up with this dark obsession.
According to Sheets by the time a child is 11-years-old they would at least see 12 minutes of pornography. She explained that the imprint it has on a young person’s brain causes them to have ramifications for the rest of their lives. In America, the average age of a child exposed to pornography is nine. Reports reveal children as young as 10 use cell phones to send sexual images of themselves and others.
“It’s a part of the child brain that says ‘Oh that’s disgusting!’ Then there’s another side that activates and says ‘I want to see that again.” (Next a section) says ‘I want to show this to my buddy or girlfriend.’ Unfortunately there are a lot of adolescents trading pornography and duplicating it for money,” adds Sheets.
Not only does porn affect children, but many experts believe it also affects marriages. The five main reasons according to Rabbi Shmuley, known as America’s Rabbi on a popular Web page, are porn is a drug that leads to addiction; it is a form of sexism; pornography portrays all women in one of four degrading, dehumanizing categories; it makes men get bored with their own wives; porn cultivates as a single standard of beauty that no real women can live up to.
According to Thomas whether you’re a non-believer or Christian isn’t of importance. Pornography affects everyone in the same manner. The only difference is if you’re the one that says ‘no’ to that desire.
“If you’re a Christian you still have challenges like any non-believer, it doesn’t make you any lesser of a Christian (if you’re engaged in porn),” Thomas said. “It just means you are a Christian that has succumbed to your sinful desire.”
For more information, visit www.carolthecoach.com or www.sexhelp.com.
