Pastors and porn
This is bad. And why?
According to many Christian groups, pornography is a disturbing and increasing problem. A Promise Keepers survey found that 53 percent of its members consume pornography. A 2000 Christianity Today survey found that 37 percent of pastors said pornography is a "current struggle" of theirs. Fifty-seven percent called pornography the most sexually damaging issue for their congregations. A Barna Research Group study released in February 2007 said that 35 percent of men and 17 percent of women reported having used pornography in the past month.
posted by Matt Friedeman @ 3:58 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
I don't imagine anyone will read this, but this, I think, underscores one of the deeper problems of the church. Not so much that pastors have the problem of porn (though that is, admittedly, a problem) but that we don't really recognize the problem as lust. That may sound absurd, but when we look at the way Godly men of old viewed ANYTHING that hinted of ungodliness (e.g. considering it lazy not to be up by 4am to pray - it would have been considered sin or a precursor to it) and compare it to today's almost politically correct cry about the problem of porn (the world calls it "sex addiction"), can we say much besides that we have become a superficial church? Porn is not the problem. Sex isn't the problem. Lust, per se isn't even the problem. Rather, it's the heart of man being deceitful and desperately wicked and realizing that whatever we do as believers is either done with God's blessing or it isn't. And if it isn't, it's just as much sin as murder. Anything that is not of faith is sin. Trying to rehabilitate pastors who have problem X (because they have problem X) is shuffling the chairs on the deck of the Titanic. The real problem is much deeper and much more foundational and has to do with every part of life - not just that which applies to sexuality. We in the West do not know what it means to deny ourselves, take up the cross and follow Jesus. If we did, this would not be a problem.
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