"Pornography: A Christian crisis or overblown issue?"

[Skwim]

"Josh McDowell, prominent apologist, [minister], and author of bestselling books such as ffvidence That Demands a Verdict, says, “Porn is probably the greatest threat to the church in its existence.” He is so alarmed about pornography’s pervasive influence that he commissioned Barna Group to conduct a sweeping, comprehensive survey on pornography in America. [To be released April, 2016]

Religion’s critics charge that conservative Christianity has become sex-obsessed, placing a disproportionate amount of influence on topics like abstinence, sexual orientation, and pornography. These judgments are not altogether invalid. Conservative Christians' responses to the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 70s have often bordered on paranoia. And yet, the pornography industry undeniably contributes to many social ills, including the objectification of women and the exploitation of children and teenagers.

As a result, the key findings of Barna’s study deserve serious attention:

Young Americans do not think pornography is a negative thing. Only one in 20 young adults and one in 10 teens say their friends think viewing pornography is a bad thing.

Most teens are “sexting.” Sixty-six percent of teens and young adults have received a sexually explicit image via text and 41 percent have sent one.

Porn is not just a “male matter” anymore.Thirty-three percent of women ages 13 to 24 seek out porn at least once per month.

Americans agree that certain types of porn are negative. Overwhelming majorities of Americans across generations believe that porn depicting children under the age of 12 and depictions of non-consensual sex acts are “always wrong.”

Fewer pastors struggle with porn than you might expect–or so they say. Fourteen percent of pastors and 21 percent of youth pastors say they currently struggle with porn.

Many Christians believe pastors caught viewing porn should be ousted from the church. Forty-one percent of adult Christians think a pastor should be fired or asked to resign if they they are found using porn.

Pastors aren’t convinced porn use is a top problem among their congregants. Thirty-eight percent of pastors call pornography a “major” or “significant” problem in their congregation.
source​

So, what do you think? Do you agree with McDowell that “Porn is probably the greatest threat to the church in its existence.” OR is he just trying to create an issue to rile against?

Or do you think "conservative Christianity has become sex-obsessed, placing a disproportionate amount of influence on topics like abstinence, sexual orientation, and pornography." OR do you think Religion’s critics are trying to down play the evils of pornography?

AND, what is your opinion of porn?

 

[Deathbydefault]

Porn is only threatening to the churches that try and fail at keeping their members subordinate.
If a church doesn't make an issue about porn, there's no issue a church will have when it comes to porn.

Porn will always exist, especially in advanced countries.
It's likely good to keep people more in check of their desires.
I am void of such desires so I tend not to bother with porn.
Overall I say it's good for society, so long as there are restrictions (e.g. no child porn).

 

[Valjean]

Tempest in a teapot.

 

[Skwim]

Porn is only threatening to the churches that try and fail at keeping their members subordinate.
If a church doesn't make an issue about porn, there's no issue a church will have when it comes to porn.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

"Josh McDowell, prominent apologist, [minister], and author of bestselling books such as ffvidence That Demands a Verdict, says, “Porn is probably the greatest threat to the church in its existence.” He is so alarmed about pornography’s pervasive influence that he commissioned Barna Group to conduct a sweeping, comprehensive survey on pornography in America. [To be released April, 2016]

Religion’s critics charge that conservative Christianity has become sex-obsessed, placing a disproportionate amount of influence on topics like abstinence, sexual orientation, and pornography. These judgments are not altogether invalid. Conservative Christians' responses to the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 70s have often bordered on paranoia. And yet, the pornography industry undeniably contributes to many social ills, including the objectification of women and the exploitation of children and teenagers.

As a result, the key findings of Barna’s study deserve serious attention:

Young Americans do not think pornography is a negative thing. Only one in 20 young adults and one in 10 teens say their friends think viewing pornography is a bad thing.

Most teens are “sexting.” Sixty-six percent of teens and young adults have received a sexually explicit image via text and 41 percent have sent one.

Porn is not just a “male matter” anymore.Thirty-three percent of women ages 13 to 24 seek out porn at least once per month.

Americans agree that certain types of porn are negative. Overwhelming majorities of Americans across generations believe that porn depicting children under the age of 12 and depictions of non-consensual sex acts are “always wrong.”

Fewer pastors struggle with porn than you might expect–or so they say. Fourteen percent of pastors and 21 percent of youth pastors say they currently struggle with porn.

Many Christians believe pastors caught viewing porn should be ousted from the church. Forty-one percent of adult Christians think a pastor should be fired or asked to resign if they they are found using porn.

Pastors aren’t convinced porn use is a top problem among their congregants. Thirty-eight percent of pastors call pornography a “major” or “significant” problem in their congregation.
source​

So, what do you think? Do you agree with McDowell that “Porn is probably the greatest threat to the church in its existence.” OR is he just trying to create an issue to rile against?

Or do you think "conservative Christianity has become sex-obsessed, placing a disproportionate amount of influence on topics like abstinence, sexual orientation, and pornography." OR do you think Religion’s critics are trying to down play the evils of pornography?

AND, what is your opinion of porn?

No. Porn isnt the greatest threat to Churches. I'd say a break in the Church/community of believers would be the greatest thread. Porn and stuff like that can be helped with community/Church support. However, if something broke up that community, then that would be the grestest threat. (Maybe they find out god didnt' exist or another faith is correct or something)

This is a pet peeve of the church being threated by someone else's business. It's not a threat until they make it one.

 

[Thanda]

"Josh McDowell, prominent apologist, [minister], and author of bestselling books such as ffvidence That Demands a Verdict, says, “Porn is probably the greatest threat to the church in its existence.” He is so alarmed about pornography’s pervasive influence that he commissioned Barna Group to conduct a sweeping, comprehensive survey on pornography in America. [To be released April, 2016]

Religion’s critics charge that conservative Christianity has become sex-obsessed, placing a disproportionate amount of influence on topics like abstinence, sexual orientation, and pornography. These judgments are not altogether invalid. Conservative Christians' responses to the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 70s have often bordered on paranoia. And yet, the pornography industry undeniably contributes to many social ills, including the objectification of women and the exploitation of children and teenagers.

As a result, the key findings of Barna’s study deserve serious attention:

Young Americans do not think pornography is a negative thing. Only one in 20 young adults and one in 10 teens say their friends think viewing pornography is a bad thing.

Most teens are “sexting.” Sixty-six percent of teens and young adults have received a sexually explicit image via text and 41 percent have sent one.

Porn is not just a “male matter” anymore.Thirty-three percent of women ages 13 to 24 seek out porn at least once per month.

Americans agree that certain types of porn are negative. Overwhelming majorities of Americans across generations believe that porn depicting children under the age of 12 and depictions of non-consensual sex acts are “always wrong.”

Fewer pastors struggle with porn than you might expect–or so they say. Fourteen percent of pastors and 21 percent of youth pastors say they currently struggle with porn.

Many Christians believe pastors caught viewing porn should be ousted from the church. Forty-one percent of adult Christians think a pastor should be fired or asked to resign if they they are found using porn.

Pastors aren’t convinced porn use is a top problem among their congregants. Thirty-eight percent of pastors call pornography a “major” or “significant” problem in their congregation.
source​

So, what do you think? Do you agree with McDowell that “Porn is probably the greatest threat to the church in its existence.” OR is he just trying to create an issue to rile against?

Or do you think "conservative Christianity has become sex-obsessed, placing a disproportionate amount of influence on topics like abstinence, sexual orientation, and pornography." OR do you think Religion’s critics are trying to down play the evils of pornography?

AND, what is your opinion of porn?

I don't think it's the greatest threat. But I think it is a significant problem in society and for churches.

 

[wizanda]

AND, what is your opinion of porn?

So we can see that the word 'porniea' within the Bible, which is best translated as 'sexual immorality', has been often put as being 'fornication'....So that is where a lot of Christian hang ups come from.

Yet really, God created us to enjoy looking at the naked human body, we've got chemical reactions taking place encouraging us to do so...It is thus healthy for us to look, we have an increase in sexual hormones, that regulate the human vitality.

It is like when David was old and grey, they took him a young maiden, to see if it would cheer his spirits up.

Yet Christianity needs that to be their main hang up, as where as porn is illegal, murdering God's angels, making a covenant with death, and washing in their blood is fine.

 

[Mycroft]

I think the issue is much more nuanced than that. Porn isn't a threat to the church, of course, but it's a problem. And it's a problem for society, too - just not for the reasons we think.

There's two main problems with porn that - despite people insisting it is a majorly successful industry - make it an absolute failure.

The first is porn itself. There's so much of it out there. But the problem isn't that porn exists at all, but that there's so much bad porn in circulation. The reason why the porn industry fails is that it doesn't produce good porn. The idea of good porn can seem paradoxical. Many people worry that porn itself is bad – it has surely ruined so many lives, it is an issue of grim conflict in millions of marriages; parents are terrified of their children’s online exposure.

But when people eat badly, we don't try to stop them from eating at all. We don't decry food as bad, or a threat to society. We merely encourage people to improve their diet. The aim has never been to abolish food because some food is terrible.

The same must apply to porn. We can't abolish it, so the aim must be to improve it. Better porn isn’t stuff that’s even more thrilling or exciting. It is ‘better’ in the sense of being better for us – less at odds with the rest of our lives.

The idea that porn could, under the right circumstances, actually be beneficial, strikes many people as very strange. But it shouldn’t. Looking at a lot of porn tends to leave us feeling disconnected and hollow. That’s because it doesn’t seem connected to anything else we value in the rest of our lives. It’s merely about sex, rather than being also about other things we care about: like self-understanding, kindness, intelligence and good relationships.

The other reason why bad porn should be of more concern is the way that it has fundamentally changed the way we have sex. People are exposed to bad porn at increasingly earlier stages of their lives. They watch numerous videos of women and men in unlikely, and uncomfortable positions having sex and then something happens: They start to think that this is how you have sex.

They don't realise that half of the positions the woman is in are created solely for the benefit of the camera. She isn't comfortable, he isn't comfortable. They only appear to be enjoying themselves for the good of that camera. And when a girl or boy replicates these positions in real life...it isn't comfortable.

They don't realise that, in fact, the cries and moans of the woman are also simply for the good of the camera. That, in reality, people are really quite quiet when they have sex. That it's a series of gruff grunts and satisfied sighs. Not window-shattering cries of ecstasy.

The ultimate problem of all of this is that sex has become less of a bonding experience because bad porn has fundamentally changed the way people think they should have sex. Men worry too much about whether they're doing it hard enough, or whether they're endowed enough, while women worry too much about whether she should be doggy or reverse-cowgirl.

But how do we go about it?

History can teach us much.

The Ancient Greeks, for example, were into statue porn. Their statues of greek gods were, often, highly suggestive. The poses were provocative and alluring. Their creators were hoping you'd be turned on by them. But also, this is Apollo you're looking at. He is representative of wisdom and skill. He is going to be really dirty in bed, but he's got a lot of other things going on too. he statue of Apollo gives greater prestige to a very important ideal. It pictures someone very successful, very admirable and competent – who is also highly sensuous. This ideal was meant to be in people’s minds as they grew up, as they judged themselves and others. The Greeks were presenting Apollo as someone who could combine being sexual with being clever and accomplished. And they were saying to themselves and posterity: ‘Maybe you should be a bit like this too.’


Novels really took off in the 19th century when writers started to get interested in realism. The story might be about things you’d never yourself actually do in real life; like walk from London to Brighton, as in Dickens’ Oliver Twist (1838) or manage a failing paper manufacturing company as in Balzac’s Lost Illusions (1843). But it was possible to feel close to these characters, to share their ambitions and fears and to learn from their experience.

This wise development hasn’t yet happened with pornography. The porn of the utopian society would allow us to identify properly with the people involved, and to care a little about them, even if we meet them for only three minutes or in one still image.

We might, for example, meet a master’s student in finance who spends an afternoon with two men. In her mind, there’s a battle between a sense of guilt and a craving for exploration (she is especially excited by being shouted at); she doesn’t tell her boyfriend. Or, we might meet a polite chemical engineer who wants to dominate someone, but despairs of getting this to happen in his life. Eventually, he learns to cast off politeness and reconnect with his own ruthlessness.

As we’ve learned from advertising, the psychological context can be made palpable very quickly. It’s not impossible; it just takes a lot of skill, a quality as yet deeply lacking in the manufacture of porn.

The other thing is that almost every porn website in the world is in bad taste. The colours clash, the language is aggressive, the site is jumbled and chaotic. This isn’t a minor point. The French publishing house Gallimard takes immense trouble with its book jackets, because it knows that the experience of a book doesn’t begin with just the words themselves. The ‘wrapping’ too is a communicative medium that should have to all the dignity of the content.

The same principle should hold true with a porn site. Its design should communicate soberness, goodwill, intelligence and calm.

Everyone - not just Christians - is hugely aware of the terrible things that can go wrong around porn in the age of the internet. But the longing for sexual stimulation isn’t going to go away. Given how vast the demand is, and how crucial the role of sexuality is in life, it is tragic that comparatively so little talent, wisdom, intelligence, maturity and aesthetic imagination has been direct to it. We’ve rightly come to fear bad porn, because it damages so many lives. Good porn could help us deal a little better with the complex, tricky fact of being – at the same time – highly sexual and highly reasonable beings.

 

[Revoltingest]

I notice that the porn industry doesn't decry the existential threat of religion.
The latter could learn from the former.

 

[wizanda]

.

Lots of interesting points....Find the only problem with what you're saying, is how could you counter that some religions (Christianity, Islam, etc), have made sex into something dirty, that should be covered up, kept in a marriage, etc.

So when you're suggesting, we could evolve porn into something respectable; how could we when the stigma applied by the religions, have made porn/sexuality into what it is, and people want to be naughty, so actually go further into promiscuity, due to the religious affects?

 

[Wirey]

They don't realise that, in fact, the cries and moans of the woman are also simply for the good of the camera. That, in reality, people are really quite quiet when they have sex. That it's a series of gruff grunts and satisfied sighs. Not window-shattering cries of ecstasy.

Poor Mycroft.

 

[Revoltingest]

Porn has more durability than any particular religion.
So any time a society becomes secular, porn will thrive out in the open.

 

[Mycroft]

Poor Mycroft.

It's January. Shouldn't you have melted by now?

 

[Mycroft]

Porn has more durability than any particular religion.
So any time a society becomes secular, porn will thrive out in the open.

Sex precedes religion. Religion merely tried to control it.

 

[Revoltingest]

Sex precedes religion. Religion merely tried to control it.

Aye, with mixed results, even causing by their oppression the worst perversions.

 

[Mycroft]

Lots of interesting points....Find the only problem with what you're saying, is how could you counter that some religions (Christianity, Islam, etc), have made sex into something dirty, that should be covered up, kept in a marriage, etc.

The Catholics produced what I would call Good Porn at stages throughout their history. Giovanni Bellini’s depictions of Mary Magdelene are hugely sensual images that explore compassion and sexiness while Caravaggio’s depictions of John the Baptist are also highly sexually provocative depictions of sacrifice.

 

[dawny0826]

I'm curious as to how many churches (and spanning the variant of Christian denominations) focus to a great extent on sexual sin in sermons for porn to be such an issue,

I don't necessarily agree that porn is such a threat to churches in a broader sense. Realistically, it seems to me that the percentage of those that would abuse/have an unhealthy attachment to porn to the extent that it would derail them from their faith or require that they reach out within the church for support would be relatively small.

I don't have a problem with porn that depicts consenting adults, though, I'm not big into it, personally.

 

[Wirey]

I purchased a pornographic movie 12 years ago. So far, I've seen the first eight minutes.

 

[wizanda]

The Catholics produced what I would call Good Porn at stages throughout their history. Giovanni Bellini’s depictions of Mary Magdelene are hugely sensual images that explore compassion and sexiness while Caravaggio’s depictions of John the Baptist are also highly sexually provocative depictions of sacrifice.

Those artists hated the church, thus did the opposite.

 

[leibowde84]

"Josh McDowell, prominent apologist, [minister], and author of bestselling books such as ffvidence That Demands a Verdict, says, “Porn is probably the greatest threat to the church in its existence.” He is so alarmed about pornography’s pervasive influence that he commissioned Barna Group to conduct a sweeping, comprehensive survey on pornography in America. [To be released April, 2016]

Religion’s critics charge that conservative Christianity has become sex-obsessed, placing a disproportionate amount of influence on topics like abstinence, sexual orientation, and pornography. These judgments are not altogether invalid. Conservative Christians' responses to the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 70s have often bordered on paranoia. And yet, the pornography industry undeniably contributes to many social ills, including the objectification of women and the exploitation of children and teenagers.

As a result, the key findings of Barna’s study deserve serious attention:

Young Americans do not think pornography is a negative thing. Only one in 20 young adults and one in 10 teens say their friends think viewing pornography is a bad thing.

Most teens are “sexting.” Sixty-six percent of teens and young adults have received a sexually explicit image via text and 41 percent have sent one.

Porn is not just a “male matter” anymore.Thirty-three percent of women ages 13 to 24 seek out porn at least once per month.

Americans agree that certain types of porn are negative. Overwhelming majorities of Americans across generations believe that porn depicting children under the age of 12 and depictions of non-consensual sex acts are “always wrong.”

Fewer pastors struggle with porn than you might expect–or so they say. Fourteen percent of pastors and 21 percent of youth pastors say they currently struggle with porn.

Many Christians believe pastors caught viewing porn should be ousted from the church. Forty-one percent of adult Christians think a pastor should be fired or asked to resign if they they are found using porn.

Pastors aren’t convinced porn use is a top problem among their congregants. Thirty-eight percent of pastors call pornography a “major” or “significant” problem in their congregation.
source​

So, what do you think? Do you agree with McDowell that “Porn is probably the greatest threat to the church in its existence.” OR is he just trying to create an issue to rile against?

Or do you think "conservative Christianity has become sex-obsessed, placing a disproportionate amount of influence on topics like abstinence, sexual orientation, and pornography." OR do you think Religion’s critics are trying to down play the evils of pornography?

AND, what is your opinion of porn?

Since the sexual revolution of the 1960s, Western Societies have been becoming more and more comfortable with various sexual media. IMHO, it's a good thing. Back in the day, people thought it was "rude" to even talk about sex. Now it's not nearly as taboo, but sexual education needs to catch up, and it seems like the Church is working against that progress. Because pornography is so readily available, and that fact isn't going to change anytime soon, we have to educate our kids so they can better deal with sexually explicit material. The presence of pornography has forced us to deal with this issue instead of just ignoring it and ridiculing those who are permiscuous. We live in a free society, and people should be able to produce porn if they do so legally and responsibly. We can't legislate morality, as it is far too subjective. So, sexual education is the obvious choice to combat any underlying issues.