Why Are So Many Christians So Eager to Defend Pornography?

A little while ago, there was a huge uproar in the Christian world about a movie and a series of books, both of which were highly inappropriate and dealt with lust and sex. I wrote a post about my thoughts on both.

Now, knowing that the movie contains a good deal of nudity or implied nudity and the books are full of very explicit sexual content between two individuals who are not married, you would think that it would be a no-brainer for Christians to avoid these things. I mean, yes, it is true that all things are lawful for us, but even Paul recognized that not all things are beneficial. Sadly, though, this was not the case.

In a forum for youth pastors, I came across an individual who was in youth ministry who had gone to see the movie and was adamantly defending her decision to do so, saying that she saw nothing wrong with it and that her husband was fine with her going. Does anyone else see a problem here? This is a woman who works with teenagers, defending a movie that she had no business seeing. That would be like me encouraging my students to watch American Pie or something similar.

Another bizarre event took place when I posted a link to an article about the books and asked folks to read it, just to get a different perspective on what they were reading. I received an email blasting me for posting the article, claiming that I was being judgmental and judging peoples' marriages. Please note, I did not make any accusations or even say that people shouldn't read the books. I merely offered the article as a different perspective.

I think this is just proof of the hard work that youth pastors have to do. We are constantly crashing into a popular culture that glorifies sex and is doing its best to normalize sexual behavior of all types, including things that previously were not even discussed in private company. Even sadder is that many parents are reading those books or watching those movies, completely oblivious to the impact such decisions will have on their children. I mean, if mom can read it, why can't I read something similar?

Lust Is Still Lust - Part 2

Yesterday I wrote about the dangers of lust, both for young men and young women. I'm not so naive as to think everyone agreed with what I wrote. I would like to share a few statistics that I found to show why this is such a huge issue and one that we need to take seriously.

• 93% of young men and 62% of young women are exposed to porn by age 18.
• 70% of young men and 23% of young women have spent more than 30 minutes looking at porn in one sitting. A large portion of those have done it on more than one occasion.
• Large numbers of young men and women have seen horrific sex acts, including bondage (the subject of the very popular books I referenced yesterday), rape, and child porn.

While I could continue to lay down an argument against porn and lust, my purpose is to show that this isn't something to be toyed with. It isn't something to laugh about and pretend like it is not a big deal. Lust is a huge problem. When students are spending significant periods of time looking at pornographic material, it is no longer a joke.

It is deadly serious.