Why aren't Christians defeating the pornographers?

[Wheat Field]

According to a report by Dame Rachel de Souza (the UK's Children's Commissioner), 10% of 9 year olds have seen pornography. She also says there is evidence that shows a link between young people watching porn and incidents of child on child sexual abuse. In her words: "I am categorically clear: no child should be able to access or watch pornography." A study by Bernardo's found that more than half of child sexual abuse cases in the UK are perpetrated by children (2022 - up from a third in 2013).

Over a dozen states in the US have declared porn a public health crises.

According to Fight the New Drug:
Decades of studies from respected institutions have demonstrated significant impacts of porn consumption for individuals, relationships, and society. 73% of teens have seen porn. At least 1 in 3 porn videos show sexual violence of aggression. 53% of boys and 39% of girls believe pornography is a realistic depiction of sex. Porn consumers tend to be less satisfied in relationships, less committed, and more permissive of cheating. There is virtually no way to guarantee that pornographic content is consensual. Exploitation and trafficking are common experiences in the porn industry.

Why has there not been a concerted push back by Christians (who number some 2.38 billion people according to PEW research) against the pornographic industry? NCOSE (National Centre on Sexual Exploitation) began as a Christian movement and have had some limited success.

At the sermon on the mount Jesus said:
“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven."

Ellicott's commentary on this use of 'salt of the earth' states:
The words are spoken to the disciples in their ideal character, as the germ of a new Israel, called to a prophetic work, preserving the earth from moral putrescence and decay. The general reference to this antiseptic action of salt is enough to give an adequate meaning to the words...

At the very least, adults are failing to protect children from seeing this material - surely a damning indictment? We are failing because we could have made sure children were protected from seeing it BEFORE we allowed porn to be as accessible as it is. Anyone accessing porn (whether they are Christian or not) is fuelling the industry and may end up actually watching someone being raped.

Porn is damaging the whole of society - not just our children.

I will add that I am not pointing the finger at everyone but myself - on the contrary, I point at all of us.

 

[for_his_glory]

Keeping a child away from porn begins with their parents educating how sinful it is and what happens to those kids who are abducted in children trafficking. but, even then one can not stop those things that are done in secret apart from the home. We know that Satan is the god of this world that blinds the eyes of the unlearned trying to separate us from the love of God and there is nothing anyone can do, but to guard and educate their own children about the wiles of Satan. It is an evil world that we have to live in, but yet we need to keep taking the Gospel message out into the world in hope that others will start hearing and believing in Christ Jesus.

2Cor 4:3 But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:
2Cor 4:4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

 

[Tenchi]

According to a report by Dame Rachel de Souza (the UK's Children's Commissioner), 10% of 9 year olds have seen pornography. She also says there is evidence that shows a link between young people watching porn and incidents of child on child sexual abuse. In her words: "I am categorically clear: no child should be able to access or watch pornography." A study by Bernardo's found that more than half of child sexual abuse cases in the UK are perpetrated by children (2022 - up from a third in 2013).

Children are irrepressible mimics. They simply do what they see adults about them doing, whether it is evil, or not. I think of those terrible photos I've seen of little Muslim children hefting machine guns, or holding bloody knives, big grins on their faces. It is no surprise, then, that children who see porn enact what they see, which is why it is so vital that their impressionable, mimicking, undiscriminating minds are kept from porn and the pedophilic monsters in obscene dress at public libraries reading books to them, or from the perverts strutting about in public in the nude, as they do in San Francisco, or pridefully flaunting their sexual perversion in annual parades.

Why has there not been a concerted push back by Christians (who number some 2.38 billion people according to PEW research) against the pornographic industry? NCOSE (National Centre on Sexual Exploitation) began as a Christian movement and have had some limited success.

I'm pretty sure there is "push back" by Christians. But long ago they yielded the field of battle politically and culturally in North America. Christians in the West have been living in a post-Christian culture for decades now. Is it any surprise, then, that the darkness, delusion and destruction that God promises will fall on individuals and nations who spurn Him is doing so? As North American culture continues to rush headlong from God, children, and other vulnerable communities of people, will suffer greater and greater damage as happened in the past.

Before Christians can enter with any supernatural, nation-transforming power into the cultural and political spheres in North America and affect real, God-honoring change, they need to get their own house in order, purging from their ranks the "leaven" of the nominal "Christian," forsaking worldliness in its myriad forms, repenting of sin and correcting the widespread spiritual juvenility that generally characterizes North American Christianity.

This seems unlikely to happen. Instead, what looks to me to be coming down the pipe is God's wrathful judgment. The shape of that judgment looks to me increasingly like the total dissolution of North American culture and its replacement by an oppressive, neo-Marxist Mother State that will kill many, many millions, as such States have always done, persecuting the Church cruelly but purifying and strengthening it at the same time, and shrouding North America in a second Dark Age of poverty, ignorance and fear.

 

[Christ_empowered]

I dunno
Glad I don’t have kids …


Media saturation is ridiculous. It’s not like the earlier days of The Internet when a parent could get software that would hopefully keep the kids away from bad sites. Kids have phones and laptops and streaming services at home…
And then one has to contend with the kids social networks. Do their friends parents care? If they do care are they able and willing to do something anything about keeping their children safe?

In the USA large groups of Christians made a sort of unholy alliance with the right wing elements of USA politics especially from the 1970s onwards. So now much of the country doesn’t see the church ️ as holding any sort of moral authority…


We’ve become entangled with reactionary and sometimes dangerous political views and leaders who are often anti christ in outlook policies and practices. Much of the church wasted their clout on fascism basically. Now Christians are viewed as controlling hateful and cruel…

 

[WIP]

Why has there not been a concerted push back by Christians (who number some 2.38 billion people according to PEW research) against the pornographic industry?

Probably because a large percentage of those same Christians are also addicted or involved. The same question could be asked regarding other topics like abortion, sexual promiscuity, and so forth. According to PEW Research, 2021, approximately 63% of the US population identifies as Christian. We live in a representative society so with that said, our government should reflect our values and it does. Look at the uproar that has come with the Roe V Wade turnover, gay rights movements, and so forth. It's not coming strictly from our non-Christian population.

 

[Christian Saboteur]

Because the christians are watching the 'Strange' also.Google 'Christians and Porn',the statistics are suprising.There are many church leaders that struggle with a porn addiction also.If internet pornography isn't shutoff,we haven't seen anything yet.Just think of all of the young people that are becoming porn addicts right now,they are going to grow into adulthood,with what mindset?????,that tidalwave is going to reach the beach someday.Not every woman is a bikini model,especially after three babies,not every man has a horse appendage.

 

[GodsGrace]

According to a report by Dame Rachel de Souza (the UK's Children's Commissioner), 10% of 9 year olds have seen pornography. She also says there is evidence that shows a link between young people watching porn and incidents of child on child sexual abuse. In her words: "I am categorically clear: no child should be able to access or watch pornography." A study by Bernardo's found that more than half of child sexual abuse cases in the UK are perpetrated by children (2022 - up from a third in 2013).

Over a dozen states in the US have declared porn a public health crises.

According to Fight the New Drug:
Decades of studies from respected institutions have demonstrated significant impacts of porn consumption for individuals, relationships, and society. 73% of teens have seen porn. At least 1 in 3 porn videos show sexual violence of aggression. 53% of boys and 39% of girls believe pornography is a realistic depiction of sex. Porn consumers tend to be less satisfied in relationships, less committed, and more permissive of cheating. There is virtually no way to guarantee that pornographic content is consensual. Exploitation and trafficking are common experiences in the porn industry.

Why has there not been a concerted push back by Christians (who number some 2.38 billion people according to PEW research) against the pornographic industry? NCOSE (National Centre on Sexual Exploitation) began as a Christian movement and have had some limited success.

At the sermon on the mount Jesus said:
“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven."

Ellicott's commentary on this use of 'salt of the earth' states:
The words are spoken to the disciples in their ideal character, as the germ of a new Israel, called to a prophetic work, preserving the earth from moral putrescence and decay. The general reference to this antiseptic action of salt is enough to give an adequate meaning to the words...

At the very least, adults are failing to protect children from seeing this material - surely a damning indictment? We are failing because we could have made sure children were protected from seeing it BEFORE we allowed porn to be as accessible as it is. Anyone accessing porn (whether they are Christian or not) is fuelling the industry and may end up actually watching someone being raped.

Porn is damaging the whole of society - not just our children.

I will add that I am not pointing the finger at everyone but myself - on the contrary, I point at all of us.

A big problem, as I see it, is that women want to look and act like porn stars...
instead of holding their own and teaching men that they want to be respected.
Respected....how old fashioned!

 

[Christ_empowered]

I dunno
I think it’s only getting worse overall. Hook up culture used to be a young adult often college thing…


Now it’s all ages all strata of society. Porn teaches crazy ideas about sex and sex appeal but the big takeaway is…sex is a pursuit in and of itself and partners are replaceable and expendable.

Just a side note : if you’re wondering what happens when porn and hookups become the norm look at the statistics on urban gay men. Even ignoring outliers it’s frightening.

 

[journeyman]

According to a report by Dame Rachel de Souza (the UK's Children's Commissioner), 10% of 9 year olds have seen pornography. She also says there is evidence that shows a link between young people watching porn and incidents of child on child sexual abuse. In her words: "I am categorically clear: no child should be able to access or watch pornography." A study by Bernardo's found that more than half of child sexual abuse cases in the UK are perpetrated by children (2022 - up from a third in 2013).

Over a dozen states in the US have declared porn a public health crises.

According to Fight the New Drug:
Decades of studies from respected institutions have demonstrated significant impacts of porn consumption for individuals, relationships, and society. 73% of teens have seen porn. At least 1 in 3 porn videos show sexual violence of aggression. 53% of boys and 39% of girls believe pornography is a realistic depiction of sex. Porn consumers tend to be less satisfied in relationships, less committed, and more permissive of cheating. There is virtually no way to guarantee that pornographic content is consensual. Exploitation and trafficking are common experiences in the porn industry.

Why has there not been a concerted push back by Christians (who number some 2.38 billion people according to PEW research) against the pornographic industry? NCOSE (National Centre on Sexual Exploitation) began as a Christian movement and have had some limited success.

At the sermon on the mount Jesus said:
“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven."

Ellicott's commentary on this use of 'salt of the earth' states:
The words are spoken to the disciples in their ideal character, as the germ of a new Israel, called to a prophetic work, preserving the earth from moral putrescence and decay. The general reference to this antiseptic action of salt is enough to give an adequate meaning to the words...

At the very least, adults are failing to protect children from seeing this material - surely a damning indictment? We are failing because we could have made sure children were protected from seeing it BEFORE we allowed porn to be as accessible as it is. Anyone accessing porn (whether they are Christian or not) is fuelling the industry and may end up actually watching someone being raped.

Porn is damaging the whole of society - not just our children.

I will add that I am not pointing the finger at everyone but myself - on the contrary, I point at all of us.

Hello Wheat Field .
That is great post and I agree the world is in such confusion because of unnatural lust.
I will always carry the sorrow in my heart of having failed my children in how a husband should regard his marriage as sacred.
I know God has forgiven me. I can see weaknesses in my children and I try to point them back to why they met.
As far as internet, tv, etc. that can be controled except where no responsible parent or adult is so again WF iI think your words are very wise.

 

[miamited]

Hi Wheat Field

I don't recall there being anything in the Scriptures that said that christians were supposed to defeat pornography or any of the other hundreds of sins of the world. Do you?

If one is waiting for some great sin to be expunged from our lives to determine whether faith in the God of the Jewish Scriptures is a worthy endeavor or not, they're likely never going to come to God.

God bless,
Ted

 

[Who Me]

According to a report by Dame Rachel de Souza (the UK's Children's Commissioner), 10% of 9 year olds have seen pornography. She also says there is evidence that shows a link between young people watching porn and incidents of child on child sexual abuse. In her words: "I am categorically clear: no child should be able to access or watch pornography." A study by Bernardo's found that more than half of child sexual abuse cases in the UK are perpetrated by children (2022 - up from a third in 2013).

Over a dozen states in the US have declared porn a public health crises.

According to Fight the New Drug:
Decades of studies from respected institutions have demonstrated significant impacts of porn consumption for individuals, relationships, and society. 73% of teens have seen porn. At least 1 in 3 porn videos show sexual violence of aggression. 53% of boys and 39% of girls believe pornography is a realistic depiction of sex. Porn consumers tend to be less satisfied in relationships, less committed, and more permissive of cheating. There is virtually no way to guarantee that pornographic content is consensual. Exploitation and trafficking are common experiences in the porn industry.

Why has there not been a concerted push back by Christians (who number some 2.38 billion people according to PEW research) against the pornographic industry? NCOSE (National Centre on Sexual Exploitation) began as a Christian movement and have had some limited success.

At the sermon on the mount Jesus said:
“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven."

Ellicott's commentary on this use of 'salt of the earth' states:
The words are spoken to the disciples in their ideal character, as the germ of a new Israel, called to a prophetic work, preserving the earth from moral putrescence and decay. The general reference to this antiseptic action of salt is enough to give an adequate meaning to the words...

At the very least, adults are failing to protect children from seeing this material - surely a damning indictment? We are failing because we could have made sure children were protected from seeing it BEFORE we allowed porn to be as accessible as it is. Anyone accessing porn (whether they are Christian or not) is fuelling the industry and may end up actually watching someone being raped.

Porn is damaging the whole of society - not just our children.

I will add that I am not pointing the finger at everyone but myself - on the contrary, I point at all of us.

What did your paster say when you asked him this?

 

[ElmoGantry]

Hi Wheat Field

I don't recall there being anything in the Scriptures that said that christians were supposed to defeat pornography or any of the other hundreds of sins of the world. Do you?

Not OP, but...of course only Jesus defeated sin on our behalf, through the cross. We ourselves sure didn't. And through Him, the Holy Spirit that's alive in those who've accepted Him as Lord and Saviour enables us to sin no longer (see chapter 6 of Paul's letter to the Romans). But as far as what we're called to do now that we're followers of Christ, we can certainly make a case from scripture for:

1. Protecting the children:
   
   Whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me.
   “But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe to the world because of offenses! For offenses must come, but woe to that man by whom the offense comes! [Matthew 18:5-7 (NKJV)]
   
   
2. Attempting to at least maximize good and minimize evil in the world with our own choices and actions:
   
   “Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean;
   Put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes.
   Cease to do evil,
   Learn to do good;
   Seek justice,
   Rebuke the oppressor; [Isaiah 1:16-17 (NKJV)]

 

[miamited]

Hi ElmoGantry

“Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean;
Put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes.
Cease to do evil,
Learn to do good;
Seek justice,

Yes, absolutely!!! The believer is to rid their life of all such unrighteousness. You get no argument with me on that matter.

However, I'm talking about our relationships with those who are not a part of us. As I think I've been clear to state that we are to judge a brother or sister if sin is noted in their life. But Paul is clear that we are not to judge those who are not a part of us. So, all I'm saying is that these political/religious goals whereby some evangelical believers think that it's their job to police the laws and the people of the nation just isn't shown anywhere in the Scriptures.

There is nowhere that we read that a group of christians went out to effect some political/legal change in Rome or any of the other cities that Paul, Barbabas and other believers visited.

God bless,
Ted

 

[Wheat Field]

Hi Wheat Field

I don't recall there being anything in the Scriptures that said that christians were supposed to defeat pornography or any of the other hundreds of sins of the world. Do you?

I quoted from the sermon on the mount where Jesus describes and urges his disciples to be the 'salt of the earth'; Ellicott's commentary equates this with 'preserving the earth from moral putrescence and decay.'

You disagree?

In the same place Jesus says (vs. 6, 10-12):
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Anyone attempting to push back against the porn deluge will, I am sure you would agree, be overwhelmed by a sea of such persecution.

ElmoGantry rightly cites Matthew 18:5-7, and I will add Luke 18:16
But Jesus called the children to him and said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.

As things stand, we have allowed extremely explicit and violent porn to be viewable by children. It's literally as though we have left it lying round in a room for them to stumble upon (and no amount of parental controls will guarantee a child's safety). Again, here's Dame Rachel de Souza (the UK's Children's Commissioner):
No child should be able to stumble across pornography online; in a world where pornography is a click away for any child, I am clear that this must change and until then we must grapple with the implications.

If one is waiting for some great sin to be expunged from our lives to determine whether faith in the God of the Jewish Scriptures is a worthy endeavor or not, they're likely never going to come to God.

That is not the intent of this thread; if porn were to be banned right now through the actions of Christians it would not in itself be a reason to believe (imho).

 

[Wheat Field]

What did your paster say when you asked him this?

I'm not a Christian.

I have spoken to a Christian friend of mine on this issue and he was supportive.

 

[Wheat Field]

Children are irrepressible mimics. They simply do what they see adults about them doing, whether it is evil, or not. I think of those terrible photos I've seen of little Muslim children hefting machine guns, or holding bloody knives, big grins on their faces. It is no surprise, then, that children who see porn enact what they see, which is why it is so vital that their impressionable, mimicking, undiscriminating minds are kept from porn and the pedophilic monsters in obscene dress at public libraries reading books to them, or from the perverts strutting about in public in the nude, as they do in San Francisco, or pridefully flaunting their sexual perversion in annual parades.



I'm pretty sure there is "push back" by Christians. But long ago they yielded the field of battle politically and culturally in North America. Christians in the West have been living in a post-Christian culture for decades now. Is it any surprise, then, that the darkness, delusion and destruction that God promises will fall on individuals and nations who spurn Him is doing so? As North American culture continues to rush headlong from God, children, and other vulnerable communities of people, will suffer greater and greater damage as happened in the past.

Before Christians can enter with any supernatural, nation-transforming power into the cultural and political spheres in North America and affect real, God-honoring change, they need to get their own house in order, purging from their ranks the "leaven" of the nominal "Christian," forsaking worldliness in its myriad forms, repenting of sin and correcting the widespread spiritual juvenility that generally characterizes North American Christianity.

This seems unlikely to happen. Instead, what looks to me to be coming down the pipe is God's wrathful judgment. The shape of that judgment looks to me increasingly like the total dissolution of North American culture and its replacement by an oppressive, neo-Marxist Mother State that will kill many, many millions, as such States have always done, persecuting the Church cruelly but purifying and strengthening it at the same time, and shrouding North America in a second Dark Age of poverty, ignorance and fear.

I wish it weren't as you describe but I think you are right. It is very depressing.

 

[Wheat Field]

Probably because a large percentage of those same Christians are also addicted or involved. The same question could be asked regarding other topics like abortion, sexual promiscuity, and so forth. According to PEW Research, 2021, approximately 63% of the US population identifies as Christian. We live in a representative society so with that said, our government should reflect our values and it does. Look at the uproar that has come with the Roe V Wade turnover, gay rights movements, and so forth. It's not coming strictly from our non-Christian population.

I think you speak truth - and again, it is very depressing.

 

[Wheat Field]

Because the christians are watching the 'Strange' also.Google 'Christians and Porn',the statistics are suprising.There are many church leaders that struggle with a porn addiction also.If internet pornography isn't shutoff,we haven't seen anything yet.Just think of all of the young people that are becoming porn addicts right now,they are going to grow into adulthood,with what mindset?????,that tidalwave is going to reach the beach someday.Not every woman is a bikini model,especially after three babies,not every man has a horse appendage.

Indeed - according to Restoring Hearts: The statistics for Christian men between 18 and 30 years old are particularly striking: 77 percent look at pornography at least monthly. 36 percent view pornography on a daily basis. 32 percent admit being addicted to pornography (and another 12 percent think they may be).

 

[Wheat Field]

A big problem, as I see it, is that women want to look and act like porn stars...
instead of holding their own and teaching men that they want to be respected.
Respected....how old fashioned!

I have noticed an increase in women with lip augmentation; I assume this is driven by the influence of porn.

 

[Wheat Field]

I dunno
I think it’s only getting worse overall. Hook up culture used to be a young adult often college thing…


Now it’s all ages all strata of society. Porn teaches crazy ideas about sex and sex appeal but the big takeaway is…sex is a pursuit in and of itself and partners are replaceable and expendable.

Just a side note : if you’re wondering what happens when porn and hookups become the norm look at the statistics on urban gay men. Even ignoring outliers it’s frightening.

Could you explain your phrase 'urban gay men' please?