Last night several friends and I went to “The Great Porn Debate” in Indianapolis. Evidentally a couple of other venues had decided they didn’t want the debate at their location and so they cancelled, and the event ended up in a rundown, “artsy” old building on the old North side of Indy. There was no air conditioning in the entire building, and yesterday was the hottest day of the year in Indy, yeah… it was hot!
I was half expecting the debate to be at least a little extraneous on both sides; that Ron Jeremy would be a nasty old pervert who just loves porn and was on this tour simply for a little publicity, and that Craig Gross would say some stupid things in the heat of the moment and make us look like uninteligent, fantatical idiots. Neither was the case.
Ron and Craig actually defended each other on several occassions, Ron saying that he “liked what Craig did for a living,” that “not everyone should be involved in porn, and he [Gross] helps them get out.” Craig talked about the time he and his family had spent with Ron on the tour bus, and how he believed that Ron wasn’t actually “for” a lot of the things he was arguing against, that he simply “represented the industry.”
While I was really impressed with the intelligent arguments Jeremy made, (Who knew that Ron has two Bachelors degrees, one in theater and one in education, and a Masters in special education?) I did disagree on what I feel may be the most important issue regarding pornography. Ron disagreed that pornography is progressive, that what gets you off today won’t get you off tomorrow… I disagree because know this to be true… Pornography, at least for me, was absolutely progressive.
My question is, if it is progressive for everyone else, where does that progerssion end? How far does it go? I believe that progression will always take you further than you want to go and make you stay longer than you want to stay. Do I believe that it should be outlawed altogether? No, we live in a country that still has at least some similance of free speech. I do believe it will ultimately drive you to lie to and hurt the people you love the most because it is progressively destructive.
I think the message to the church is very close to what Craig has been “preaching” for several years now, the church needs to be a safe place to talk about and get REAL help for sex addictions… and in most churches, it’s not.
August 13, 2007 at 7:12 pm
This is my reply to a post my friend Willie made on his blog… He attended the debate with me.
I think we came away from the debate with very similar experiences with regard to Ron, and Craig and the issues that were raised. What impacted me more than anything else was the guy who stood up and said that he started viewing pornography when he was a young teenager, and that the addiction progressively worsened over the next 4 or 5 years.
He went on to say that he was a member of a youth group and active in church at the time, but that he had no “safe place” to go to get help with his addiction. He closed his question by saying that he wasn’t concerned about whether or not pornography should be made illegal altogether, or if married couples should use it as a marital aide, or if young men and women wanted to perform in the videos… instead what he wanted to know is what I want to know… It’s the question Willie just asked, “What is the church doing to provide REAL help to people who want to be free from the addiction?”
I have a friend who secretly struggled with an addiction to pornography. It progressed (as it always does) and continued to grow in his life until one day it exploded. His secret was out… so he was summarily “sat down” from participating in the choir or from being involved in his faith community. His pastor told him that he was going to “walk with him to recovery.” That pastor never followed through with his promises. On a very few occasions he would ask my friend, “How are you doing?”
There was no help to be had, no road to recovery identified… the whole thing was swept under the rug until it had been forgotten about, and then my friend was “reinstated” and able to participate in his faith community again. Even though they offered hope with their words, that hope very quickly faded and the focus shifted to the “crime” and the “punishment.”
You want to know how the church can really begin to help people with sex addictions? Well first of all they can start to value people over reputations and image. If churches continue to live behind a mask that says “we’ve got it all together and will punish anyone of our members who doesn’t,” no one will ever trust them enough to reach out for help.
We need to start talking about the real issues that real people are facing, and offering real help to people who are reaching out for help… We need to bring this plague against humanity into the light so that it will die.
We also need to come clean about our own struggles, remember that whole “confess your faults” thing in James’ letter to “God’s people scattered all over the world?” The Greek word that translators translated to “fault” is “paraptoma” and it means ” a lapse or deviation from truth and uprightness, a sin or misdeed.” When is the last time you confessed a sin or a deviation from uprightness?
It’ll be a slow process, people have lots of reasons not to trust the church, and very few reasons to trust us… we just need to start talking… that process will end in healing.
“Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so God can heal you.” (James 5:16)
August 14, 2007 at 8:10 pm
Say the word “pornography” in a church setting and it is like you just stood up and said, “God hates white people.” Overall, the church has not been a place people can go to deal with real sins, so when a topic like pornography is brought up, the first thought becomes, “Is it safe to talk about this?”
Unfortunately the answer is “no” in many churches. I think there are two main reasons why this is the case:
1. Just like the example you gave in the comment, church leaders rarely seem to know how effectively to deal with it (probably because many are in the same boat!).
2. After so many years of learning to hide sins instead of confessing them in confidence to other brothers and sisters, people don’t have much practice accepting others where they are. When someone is willing to be vulnerable, then a lot of people get spooked, thinking that it’s their turn next to open the closet.
Like you said, it takes time to live this out, but it is worth it. The only way I have found victory in the temptations that are unique to men is by confiding in a brother who was willing to hear all my confession and then was willing to share his own struggles. What always follows is prayer, strength, and victory–not shame, judgment, and willful ignorance.
Thanks for bringing up the topic… It’s your most skookum post to date!