Piper, Keller, & Carson: How Does the Gospel Conquer the Sin of Pornography?

How to Get Johnny to Stop Viewing Porn ... Shame?

The town of Quincy, Massachusetts thinks they've come up with a way to stop people from looking at pornography on public library computers — name them and shame them.

Quincy Councilor Daniel Raymondi has suggested that the town make public a list of people who have viewed pornography on library computers within the past year. The council unanimously approved a resolution on the idea last week.

Will this work?  Can shame shatter attachments to false gods and motivate life change?  Is there a biblical case to be made for the use of shame, i.e., Ezekiel 16: 54,58-61?  Can people even still be shamed in our culture or have we become confident in our sinful nature, has sin become so mainstream, that feeling a sense of shame isn't possible?

Sexual Detox

Tim Challies has put together two guides, one for married men and another for single men, focused on the Biblical position on sex and applying that truth to a several important peripheral issues (pornography, addiction, masturbation, and so on).

Below is a spinet, directed at married men, that I especially appreciated. If husbands who struggle with pornography can come to see pornography in this way, as a sin that is radically changing their hearts and minds (even the way in which they look and feel for their wives), then I think it will mark a first step toward conquering this sin. Here's what Challies writes:

(Pornography) has reshaped your mind and your heart in certain ways, and has even shaped your understanding of your own wife! You are looking at her through the eyes of a pornographer! Would you want Hugh Hefner staring at your wife’s body, looking it up and down? And yet there you are looking at her through his eyes—through the eyes he and others like him have given you through your consumption of their pornography.

What you need to do is to borrow God’s eyes and prepare yourself to look at your wife through that lens, through that filter. You need to replace lies with truth. And God has given you the Bible so you can do just that. Through the Bible we are able to borrow God’s eyes and to see the world as he sees it.

You can download these two resources in e-book form for free:

Sexual Detox: A Guide for the Single Guy

Sexual Detox: A Guide for the Married Guy

HT: Challies

How Does Unbelief Contribute To The Need I Feel For Pornography?

HT: Desiring God

New Study on the Effects of Pornography

A new study done by Patrick F. Fagan examines the effects of pornography on individuals, marriage, family and community. Fagan is Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for Research on Marriage and Religion at the Family Research Council. He specializes in examining the relationships among family, marriage, religion, community, and America's social problems. This study is important for everyone to read as it demonstrates that it has damaging effects on individuals and families.

In the summary Fagan explains:

Pornography is a visual representation of sexuality which distorts an individual's concept of the nature of conjugal relations. This, in turn, alters both sexual attitudes and behavior. It is a major threat to marriage, to family, to children and to individual happiness. In undermining marriage it is one of the factors in undermining social stability.

Social scientists, clinical psychologists, and biologists have begun to clarify some of the social and psychological effects, and neurologists are beginning to delineate the biological mechanisms through which pornography produces its powerful negative effects.

Masturbation

Tim Chester, pastor and author of Total Church, is working on a new book focused on pornography. I appreciate where he rightly points out the strong, but under recognized (I would argue), influence of non-biblical secular psychologies on our culture. The same field that promotes a self-help strategy for coping with life's struggles certainly promotes a individualistic ethic when it comes to all things sexual, including masturbation. "If it makes you feel good, then it can't be bad;" that's the philosophical canker sore that psychology has promoted for decades and it's bankrupting our marriages, it's stealing our youth (how many years are devoured by the moths of pornography addiction, all in the name if self-gratification?), and distorted the gift of sexuality that God has given us. I think Chester is right to highlight the most common justification for the practice of masturbation - that it relieves pent up sexual tension. Chester remarks:

Masturbation does not relieve tension; it fuels it. Sexual temptation is not dissipated through sexual activity, except on the most short-term activity such as masturbation makes sexual temptation come back sooner and stronger. This is one reason why people think they can't stop masturbating. They get caught in a vicious cycle of desire and the temporary release of masturbating which is in fact reinforcing.

Here's the section on masturbation from Chester's manuscript. He's posted a pdf version to be downloaded for free in hopes that other's will read it and offer their thoughts. Check it out.

HT: Tim Chester

The Harmful Effects of Pornography

1. Harm to the Soul
2. Harm to Personal Morality and Chastity
3. Harm to Public Morality
4. Harm to Marriage
5. Harm of Violence Toward Women
6. Harm of Degradation of Women
7. Harm to Children
8. Harm of stimulations resulting in Rape
9. Harm of Contracting AIDS and other Venereal Diseases in Peep Show Booths and Spreading the Same to the Public
10. Harm to Performers in the production of porno films and videos
11. Harm to Performers in Nude Dancing Establishments
12. Harm to innocent persons criminally assaulted and murdered by those stimulated by porn, including serial murderers

HT: Paul J. McGeady

Porn Again Christian By Mark Driscoll

Mark Driscoll has written an e-book on pornography and masturbation for all men. The book will be released in the coming months, but is available free online.

HT: Resurgence

The Seducation of Pornography By Albert Mohler

The pervasive plague of pornography represents one of the greatest moral challenges faced by the Christian church in the postmodern age. With eroticism woven into the very heart of the culture, celebrated in its entertainment, and advertised as a commodity, it is virtually impossible to escape the pervasive influence of pornography in our culture and in our lives.

At the same time, the problem of human sinfulness is fundamentally unchanged from the time of the Fall until the present. There is no theological basis for assuming that human beings are more lustful, more defenseless before sexual temptation or more susceptible to the corruption of sexual desire than was the case in any previous generation.

Read more here.

HT: Boundless