Porn & the Church: if we ignore it, maybe it will go away? – by Martin Kuhrt

‘What have I done?’ I asked myself.

I had organised a conference on porn at my home church in Aylesbury. But a few days before, I began to feel a heavy sense of failure.

Bad taste

No-one’s going to come. People have told me they don’t like the way it had been advertised. I’ve been told that posters with the word ‘porn’ are in bad taste and children might ask questions that will embarrass their parents.

Some said they didn’t understand why I would want to put on such an event. Some told me it was ‘brave’, but I sensed they really meant ‘you’ll not get me coming’.

Polite noises

Other local church leaders who I have known for a long time made polite noises but very few enthusiastically backed it. Some said if the speaker was American, he wouldn’t relate to reserved English people. And might he be a rather grubby character anyway?

Others said that there are lots of different kinds of addiction, why couldn’t we run a conference for addiction generally and not focus just on porn? Others said the flyers were ‘too Christian’, others said they ‘were not Christian enough.’

I started to wonder whether I had arranged the event because of some neurodiverse quirk in me that sees this issue in black and white terms.

Devastating damage

I had met a man called Mike Genung of Blazing Grace Ministries at the Christian Resources Exhibition last year. What caught my eye at his stall were the horrific statistics of the percentage of Christians, young people, children, and members of the general population who were accessing porn regularly or self-confessedly addicted.

The stat that grabbed me was, according to research by Premier Christian Magazine, that 30% of church leaders admit to viewing porn regularly.

Porn and sexual addictions had wreaked devastating damage in Mike Genung’s life. Eventually, he found healing and freedom. And for the last 20 years he has run a world-wide ministry to people who struggle with sex and porn addiction and the effect on spouses. Mike is crystal clear: porn destroys relationships. It not only re-wires the brain, but mashes it like heroin.

Tackling the issue

I believe the Holy Spirit prompted me to speak to Mike that day. It made sense to invite him to Aylesbury to run a day conference when he was next in the UK, which he agreed readily to do.

To my mind, if this is such an all-pervasive issue and in which the church is deeply compromised, then why wouldn’t everyone think it’s a good idea to tackle it?

But of course I’m wiser now. The reality is that many Christians don’t want to address it.

Premier Christianity Magazine may have run over 80 articles on porn in the last 12 years, but that doesn’t mean people are willing to talk about it face-to-face in church.

It doesn’t mean that church leaders will grab the opportunity to promote an event where honest testimony is given and people are challenged to see this as an obstacle to living holy lives.

It doesn’t mean parents, who may be feeling guilty themselves, prioritise the need to talk to their children and youth in order to prepare them for the porn-saturated screen environment we live in.

Stronghold

Jesus said that if our eyes and hands cause us to sin we should gouge our eyes out and cut off our hands. But we’re reluctant to even confess our sins to one another, talk to our youth, set boundaries and use accountability apps on our precious phones.

In short, Satan has a massive spiritual stronghold in this area. Porn is a trillion dollar industry and Satan can employ all the seven deadly sins in this enterprise together with lies, shame, cowardice and complacency.

Thirty people

To promote the event I printed 2,000 flyers and distributed them to churches, schools, pubs and put out as much online media advertising as I could.

In the end, thirty people showed up. 20 men and 10 women.

However, we had an excellent event and those who came gave great feedback:

‘Mike was direct and challenging while being kind and gentle.’ 

‘In being vulnerable himself he encouraged others to be honest.’

‘My husband has been really challenged’

‘We must invite Mike to speak on a Sunday morning in church.’

Chipping away

This issue is not going away. We cannot ignore it.

The wife of one of the pastors who didn’t turn out shared a prophetic picture for me on the morning of the event. It was a huge block of ice and a pick-axe. I should not be downhearted over the numbers. It may seem like this event was just a little chip on the iceberg, but in this town it would begin the process of spreading cracks in the ice.  

May God cause the cracks to grow and widen.

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See the Blazing Grace Ministries to help people overcome porn addiction.

Rev. Martin Kuhrt is Vicar of the Church of the Holy Spirit in Aylesbury