Southeastern University FireScholars Selected Honors Theses Spring 2018 THE PORNOGRAPHY PANDEMIC: IMPLICATIONS, SCOPE AND SOLUTIONS FOR THE CHURCH IN THE POST-INTERNET AGE Dillon A. Diaz Southeastern University - Lakeland Follow this and additional works at: https://firescholars.seu.edu/honors Part of the Christianity Commons, and the Practical Theology Commons Recommended Citation Diaz, Dillon A., "THE PORNOGRAPHY PANDEMIC: IMPLICATIONS, SCOPE AND SOLUTIONS FOR THE CHURCH IN THE POST-INTERNET AGE" (2018). Selected Honors Theses. 127. https://firescholars.seu.edu/honors/127 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by FireScholars. It has been accepted for inclusion in Selected Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of FireScholars. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE PORNOGRAPHY PANDEMIC: IMPLICATIONS, SCOPE AND SOLUTIONS FOR THE CHURCH IN THE POST-INTERNET AGE by Dillon Amadeus Diaz Submitted to the Honors Program Committee in partial fulfillment of the requirements for University Honors Scholars Southeastern University 2018 Diaz 1 Copyright by Dillon Amadeus Diaz 2018 Diaz 2 Dedication To Dr. Gordon Miller, whose Thesis class I accidentally missed on the 12th of March, 2018. I asked if I missed anything important; he replied, “Of course you missed something important. My class is always important.” To Dr. Joseph Davis, my thesis advisor and greatest inspiration in the defense of the true faith, whose words still ring true in my ears: “You either worship a God of revelation, or a God of imagination.” To Abigail Sprinkle, my beautiful bride-to-be, lovely beyond compare. One night, I told her every wicked thing I had ever done, and she looked at me with a smile that betrayed everything I had just confessed. With love written in her eyes, she looked at me and said, “That’s not who you are anymore, and I don’t see you any different. You are a new creation in Christ.” Not many moons later, on the 19th of June, 2017, I bent down on one knee and asked her if she would magnify the Lord with me forever; she gasped, and covered her mouth as her eyes opened wide, with tears streaming down her cheeks. She nodded: “Yes.” I would thank her for seeing every part of my soul and loving it all. She convinced me that I am not a beast, but a prince—though, next to her, I remain a pauper still. To my dear mother, Nora Rosas, whom I owe my life. She worked three jobs during my entire life to raise me and my brother. She never gave up on me, even when I had given up on myself. She taught me the meaning of sacrificial, unconditional love. To Pastor Kevin Taylor, my spiritual father in the Lord, who challenged me to give my life fully to Christ and baptized me in the Gulf of Mexico. I owe him my desire to serve Christ through ministry all my days. To Robert White, my brother in the Lord, who has stood by me as a faithful friend in my darkest hour, and has taught me the meaning of the proverb: “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” To Solomon, whose wisdom was unsurpassed among all the kings of ancient Israel. He taught me the beginning of wisdom, which is the fear of the Lord, as well as the danger of the forbidden woman. His proverbs were the first of the Holy Scriptures I read in earnest; to him I owe my love for God’s Word, my desire for righteousness, and my hatred of sin. To Christ, whom I owe everything. He saw me in the utter ruin of my transgressions, but had mercy on me. I forsook Him for worldly pleasures, and deserved death for my depravities toward Him and His beloved daughters; but where my wicked hands should have been cut off, He spread His own on the cross to pay the price for my sins and to grant me eternal life. To Jesus belongs all the credit, and all the glory, and all the honor, and all the praise, now and forever! Amen. To the men who have walked alongside me and have invited me into their lives to aid in the battle against pornography, which every man faces. Keep fighting! And, finally, to every daughter of God whom I have ever hurt, directly or indirectly. I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but I swear I will spend the rest of my days defending you whom I once exploited. Diaz 3 Abstract Pornography, recently declared a public health risk, has become an increasingly large problem for society, in particular, the church. The users of pornography span across the board, including men, women, adolescents, children, and even clergy. Pornography has been shown to have detrimental effects in the marriage and family. It also presents a distorted view of sexuality, increasing violent sexual attitudes and other deviancies. As the pornographic industry targets younger audiences, they are more easily hooked due to psychological phenomena and physical changes to the brain that result from pornographic use. All these issues find expression in the life of the church, where believers are ensnared in a sinful lifestyle that causes spiritual, sexual and familial dysfunction, damages their witness, and cripples their effectiveness for the gospel. All the while, pornography continues to degrade and abuse women. In order to mitigate these problems, the church will need to redeem sexuality through discipleship, reclaiming language, counseling, software, spiritual discipline, and accountability. KEY WORDS: Pornography, church, psychology, sexuality, internet, marriage, family, children, adolescents, men, women, clergy, abuse, masturbation, counseling, accountability, discipline, spirituality, shame. Diaz 4 Table of Contents I. Introduction II. Methodology III. Literature Review a. Scope—The Pornographic Pandemic i. The Sexual Revolution and the Church ii. Psychology iii. Children, Adolescents and Young Adults iv. Pastors v. Women, Marriage and Family vi. Pornography’s Victims and Vindicators b. Solutions—Redeeming Sex i. Redeeming Language/Breaking the Silence ii. Reclaiming Healthy Sexuality iii. Accountability, Software and Support iv. Counseling v. Spiritual Discipline vi. The Power of Christ—Toward a Theology of Change IV. Conclusion Bibliography Appendix I—A Theology of Masturbation: Black and White, or Fifty Shades? Diaz 5 I. INTRODUCTION Some have called it “the drug of the new millennium;”1 others, todays’ “forbidden fruit” of choice.2 At this very moment, somewhere in the United States, pornography is being both produced and consumed at literally a nonstop pace, in an industry that makes more money than the combined annual revenue of Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, Apple, and Netflix.3 Notably, in the state of Florida, pornography has just been named a public health crisis, as House Representative Spano comments, “Research has found a correlation between pornography use and mental and physical illnesses, difficulty forming and maintaining intimate relationships, unhealthy brain development and cognitive function, and deviant, problematic or dangerous sexual behavior.”4 Like the insidious Serpent of Eden, pornography has stealthily slithered into the homes of hapless Christians across the world. Awad writes, “Half of America’s male congregation attend Sunday morning worship, lead Bible studies, assist in youth and children ministries, and become deacons and leaders while [pornography] grips their hearts and eyes like a deadly python.”5 Just as the quintessential temptress Delilah seduced the mighty Samson into revealing the gleaming chink in his armor, an array of appetizing mistresses on a screen have enticed even the strongest-willed Christians, promising pleasure, comfort, and companionship, 1 Kastleman, Mark. Internet Pornography: The Drug of the New Millennium. Orem, UT: Granite Publishing and Distribution, 2002. 2 Cannon, Ralph A. “Pornography, Sex and the Church.” The Christian Century 80, no. 18 (May 1, 1963): 576–79. 3 Younce, Craig L. “The Significance of Developing Core Counseling Competencies in Pastoral Care Ministry.” D.Min., Liberty University, 2012, 155. 4 Darrah, Nicole. “Florida House Declares Porn a Public Health Risk.” Text.Article. Fox News, February 21, 2018. http://www.foxnews.com/health/2018/02/21/florida-house-declares-pornography-public- health-risk.html. 5 Awad, Farid. “Pornography Addiction: A Cognitive Approach in Combating the Lies Christian Males Believe.” D.Min., Liberty University, 2010. Diaz 6 but delivering death—death to their marriages, families, careers, sexual satisfaction, and motivation for the Gospel of Christ. “The number one issue that men would seek pastoral counsel for in the church where I pastored was the struggle with pornography. It was so great that all other issues combined for which one might see a pastor did not equal the number of people seeking pastoral guidance for this issue,” 6 said Dr. Joe Davis, professor of theology at Southeastern University. The cruel irony of the pornography crisis is this: in an alarming reversal of morality, Christians (68% of church-going males and 30% of females)7, whom Christ assigned to reach the lost, have instead swallowed the bait of adult filmmakers (read, traffickers) to perpetuate the industry’s success and directly participate in its exploitation. With studies showing that pornography may be more addicting than heroin,8 viewers simultaneously and paradoxically become both the captives of sexual addiction as well as the captors and perpetrators of every abuse that occurs to people in the videos they consume, as their clicks, site-visits and memberships feed money into the pockets of sexual slavers. Since the proliferation of the internet, pornography has become the Achilles Heel of the modernized church, upon which the strokes of the enemy cause it to stumble in the heat of the battle for the fate of the world— a problem that can only be overcome when the power of Christ meets the willingness of men and women to be changed.