Pornography: Lies And Chains Series

Pornography: Lies and Chains

James 1:13-15

[Please see many more stats on this subject as well as our suggested tools and filters to help your family at the weblink at the very bottom of this message]

Intro:

“Don’t talk on this subject, preacher, it’s inappropriate.”

Oh yes, we must, and let me tell you why. The world talks about it and no one isn’t touched by it…it’s high time the church take a stand!

“But, I don’t use porn, and I’m sure my spouse and kids don’t.”

Good, then you won’t be on the spot at all today!

Pornography is big business. According to U.S. News and World Report, the industry 5 years ago grossed an estimated $10 billion. That figure represents an expenditure of about $30 per person in the United States. That’s more than is spent annually on gambling! And it has the same links to organized crime!

Porn is now as American as Apple Pie, and has found a place in every corner of our society, including the church. We’ll talk about that in a minute.

It’s now a $12 Billion dollar a year industry in the US alone! This amount is much larger than Hollywood’s domestic box office receipts and larger than all the revenues generated by rock and country music recordings. Americans now spend more money at strip clubs than at Broadway shows, off-Broadway shows, in Branson, or regional, and nonprofit theaters; at the opera, the ballet, and jazz and classical music performances -- combined. It is today the #7 grossing industry in the US!

The revenues of the porn industry in the U.S. alone are bigger than the NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball combined. Worldwide porn sales are reported to be $57 billion. To put this in perspective, Microsoft, who sells the operating system used on most of the computers in the world (in addition to other software) reported sales of 36.8 billion in 2004.

Family Safe Media

Most of the profits being generated by porn today are being earned by businesses not traditionally associated with the sex industry -- by mom and pop video stores; long-distance carriers like AT&T; by cable companies like Time Warner, and by hotel chains which now earn millions of dollars each year by supplying adult films to their guests.

The United States is now by far the world’s leading producer of porn, churning out hard-core videos at the astonishing rate of about 150 new titles a week.

Each year, Americans spend more than $150 million ordering adult movies on pay-per-view.

Playboy’s Web site now averages about five million hits a day.

Telephone sex -- Every night, between the peak hours of 9 p.m. and 1 a.m., perhaps a quarter of a million Americans pick up the phone and dial a number for commercial phone sex.

There are now more outlets for hard-core pornography in the United States than McDonald’s restaurants.

The introduction of pornography to the information highway has made home computers the fastest growing and primary mode of distribution of illegal pornography.

* 38 percent of adults believe it is ‘morally acceptable’ to look at pictures of nudity or explicit sexual behavior

Morality Continues to Decay. Barna Research Group, 3 November, 2003

* 59 percent of adults believe it is ‘morally acceptable’ to have sexual thoughts or fantasies

Morality Continues to Decay. Barna Research Group, 3 November, 2003

* 38 percent of adults believe there is nothing wrong with pornography use

Morality Continues to Decay. Barna Research Group, 3 November, 2003

* 41 percent of surveyed adults admitted they felt less attractive due to their partner’s pornography use.

Marriage Related Research, Mark A. Yarhouse, Psy.D. Christian Counseling Today, 2004 Vol. 12 No. 1

* In a 2000 Christianity Today survey, 33% of clergy admitted to having visited a sexually explicit Web site. Of those who had visited a porn site, 53% had visited such sites “a few times” in the past year, and 18% visit sexually explicit sites between a couple of times a month and more than once a week.

[the stats are higher among pastors in anonymous surveys]

* Out of 81 pastors surveyed (74 males 7 female), 98% had been exposed to porn; 43% intentionally accessed a sexually explicit website

National Coalition survey of pastors. Seattle. April 2000

* Almost 9 in 10 pastors reported counseling a layperson on sexual issues once a year or more.

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[Written by a Pastor]

I had a hard time believing that half the men in the church would really be accessing porn, so in early 2004 I asked the church where we attended at the time if they would be willing to take a survey. They agreed, and in the survey we asked the men "when was the last time you looked at pornography?" The church was made up mostly of young families, and the idea that many of the husbands and fathers I sat next to every Sunday were dabbling in porn... I couldn’t comprehend it. Surely, I thought, the numbers would be lower. It can’t be half, not in my church.