(The text of this content first appeared at Vision Christian Radio's web site.)
A conference was held in the US recently in an attempt to find ways to stop the tidal wave of pornography sweeping the globe.
Jack Sonneman from the Australian Federation for the Family attended the conference titled the Coalition to End Sexual Exploitation and told 20Twenty host Neil Johnson that it was more than just a talkfest.
Most importantly Jack brought home with him Josh McDowell’s latest book ‘The Porn Phenomenon’. The book describes porn as the greatest social problem in the world and the greatest encumbrance to the Gospel.
Jack said he was totally and completely shocked by the book’s contents and the data contained in the book.
The luminaries attending the conference included the department heads of major US universities, scholars who’ve run programs for the UN, Harvard, the Department of Defence, Homeland Security, sex slavery and human trafficking experts, the Director of Communications from the house of Representatives and the White House, and many others, plus one of the world’s top neuro surgeon’s, Dr Don Hilton.
Porn creating a ‘supra-normal stimulus’ ‘It changes the shape of your brain!’
“Dr Hilton pointed out to us that pornography is biologically addictive and it’s changing our culture significantly, that it’s a major public health hazard, and it’s creating what is known as a supra-normal stimulus,” Jack said, adding how the stimulus puts into people’s minds the desire for the plastic instead of the real.
“He said children’s brain receptors are more open to the pleasure sense and that the pornographers are targeting our most vulnerable, the children,” Jack revealed, informing that these predators are aiming at the 9 to 11 year old users websites where they can place pop ups to lure children to walk down a destructive pathway.
“Dr Hilton said that looking at porn changes the shape of your brain just like lifting weights changes the shape of your muscles. Shocking stuff!”
‘Pornography is the greatest cancer in the church today’
Jack Sonneman then addressed the impact pornography is having on the church and referred to Josh McDowall’s book ‘The Porn Phenomenon’ and quoted this passage from the book.
“About six years ago I began to sense something was seriously wrong. Whatever it was, it was negatively effecting the receptivity of young people to the Gospel.”
Jack said Josh McDowall consulted key pastors and Christian leaders and mentioned that Chuck Swindoll encouraged the research. As a result, Josh McDowall believes pornography is the greatest cancer in the church today.
“Dr James Dobson was also very supportive of Josh McDowell’s research leading up to the book, but warned him there would be resistance from church leaders.”
‘Porn the greatest encumbrance to the Gospel in the world’
“We have a problem with pornography in the church today. He says (J. McDowell) that pornography is the greatest encumbrance to the Gospel in the world!” and Jack said the findings reveal that pornography will be mainstream in the church within three to four years.
Jack Sonneman again goes to the source and quotes J McDowell where he writes that every single pastor and Bible student at a recent Christian conference, and there were thousands, every one of them raised their hands admitting to a problem with internet porn.
“He said the church will self-destruct if it does not address the porn problem.”
Pornography in the church – ‘there’s no greater problem’
“There is no greater problem in the world today than pornography in the church,” claimed Jack Sonneman.
McDowell’s research has discovered that 47 percent of 36 to 60 year olds actively seek out porn. He says 65 percent of 25 to 39 year olds actively seek out porn.
“And shockingly, 81 percent of 13 to 24 year olds actively seek out porn. What also shocked me was the fact that Josh McDowell and The Porn Phenomenon documents that 56 percent of 18 to 24 year-old Christian women actively seek out porn.”
Jack Sonneman then referred to an earlier encounter with Dr James Dobson after the Focus on the Family founder had interviewed American serial killer Ted Bundy before his execution.
Ted Bundy had documented the role pornography had played in his life. This led him down a diabolical pathway that included the murder and molestation of little girls.
“This is twenty years ago, when Dr Dobson told me back then, that most Christian men have problems with pornography. We do have a problem with it in the church and the church needs to address the problem,” Jack said.
Whom will your daughters marry? ‘porn-addicted church leaders?’
Then it got personal for Jack Sonneman after he told Josh McDowell he had six little granddaughters under the age of seven.
“And he said to me, who are your granddaughters going to marry? Are they going to marry a porn addicted church elder, a porn addicted Sunday school teacher, or a porn addicted deacon?”
What is the solution to this porn addiction epidemic if a big stick, shaming and guilt-loading is not going to solve the problem? Jack made some suggestions.
Solution – ‘Love the next generation, implement Biblical principles’
“We have to love the next generation enough to implement biblical Christian principles today. We haven’t done that.”
“We’re looking to the experts for the solutions. But the experts don’t have them. God has the solution,” Jack stressed, saying that we have to embrace only issues that will usher in the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven.
“We need to show our children a future filled with hope instead of these increasingly deadly perversions of the pornographers.
Solution – ‘We need to take our culture back’
“We have allowed the culture to sexualise our little children. We need to take our culture back,” Jack said, but how?
“The only way we can do that, and as this conference pointed out, the enemy is too big, the numbers are too massive, the money is too immense. The problem, if we try to face and fight it in the natural we’re going to lose.”
So what’s the answer? Jack said we have to lift our vision up into the heavenlies.
“As C S Lewis said, ‘If we reach for the heavens we get the earth thrown in. If we reach for the earth we get neither.’”
Solution – ‘Embrace Godly principles for Godly results’
“That’s why we have to reject a lot of the feminist-based solutions and except biblical-based solutions.”
Jack Sonneman admitted he’s a street-fighter, not a counselor. He said he knows how to protect children and believes that as we embrace Godly principles we will see Godly results that can ultimately protect our children.
“I don’t want to see anything ungodly and I don’t want to retire. I’m going to continue in this battle until I die,” Jack declared.
Solution – ‘Men with a porn problem should seek help’
Jack admits, and the statistics back him up, that pornography is a common problem in the church. He said men who are struggling with the problem should not hesitate to seek help.
“They’re not alone. Their pastor would not have heard anything they’re not going to tell them. They need to realise it’s a common problem in the church and they can get help for it.”
Jack said not only can they get help for it but they can also be set free from it.
“Don Francisco, a contemporary Christian singer, when he performed some of his greatest work he says he was deeply consumed by an addiction to pornography. And he’s now freed from it and talks about it,” Jack said, saying other men can do the same.
A solution – ‘Men, clean your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus’
“They can let others know that real men don’t use pornography and they can become real men by trying to clean up their hearts and their minds in Christ Jesus.”
“Looking at porn does have consequences,” Jack warned before referring again to neuro-surgeon Dr Don Hilton’s findings, that it changes the shape of your brain, before mentioning another disturbing factor.
“They’ve even done bystander intervention studies that show porn users will not intervene in a sexual assault. In fact today they’ll take out their mobile phone and film it instead of intervening,” Jack commented.
‘No trial justice for rape victims from porn-user inclusive juries’
He said porn users will always trivialise rape, and victims who seek justice at a trial from an Australian jury will not receive it if porn is used among the jury members.
“This is because studies have shown porn users, be they men or women, hand down half the rape sentence of others.”
Jack Sonneman said massive exposure to porn, according to the data, the science, and the research, is 4 hours and 48 minutes total over 6 weeks.
Pornography – ‘It’s prostitution for mass consumption!’
“In fact a university research project comparing heavy, medium and light viewers of porn had to be cancelled because they could find no one in the light viewer of porn category!”
What’s the solution? Jack Sonneman said it again – ‘Clean up our hearts.’
“If we want to see justice back in our society we have to clean up our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus.’
“Pornography is nothing more than prostitution for mass consumption.”
- For further information on the Major International Conference in the US – The Coalition to End Sexual Exploitation …. simply GOOGLE “CESE Summit 2016”
- For further information on how to assist the AFF defeat porn in Australia and to lobby the government for opt-in Internet porn provisions, go to www.ausfamily.org
Current AFF campaigns. 1- Protect children in Queensland from unrestricted access to the grossly pornographic imagery in Australian Penthouse magazine. 2- Opt in for Internet porn. 3- Place the same restrictions on X Rated DVDs in the territories as already exists in each and every state in Australia. 4- Outlaw ALL forms of prostitution.