Porn and Christian Leadership
My first encounter with porn. I first saw porn in 1979 after a friend gave me several dozen Playboy magazines when I was a young doctor in Singapore. I could not stop watching them many times every day. Though I was not a Christian, I felt dirty and guilty and worthless. One day, I thought I made a mistake and that I had killed a patient of mine. I thought my career as a doctor was over. I immediately returned all the magazines. The next day I found out that the patient died of a brain hemorrhage. I was not the cause of his death.
Why am I writing about porn? I saw a newsflash this morning that a Wheaton College professor of Christian education was arrested and charged with possessing images and videos containing child pornography.
A Christian leader trapped by porn. It made me think about how trapped he was by his porn addiction if the charges are true. He is 60 years old, and is married with 3 kids. He was a pastor at age 19. Presently, he is a lay leader at a Methodist church and a teacher, mentor and professor at one of the best Christian universities. Ironically, his specialty for which he has done much research was on children’s spirituality. Here is a short video clip of him introducing his online course. Today, in court, he had bail set at $750,000. Wheaton College placed him on administrative leave. His professional career is over. His wife and 3 kids are surely devastated. Full restoration for him and his family can only be found in the love of God through Jesus.
Looking for joy in all the wrong places. What is the motivation for porn? Correct me for being overly simplistic, but I would venture to say that it is our quest for joy, however misguided. God made us to live with the utmost of joy (Ps 37:4; Phil 4:4; 1 Th 5:16). No man can live without joy. Jonathan Edwards says, “The enjoyment of God is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied.” But if we do not find our joy in God, we cannot but seek it in all the wrong places.
There but for the grace of God go I. I could have been like the Wheaton College professor. If my patient had not died, I sometimes wonder if I would have stopped watching porn. It is surely only God’s intervening grace that saved me from myself.
May God have mercy on us to find our utmost joy in our Lord and not settle for counterfeits.
As they say, “No comment”. Nobody comments on the thread for a long time. It seems that such words as “porn” and “christian leadership” can not be or improper to be in one sentence. As Paul said, “But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people”. I believe that God is able to save those who call on his name from any sin and deliver them from the evil one even in this adulterous and sinful generation. Those who are too proud to call on Jesus’ name can not be christian leaders. They become dry branches which can’t bear good fruit and are thrown into the fire.
One issue I have is that I often read this blog during lunch. “porn” and “sex” are not HR-friendly in workplaces today. But it is quite unfortunate that corporations have learned to deal with some of these issues better than some churches.
One of Ben’s points above is very true: when I am filled with the Spirit of Christ in me, my desires are purified and my mind doesn’t even “go there”. When I am filled with the joy of Christ, nothing compares to it!
When I tried to “be holy” in my prior legalistic life, my heart was always so heavy-laiden with lust struggles. My joy in the Lord was so limited that I didn’t even want to be at the center, and had to force myself to go most of the time. I pretended I had joy so that no one would know my inner heart condition (because I saw what happened to those who shared their feelings honestly).
I freely admin that most of my 16 years in UBF (before coming to Detroit), my mind thought about sex 95% of the time. I feel that my soul was cleansed here in Detroit, where I lost my “form of godliness” and starting really living and allowing Christ to live in me. That is one big reason I am so free now! I would say my percentage is down to less than 10%, a much more healthy level (..not sure what constitutes healthy though).
I could often barely write a weekly testimony due to such burdens. I was thankful however for the top-secret “holy club” that I was part of (well I’m not sure if our men’s accountability group still exists because only one of us is still in UBF).
But now my mind and heart are so much more free and clear when the Spirit is present. The peace and joy I know now are “exceeding” and “all-surpassing”! The form of godliness I had by writing testimonies, writing daily bread, and doing all the formalities in UBF just did not protect my heart from Satan’s flaming arrows. Only the mystery of Christianity can do that: Christ in you (Colossians 1:27; 2 Timothy 3:2-5).
I saw the same lack of restraint in leaders around me for many years. They had a form of godliness, but could not really restrain themselves (I don’t mean in regard to porn, but just in regard to shameful behavior). So they had to sweep a lot of misdeeds under the rug and hide behind many cover-ups for decades. So commenting here on any topic would probably be seen as dis-loyal and disobedient, especially about topics like “sexual sin”.
“Two thumbs up!” -Noah Montefalcon
Wait a minute? What’s the connection between your patient who died, whom you thought was your fault and your encounter with porn? Just curious… I might have missed something.
Great question, Noah. Though I was not a Christian then, I felt like trash by looking at those magazines many times a day. So when my patient died, my conscience was pierced for doing trash–looking at porn. I felt that this was severe punishment for my lust. So I immediately returned the magazines. Right after I did, I found out that I had not caused the death of my patient.
God is funny. God is gracious. Yet God never ever compromises with my sin!
Dr. Toh, how did you beat your addiction to pornography? Did that event scare you straight? I ask because there are so many men out there who struggle even despite knowing Jesus. Men (and women) who deeply want to stop but continue to fail.
I myself feel tempted from time to time. In my case, I found that the most useful strategy is to literally make it difficult for the devil to tempt you.
I encourage those who are reading this and struggle with porn to install an internet filter on your computer. k9 web protection is an amazing free program. It blocks most websites that might even potentially lead to sin. What I did was this, I first began by blocking all of the websites that I knew have certain advertisements that lead down the wrong path. myspace, youtube are good examples of this. I then created a random adminestrative password that I could not possible recollect and sent this password to a close friend I trust for safe keeping. I then deleted the email I sent to the friend.
This prevented me from unblocking certain sites. I also found it useful to spot the triggers of lust in my heart. Oddly enough, for me it was loneliness. I noticed that whenever I got lonely I would turn towards pornography. This realization really saddened me because God is always there waiting for me to speak with him and yet I turned to porn. So one thing I did was fill my free time. Not with busy work but with things I love to do like read a book, watch a movie. Just make sure you dont replace a previous bad habit like porn with a slothful one like checking your facebook every 5 minutes or playing the same videogames over and over again.
And of course pray! Approach God in your vulnerability and ask him to take away this dirty inclination towards sin. Learn to value the chaste life and remember the joy that Christ promises. Joy has a strange magical way of combating lust. Just some thoughts which I hope can help anyone reading this.
If anyone else has some useful advice, please post here.
Thanks, Gerardo. Sorry that I missed your comment from last week. I fully applaud what you did for yourself to combat porn. It would be hard for anyone to share this as freely and openly as you did. Praise the Lord, my brother!
As a man who saw “dirty magazines” before, the temptation of porn, I would say is always there, much like a former junkie who once told me that even though she became a Christian, the temptation to go back to drugs never ever leaves 100% even though she is a happily married missional Christian. Also, it is similar to a gay person who became a Christian, in that the temptation to give in to homosexual desires never leaves even after becoming a Christian, or even after marriage to a wonderful spouse.
Personally, I’ve found that for me only the beauty of Christ can capture my soul from wanting to see the “beauty” of porn. When I know and experience and feel that Jesus is the most satisfying lover of my soul, then I want no other lover.
What helps me the most is to delight to read and study theology, the Bible, commentaries, Christian books and blogs, listening to and reading sermons, preparing for my Sun sermons, Bible studies, blogging, meeting people one on one, or in small groups, etc. Since I am a cerebral sort of person, cerebral engagement is my greatest ally against all of my sinful defaults which are many.
I know that I need to love Jesus with all my mind. If not, my mind wanders and becomes the devil’s workshop.
The ongoing story of this Wheaton college professor arrested for child pornography is sad and painful: http://www.thechurchreport.com/index.cfm?objectID=150536 Whenever I read such stories, I can only say, “There but for the grace of God go I.”
Keeping busy is definitely a good way to avoid temptation. I’ve been memorizing some scripture, specifically Col 3:1-17, and whenever I’m alone and tempted reciting this scripture helps take my mind away from the temptation. If you have any of that kind of stuff in your residence, and you’re not strong enough to resist the temptation, then you need to get rid of it. Still, like the others said, the tempation never 100% goes away. I guess those are just the consequences of the actions that we’ve undertaken. I’ve read some books that say the watching porn changes the way your brain works. Porn is an addiction, just like drugs, booze, and cigarettes. I was able to beat that habit when I became utterly disgusted, not with the porn itself, but what I had become as a result of it. Knowing what I was before and what porn can do to me is reason enough for me not to watch it ever again.
Thanks, Oscar. This is wisdom from Proverbs 5:3-6 to avoid porn and sexual indiscretion, which applies to both men and women, both married and single.
3 For the lips of the adulterous woman drip honey,
and her speech is smoother than oil;
4 but in the end she is bitter as gall,
sharp as a double-edged sword.
5 Her feet go down to death;
her steps lead straight to the grave.
6 She gives no thought to the way of life;
her paths wander aimlessly, but she does not know it.
To those of you who like lists and steps, here are 9 Ways to Fight the Temptation of Pornography.