By Al Menconi, Al Menconi Ministries (www.almenconi.com)

June-July 2000 – A plague is sweeping across our country. It is destroying families, careers, ministries, and churches. The plague I’m speaking of is pornography, and if the statistics are correct, it has become the number one problem within the church today.

With the easy access to the Internet today, almost every family in America is becoming vulnerable. The Nua Internet survey reports that 75% of hits on the Web are looking for a porno site. That means more than half of all the activity on the web right now involves pornography! Read that last sentence again. Does it break your heart? It is killing me! Can you imagine? I wish that I could report that it was different in the Christian community, but research and the personal counseling I have done, indicate that it is just as bad, and maybe worse, with Christian men!

In times past, Christian men resisted the curiosity and temptation of X-rated movies or magazines because of the social stigma and shame attached to it. Today, however, with the easy access of the Internet, all it takes is a click of the mouse on their personal computer in the privacy of their own home, and they can observe the most perverted, XXX, sexual scenes imaginable.

A number of Christian men have confessed to me that they clicked on a porn site out of casual curiosity. They just wanted to see what the excitement was all about, but they became addicted almost immediately. I’m reminded that serial killer Ted Bundy started on his road to perversion and murder by innocently looking at “nudie” magazines as a boy. It only took one time for him to become hooked.

Did you realize that the vast majority of us – Christian and non-Christian – subject our minds to a form of perversion every day? Many times we do it without even realizing it. Not you? Not your family? Let me give you an illustration to prove my point.

I have never seen a porno movie, but I understand that it is often an hour or more of continuous sex scenes. What if I cut the movie down to a half hour of sex acts? Would it still be porno? Yes? What if I cut it down to only fifteen minutes? Is it still porn? Yes? How about if I just put in one or two sex scenes and insert them into a story about a ship that hits an iceberg and sinks? Is it still pornography? Yes? No?

How many sex scenes does it take before it affects you? Don’t fool yourself. If you say you can watch sex scenes and not have it affect you, your response illustrates just how much it really has affected you. The question now becomes, “Why doesn’t it affect you?” Colossians 2:8 says that if we continually subject our minds to the empty philosophies of this world, we will struggle with our faith in Jesus and the joy of our salvation. How is your faith in Jesus? How’s your joy?

What are you entertaining yourself with? I have talked to thousands of parents who are concerned about the music their children are listening to, but at the same time are often subjecting their minds to subtle forms of pornography. Stop it!

It reminds me of a story about a psychiatric ward that had a unique way to test the mental competency of its patients. The patient was put into a room in which the sink is plugged and the faucet has been turned on. The patient was given a mop and instructed to clean up the water that was spilling onto the floor. Any patient who attempted to mop up the mess, without first turning off the faucet, was not considered mentally competent.

How about you? Are you trying to “mop up” weak areas in your life without turning off the faucet?

If you or someone you know is struggling with pornography, I suggest contacting the following website: www.pureintimacy.org.