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Church, We Must Go to War Against Porn

Last Updated: August 10, 2021

In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul makes the statement that sexual immorality should not even be named among those of us that God has set apart for Himself (Ephesians 5:3). The word Paul used in this text was a really broad term that means all forms of sexual immorality, but the fact of the matter is there are different and very specific forms of sexual immorality that have popped up in culture and therefore affected the church throughout the centuries.

For instance, Paul wrote to the Corinthians about abstaining from sexual immorality, but specifically from prostitutes, because that was the most pervasive sexual issue in their context. Christian believers were continuing to visit prostitutes because that’s what they were used to doing. Through the history of the church, we have constantly needed to be taught about God’s general care for our sexual purity, but we also need to be spoken to specifically about sexually immoral practices we simply don’t think are bad.

If Paul were writing today, we are convinced that one of the primary practices he’d be addressing is the use of pornography.

Pornography and the Church Today

Pornography today is not what pornography was 25 years ago. The pervasive use of pornography, even in the church, has paralleled the growth in access to pornography. Up until the World Wide Web, and subsequently the smartphone, what was limited to a few times a year in a hotel room or a corner section of a convenience store is now in our pocket 24/7. Using pornography is no longer a sin we have to guard against just a couple times a year, but every day of our lives.

It’s worth saying, from everything we can tell, this is a battle that we in the church are not winning, and we are deeply concerned about the impact it’s having on a generation of Christians. While not necessarily visible to all of us, the effects of pornography are real and deep.

Porn places an absolutely incorrect image in our minds of God’s design for sex. What was meant for one man and one woman for a lifetime, as a picture of Christ’s unbreakable covenant with His bride the church, is now reduced to a cheap thrill. What was meant to be the purest expression of selflessly giving oneself to another has been twisted into an act of taking for selfish pleasure. What was meant to be the culmination of pure, undefiled intimacy and knowing has been denigrated to two physical bodies pleasing themselves with the other.

Besides perpetuating a false meaning of sex, and perhaps more importantly, pornography is weighing down a generation of Christians with guilt and hindering many from living fully on mission for God.

Think about it. If you are walking around with the guilt of looking at pornography, are you going to witness to your neighbor? Are you going to lead your family in devotionals, ask your wife about her walk with Jesus, or answer the call to go to the nations?

I think it’s one of Satan’s greatest ploys. If he can get an entire generation walking around completely burdened with the guilt of sexual sin, the last thing in the world they are going to do is go passionately live for the name of Jesus.

All things considered, we believe the pervasive consumption of pornography is the greatest internal threat facing the church today.

Related: Your Church Is Looking at Porn

This Means War: 6 Ways to Fight Sexual Immorality

1. Start viewing your fight against sexual sin not as a struggle but as a war. Sexual sin is at war with you and aims to send you to hell (1 Peter 2:11). To treat it as anything less than a mortal enemy is to make a grave mistake.

2. Fight imagery with imagery. When you are tempted to lust after sexual immorality, picture Christ suffering in agony to pay for your sins. The images are virtually incompatible.

3. Believe when God asks you to obey Him in your sexuality, He’s not withholding good from you. He’s actually offering you a greater good. When you’re walking in faithfulness with God, rest assured you are not missing out. He gives fullness of joy in His presence and there is nothing better (Psalm 16:11).

4. View others, including those you’re attracted to and including those in pornography, as eternal beings. When you view porn you not only objectify people—ceasing to see them as God does, as eternal beings made in His image—but you perpetuate an industry that thrives on suppressing people into subhuman roles and even outright enslavement.

5. Ponder the long-term consequences of sin. This is helpful because for all of us, this is the last thing on our mind when our heart is set on something we know will feel good in the moment. Proverbs likens it to carrying burning coals against your chest and expecting to not be burned (Proverbs 6:27).

6. If you are mired in sexual sin, don’t pray for a change in behavior, pray for a change in heart. You can read this article and be moved to purity for any reason—to stop funding a corrupt and exploitative industry, to spare yourself long-term consequences, or even just to alleviate the guilt you’re tired of carrying—and it’s likely that purity won’t last. The truth is if you want to really see a profound movement toward purity in your life, God needs to change your heart.

We know this last point in particular because we saw it in the life of King David. Following perhaps a more egregious sexual sin than anyone of us will ever commit ourselves, he knew the true depth of his offense against God and the true need for God to intervene.

Hide Your face from my sins And blot out all my iniquities.
Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me away from Your presence And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of Your salvation And sustain me with a willing spirit.
(Psalm 51:9-12)

Fight Pornography in Your Church

Many pastors don’t know where to begin with addressing porn use in their church. They don’t know how to make their churches feel like safe spaces to open up about secret sin or how to bring up sensitive subjects when there are kids in the congregation. Get this free ebook, Fight Porn in Your Church: What Works and Why It Matters, offering practical advice and examples from real pastors.

Below are two videos of Matt Carter and Jeff Mangum of The Austin Stone Community Church preaching team addressing what it means to fight pornography in the church today. Don’t miss them.

What About Your Church?

What about your church or the churches in your area? What do you see churches doing to get people talking about this problem and creating safe communities for healing?


This post was written by The Austin Stone Preaching Team. Learn more about The Austin Stone at austinstone.org.

  1. Ed

    Hi, my question concerns point 2. It says, When you are tempted to lust after sexual immorality, picture Christ suffering in agony to pay for your sins. The images are virtually incompatible.Unfortunately, this is not true for me. Picturing Christ suffering in agony to pay for my sins makes the temptation and thoughts of sexual immorality even worse. How can I change this to see the cross as the perfect sin offering, and not as something sexually immoral? I think praying Psalm 51:10 is a good first step, but I would like to hear your thoughts on this too. Thanks.

    • Chris McKenna

      Hi Ed – because of what you’ve shared, I might offer a different approach. What if you pictured the cross empty? Meaning, whatever was pinned up there on Friday is DEFEATED and its power has been voided by the glorious resurrection of Sunday! The suffering of Friday is only half of the equation – Friday gave us forgiveness from sin, but Sunday gives us FREEDOM from sin.

      Peace, Chris
      Covenant Eyes

  2. Patrick

    My church looks the other way. One pastor’s comment was “all men look at porn”. The mens group is not safe to discuss this issue. I’m trying to find a church that is not afraid to speak out.

    • So, when your pastor says, “All men look at porn,” this was a justification that it isn’t any big deal to worry about?

  3. Back to the original topic of fighting pornography in our churches. I find many churches I visit are afraid to talk about anything very personal, much less pornography use. While it is becoming more common for the topic to be mentioned from the pulpit, it is still rare to hear a leader explain what we need to do to escape the lure of pornography. The fact that such overwhelming numbers of Christians regularly use pornography demonstrates that whatever most people are trying is not working.

    In our city, however, churches have begun to work together to address the issue. A single non-profit mans three phone lines for women who struggle with pornography, men who struggle with pornography, and partners of people who struggle with pornography. The non-profit trains volunteers to man the phones to help people find support groups and/or counselors. The non-profit itself oversees the support groups that meet in 25 local churches.

    The non-profit prints thousands of business card sized promotional pieces that churches in our city place in bathrooms. This is the main method people can find help, without having to be embarrassed by asking a pastor for help or picking up a flyer where everyone can see them. The churches provide meeting space for free—both for groups and for the training events for the 60 volunteers who lead the support groups.

    Over 30 churches participate in sharing space and over 75 send people to the support groups. The interesting development in this is that people tend to want to attend a group in a church other than their own. They are just too embarrassed at first to risk being “found out” in their own church. So, a group that meets in a “Church A” might not contain a single person who attends Church A. However, members of Church A may lead or attend a group that meets a few miles away in Church B. This is true cooperation!

    The non-profit also screens local Christian counselors to find those who are trained and qualified to help families affected by pornography. Counselor Directories are mailed to 750 local church leaders in our city each year.

    Many churches have become bold and are beginning to address pornography use much more freely as a result. Church leaders have the confidence that they do not have to have all the answers, because there is so much help available to send people to. After over ten years of this, it is now safe to openly discuss ones struggle with pornography in many churches in our city.

    The beauty of having a non-profit, rather than a church, coordinate all this is that churches who participate do not feel any particular denomination is “running things” and are more willing to take part. There are a handful of churches in our city who run their own groups and do not participate in the collective effort, but the staff or volunteers who run those programs change, making those single-church initiatives less reliable over time. In addition, few of those churches are able to offer support to women, men and partners alike, leaving some members without help. Finally, the members of those churches often do not want to attend a group in their own church and end up going to the other non-profit effort anyway.

    I’m not saying it is bad for a church to try to care for its own members, but very few churches have the resources to really care for their own people in such a difficult area of ministry as compulsive pornography use. This model give any church in the area all the resources they need.

    I would love to see other cities implement something similar to this. It does take several years to convince churches they can trust the organizing entity (a non-profit in this case) but the end results have been quite strong in our city.

    • This sounds like a very well-thought and comprehensive plan! Love it.

  4. Steve

    I have battled porn for many years sometimes not watching for months on end then failing again. Currently Thanks the good Lord it has been almost 9 months without watching. Without doubt it is the man’s responsibility to not watch but I just have to say the wives are also a big cause. I do the dishes, the wash and clean the house but it has been 7 years since my wife and I have made love. She shays she has not desire (note we did go to a very good Christian women marriage counselor for several years but to no avail. I am not the only Christian man with this problem. I am a very open guy and I get other men to open up, this is an epidemic 8 out of 10 men say to me it is either years or months since they have made love to there wife. Not sure if anyone remembers but Oprah about 15 years ago had I think over 100,000 wives call in a survey and with the statistical Oprah’s people came up with had over 20,000,000 wives where saying no to their husbands. WHAT ARE WE DO TO???

    • Hi Steve,

      So sorry to hear about the lack of intimacy in your marriage. It saddens me to hear this whenever I do.

      From the standpoint of your marriage, it would be good for your wife to explore this seeming “sexual anorexia” she is experiencing, and there are some really good resources out there about this.

      I think it is important for men to have a balanced understanding and attitude. First, God expects men to be porn-free. Period. Yes, God gives grace to overcome our deepest sins, but His moral standard is clear. Lust is sinful. If this is true for the man who is single his entire life, it is also true for the married man (even a married man with a wife disinterested in sex).

      At the same time, God expects married couples, as far as they are capable, to experience sexual intimacy and not defraud one another. If a spouse does this over and over, this is a matter a good church should be able to counsel a couple through.

      These two matters, though related, are never excuses for each other. A porn-past is not a reason for a wife to truly defraud her husband in an ongoing basis, and a sexless marriages is never an excuse to indulge in porn.

      In the end, the spiritual resources available to a single man to abstain from porn are the same resources available to you. God can and does enable us to have self-control, enables us to not be slaves to our passions. I highly encourage you to read our articles about this on our blog.

      Again, I hope you and your wife can overcome this hurdle of a sexless marriage. I’m curious what your counselor has told you and wife. What has your wife said in response to the counseling?

    • Wife

      I also do not have sex with my husband as much as I should (although it’s 1-2 times a week). I like sex a lot. I’m adventurous. I’m just not attracted to my husband. I’d be all over someone else. We women would rather have no sex ever than sex with a man we aren’t attracted to. I have no idea what men can do to help their wives be attracted to them. My husband is a great guy, but I feel like he’s my friend only. I feel bad for him. I have no idea what to so though.

    • Kay Bruner

      My first instinct on this issue is that there may be an emotional disconnect in your relationship that’s producing the physical disconnect. I’d suggest reading John Gottman’s book, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. Finds areas where your emotional connection could be improved, and then see if it impacts the rest of your relationship as well. Let me know how it goes–Kay

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