The Plague of Pornography
Part Four
1/13/08
(The
following was used with a PowerPoint presentation, the asterisks indicate slide
changes.)
There
are numerous passages in the Bible that deal specifically with sexual
immorality. There are 19 passages that
use the phrase “sexual immorality.”
It
is not a subject the Holy Spirit tries to avoid.
The
subject of sexual immorality could finger off into numerous areas.
*I
am targeting “The Plague of Pornography.”
I
am addressing the issue within the church and taking it into the community.
Pray
If
I would have spent one week on this subject it would have been an injustice.
The
affect of pornography in our nation is devastating!
Christians
are not exempt!
*Eph.
5:3 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.
*Pornography's Relationship to Rape
and Aggression toward Women.
If
you go to the church’s website and look at my notes, the sources for the
statistics are in my notes. I will not
quote all the sources as I go through this today. Some I will.
National Obscenity Enforcement Unit of the U.S.
Department of Justice.
*Rape
rate has climbed 43% in the last 10 years.
The
highest incidence of rape victims are teenagers between the ages of 16 and 19.
Finkelhor (1979); Kanin &
Parcell (1977); Koss & Oros (1982)
*"It
has been estimated that in the U.S. between one-fifth and one-fourth of the
female population is subjected to rape."
Russell (1984)
Nearly
45% of women in a San Francisco random sample reported that they were subjected
to at least one rape or attempted rape in their lifetime. 82% of the rapes were
committed by non-strangers and 2/3 of the victims were assaulted by
acquaintances or friends.
Koss (1987)
84%
of college students who were victims of completed rapes knew their assailant
and two thirds of them were assaulted by a date.
Please note that many of the statistics I sharing with
you are old. Which means that in
reality the numbers would be much worse!
Bureau of Justice Statistics
(1986)
*The
number of forcible rapes and the rates per 100,000 population doubled in the
decade of the 60's and then doubles again in the decade of the 70's -- the time
of the "sexual revolution" in America.
The ripple effect of the
“sexual revolution” in America is almost endless.
One gigantic ripple effect is
what it has done to the self image of women, especially young girls who have
this enormous pressure to look a certain way.
*Show the clip of the young
girl depressed over the way she looks.
Abel, et al (1987)
"Research
has shown that as sexual callousness grows in strength, rape is considered a
lesser transgression."
Mosher & Sirkin (1984)
There
is a strong relationship between sexually callous attitudes and histories of
forceful, coercive, aggressive sexual conquests.
Milton (1973)
Two
thirds of a sample of convicted rapists frequently fantasized forcible sadistic
acts.
Koss (1987)
*Only
5% of women college students who reported forced sex during the previous year
reported the incident to the police.
Russell (1984)
*(Blank) Less than 10% of rapes reported in the San Francisco
survey had been reported to the police.
Kanin (1969); Mosher (1971);
Koss & Oros (1982)
"About
one-fourth of male college students admitted to having made forcible attempts
at intercourse"
National Crime Survey U.S. Department of Justice.
Forcible
rape has increased by 562% (73,240 cases) since 1960; by 11% between 1983 and
1986.
*Does Pornography Promote Abuse?
Gray, Susan (1982)
"Levels
of aggression in already-angered men are increased by exposure to hard-core
materials."
Federal Bureau of Investigation
*Research
conducted involving 36 serial murderers revealed that 81% (29/36) reported
pornography as one of their highest sexual interests, making pornography one of
the most common profile characteristics of serial murderers.
*Blank
I have a lot more statistics
to share. But I want to address a
question some of you are asking, if not out loud, in your own minds.
Is this the place to address
this topic?
You’re a preacher; you are suppose
to preach the gospel. This isn’t the
gospel.
The gospel of Jesus Christ
brings change. The gospel brings truth,
righteousness, justice and a moral standard.
*Acts 17:5 But the Jews were
jealous; so they rounded up some bad characters from the marketplace, formed a
mob and started a riot in the city. They rushed to Jason’s house in search of
Paul and Silas in order to bring them out to the crowd. 6 But when
they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some other brothers before the
city officials, shouting:
*“These men who have caused trouble all over the world
(they have turned the world upside down)
have now come here…
*(Blank) The
church for years has been absolutely no threat at all to our society!
The gospel must permeate
society as much as possible!
It’s been shared with me that
some men in our church know that pornography needs to be dealt with personally,
and in the church, but it’s not our place to ask businesses to remove it.
Then it’s not our business to
hold up a standard. It’s not our
business to allow the Holy Spirit to bring change in our community. It’s not our business to stand for
righteousness openly.
Satan has succeeded in
stripping the church of its power and influence.
In a land that still enjoys
this great freedom of speech, why does the church remain silent!
I know I’m sidetracking but I have to.
If I don’t address this, you
won’t hear what I’m saying anyway.
I want to address some debilitating ideas that the
church has.
*The “Ever learning” problem.
Many
Christians measure their growth by what they know, not by what they do.
*2 Tim. 3:7 always learning
but never able to acknowledge the truth.
The
Pharisees prided themselves on knowing the Word, and they did, by the letter,
and they crucified our Lord and Savior!
*Faith should be kept
private.
If you are keeping your faith
private there is one of two things happening:
1. It’s not real.
2. If it is real, it’s greatly being stagnated.
*It’s wrong to offend others.
As far as going into these
stores, I have stressed that we do it with the right spirit and attitude.
And as far as offending
others goes…
*Mat. 15:12 Then the
disciples came to him and asked, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended
when they heard this?”
13 He replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has
not planted will be pulled up by the roots. 14 Leave them; they are
blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.”
*Fear, intimidation and
embarrassment keeps the church silent!
We’re worried about fear,
intimidation and embarrassment while some Christians in other parts of the
world lay their lives on the line!
This next debilitating idea is a big one in the church
today.
*I come to church so that my
needs are met.
Todd, you preaching on
pornography is not meeting my needs at all.
I’m sorry. I really want your needs to be met—I really
do.
I trust that God will do
that.
But it is meeting the need in
men who have been plagued with addition to pornography and have been encouraged
to deal with it.
It is meeting the need of a
wife who has been broken in her marriage because her husband has with plagued
with this sin.
It is meeting the need in a
store owner who needed just enough encouragement to find the courage to remove
it from his store.
It is meeting the need in a
young girl who wants a boyfriend who will see her as a person and not a sex
object.
And most of all, I’m doing
what the Holy Spirit wants me to do.
God’s calling Community of
Faith to places where we have never been and to do what we’ve never done
before.
*Dietrich Bonhoeffer was
rejected by his government and the church.
The government saw him as a
trader and the church saw him as a fanatic.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a
German theologian who was executed for participating in a plot to kill Adolph
Hitler. He was ordained a Lutheran pastor in 1931, and served two Lutheran
congregations, from 1933-35. He was killed in April, 1945 just 3 weeks before
Hitler committed suicide. His theology has had a profound impact on current
religious thought and philosophy.
*(Blank) Jesus
Christ is calling you and me to make a difference.
If led by the Lord, speak
about mobilizing the church.
God has given me the ability
to see the church differently than ever before. I can see the church unified and able to accomplish change under
the direction of the Holy Spirit with His strategy and direction.
So that’s why I’m addressing
pornography.
*Citizens against Pornography
Guidelines
We have a strategy that will
reduce the availability of pornographic material in our area.
We are not assuming that we
can eliminate pornography in our area, but we can make a difference!
First, see if any pornographic
material is displayed.
Share with the manager that
you would appreciate it very much if the pornography would be removed from the
store.
If you receive an unfavorable
response, share that there are many others who have the same desire as you do.
Explain that you will bring
back to the store a petition signed by others who will not patronize this place
of business until the pornography is removed.
After returning with the
signed petition(s), if the manager is still uncooperative with the removal of
the pornography, leave the petition with the manager.
Remember! Be polite!
Do not be argumentative or rude.
Do not mention anything about
using the full page ad in the paper.
Document the date and time
when you first spoke with the manager and get his/her name. Do this on the first visit and on the
second. If the business is not
cooperative and we put their business in the paper we want to have
documentation of when someone was there and who they spoke with. It could be possible that when their
business name appears in the paper they could come back to us and say that no
one ever spoke with them about this.
That’s why the documentation is very important.
If you happen to speak with a
manager that someone else has already spoken to, that’s OK. A typical response from the manager could be
something like, “someone has already talked with me and I don’t appreciate
this….” Simply say, “the fact that
someone has already spoken to you proves that we are serious about this.”
Where do you draw the line
with different types of material? We
are targeting pornographic material; nudity and sexually explicit magazines or
videos.
Remember, by raising the
awareness of pornography it also raises the level of conviction.
There
is a four step process with this:
1.
Approach the manager
(owner) of the store politely with the request to remove the material.
2.
Give the store
information to the church office so the petitions can be typed up.
3.
The petitions must be
signed by as many people as possible.
We will do this at the tables in the back of the auditorium.
4.
The petitions must be
returned to the manager or store owner.
Once
the petitions have been returned, if the management still refuses to remove the
material from the store, then when we place our ad in the paper, this store
will be listed with others who sell pornographic material.
We
want to enlist as many people as possible in this effort. We need other churches and groups who would
be willing to help.
It
is of utmost importance to remember who we represent! Do not be rude, overbearing, or disrespectful. Being bold doesn’t mean being rude.
Dr. William Marshall (1983)
*He
found that 86% of rapists admitted regular use of pornography, with 57%
admitting actual imitation of pornography scenes in commission of sex crimes.
Malamuth (1981)
*In
a study male college students were asked, "How likely would you be to rape
if you knew you would not be caught?" --35% indicated they would.
Zillmann, Dolf (1982)
*Findings
show that massive exposure (4 hours forty minutes over six weeks) to standard
pornography (people having consensual, nonviolent sex) resulted in…
1. A
loss of compassion toward women as rape victims and toward women in general;
2. A
loss of concern about the effects of pornography on others;
3. A
need for more violent and bizarre forms of sex;
4. A
desensitization to violent, non-coercive hard core pornography;
5. A
trivialization of rape.
*Pornography's Relationship To Child
Sexual Exploitation and Abuse.
The National Coalition For
Children's Justice (Ken Wooden)
Between
1981 and 1985, child sexual abuse rose by 175%. Child molestation cases in the
home in 1986 were 216,216.
National Center of Child
Abuse and Neglect, Children's Bureau, U.S.
There
were 138,000 children abused sexually in 1986, and another 17,000 in danger and
at risk of being sexually abused.
U.S. Department of Justice, Network News, Fall Edition (1985)
*"One
in three females and one in ten males will be sexually molested before the age
of 18. Four million child molesters reside in this country."
Report of the U.S. Congress
Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations on Child Pornography and Pedophilia
(1986)
"Detective
William Dworin of the Los Angeles Police Department estimates that of the 700
child molesters in whose arrest he has participated during the last ten years,
more than half had child pornography in their possession. About 80 percent
owned either child or adult pornography.
Child
pornography plays a central role in child molestations by pedophiles, serving
to justify their conduct, assist them in seducing their victims, and provide a
means to blackmail the children they have molested in order to prevent
exposure.
Abel (1986)
He
studied 240 child molesters (pedophiles). They averaged 30 (homosexual or
same-sex) to 60 (heterosexual) victims before being caught. The typical child
molester will sexually abuse 380 children in a lifetime.
Carter et al (1984)
The
Los Angeles Police Department reported that most child molesters were
themselves molested as children. They tend to seek out victims of the age they
were when first molested. One study reported that 57% of molesters studied had
been victims of child molestation themselves.
Dr. William Marshall (1983)
87%
of girl child molesters and 77% of boy child molesters studied admitted to
regular use of hard core adult pornography. The obscene material was used by
these sex offenders for three reasons:
(1)
to stimulate themselves;
(2)
to destroy the consciences and lower the inhibitions and resistance to sexual
activity in their intended child victims; and
(3)
as teaching tools for the child to imitate or model in their real life sexual
encounter with the adult.
John Rabun, Exploited and
Missing Children Unit of Louisville, KY.
"The
Police/Social work team of the Exploited and Missing Child Unit (EMCU) of
Louisville, KY investigated 1,400 cases of children suspected of being victims
of sexual exploitation. Over 40 major cases involved the successful prosecution
of adults involved with over 12 children each. One case involved 320 children.
At the time of the arrest of and/or service of search warrants, all 40 of these
adult predators were found with various forms of adult pornography, and in most
cases child nudes and/or child pornography were also found.
"Over
four years, the EMCU team learned to expect to always find adult pornography
since it was used for:
(1)
the offender's own arousal;
(2)
self-validation of their own sex deviations;
(3)
extortion of child victims or other adults; and
(4)
deliberate and planned lowering of inhibitions of child victims.
The Badgley Report (1984)
The
report found that almost 60% of both male and female juvenile prostitutes had
been asked to be the subject of sexually explicit films or photographs; 12% of
the girls and 20% of the boys had actually been used in making pornography;
juvenile prostitutes are a high-risk group in regard to being exploited by
pornographers.
Two
smaller American studies (Burgess: 755 of youth hustlers had participated in
pornography; John Rabun: 37% had participated) emphatically confirm this
finding.
Silbert and Pines (1984)
A
detailed content analysis of 193 cases of rape and of 178 cases of juvenile
sexual abuse revealed a clear relationship between violent pornography and
sexual abuse.
Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual of Mental Disorder 111-R
Pedophiles
who act on their urges with children commonly develop excuses or
rationalizations about their illegal sexual activities toward the children:
1)
that they have "educational value" for the child
2)
that the child derives "sexual pleasure" from them
3)
that the child was "sexually provocative" toward them -- led them on.
These
three rationalizations are "themes that are also common in pedophilic
pornography." p.284. In other words, pornography teaches three myths that
pedophiles believe, and act on, when they molest children.
Southern California Child
Exploitation Task Force (1988)
"One
of the men we prosecuted had 50,000 photographs of noncommercial child
pornography in a storage locker. He admitted molesting several hundred children
following his release from a state hospital for a child molestation conviction.
He even maintained a ledger listing those molestations. He taught swimming and
tennis to youngsters, some of whom became his victims."