More than 50% of Practicing Christians Admit They Use Pornography, But Do They Actually?
Pornography use among practicing Christians continues to rise, according to a new Barna report, Beyond the Porn Phenomenon, which is produced in partnership with Pure Desire Ministries, which suggests that more than half of “practicing Christians” consume porn on a regular basis.
What’s even worse is that a large percentage of people are comfortable with the practice.
Just over half of practicing Christians report consuming porn with some level of frequency, including 22 percent who view it weekly (15%) or daily (7%). Though numbers climb among nonpracticing Christians and non-Christians, the reality is that a slight majority of all Christians has some sort of history of engaging with pornographic material.
Porn use among pastors has also risen since Barna last ran a similar survey in 2015, with 1 in 5 pastors reporting they presently struggle with porn addiction and 67% reporting they’ve struggled with porn use in the past, compared to 57% reporting nine years ago.
49% of practicing Christians who use pornography regularly say they are “comfortable with how much pornography” they use, compared to 21% who expressed a desire to abstain entirely.
Lastly, only 67% of practicing Christians say that porn use is a bad thing for society, compared to 10% who said it’s a good thing and another 22% that said it’s neither.
These last few points highlight the many problems with surveys like these.
Barna defines “practicing Christians” as people who “identify with a Christian denomination, attend a worship service at least once a month, and say their faith is very important in their life.”
This could mean anyone from the 28-year-old sanctified mom of four who faithfully attends the small Baptist church with her husband and hosts the Wednesday evening prayer night, or it would be some blue-haired lesbian attending the local ELCA church who is fomenting with joy because she just got tasked to design the float for their church’s Pride parade.
You can instantly write off the 49% of “Christians” who are comfortable with their porn use as unsaved pagans, and the same with the 32% of folks who said porn use is either a good thing for society or is morally neutral, making every stat listed in this article wholly and utterly useless.
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Why is it that in Matthew 18:8-9 people take Jesus’ statement of the eternal fire of hell at face value but Jesus’ command to cut off the members that cause you to sin is interpreted as a metaphor… even when Jesus contrasts entering heaven (real place) crippled and entering hell (also a real place) whole? So somehow you’re metaphorically crippled when entering heaven?
We have gutted the plain words of Jesus by turning what He said into the opposite of what He said. If you cared enough about your eternal state and the reality of amputation, I think you could figure out how to stop sinning long before you break out the hacksaw, but since we’ve turned the hacksaw into a mere metaphor neither it nor hell is scary.
Furthermore, I don’t think people fully appreciate how far and wide the enemy sows the seeds of sin. There is virtually no popular website you can visit or TV station you can watch without being bombarded by innuendo or immodesty. Radio stations are no better because even if it’s not visible, the same idea is conveyed.
If you think the idea of taking amputation at face value is extreme and would lead to a bunch of one-eyed, one-handed, peg-legged people, keep in mind that most people who turn Jesus’ words into a metaphor don’t even take basic steps to remove temptation and would consider not having a TV or having monitored internet “legalism”.