With over 26,000,000 websites and 2,000,000,000 pages of pornography being just a click away, it may not come as a surprise that "good" Christian kids, church leaders and pastors are watching it, with some possibly addicted to the stuff.
In an interview with the Christian Post, Christian apologist, Josh McDowell, deeply concerned about the "porn epidemic sweeping the church," quoted some numbers that are pretty surprising for the evangelical church: 78 percent of evangelical church-going men watch pornography with probably 80 percent of youth pastors watching it. The greatest increase right now he says is amongst women and 64 percent of Christian families have an acute problem with it. "It's killing us," says McDowell, while pointing out the fact that 2 out of 5 divorces are directly related to pornography.
Discouraged at how pervasive it is in the church, McDowell says it's time for the church to be proactive with this issue. In April, he'll be hosting a conference to deal with it head-on in a way that will set people free from this soul-destroying plague.
The numbers get scarier: 91 percent of young people will see pornography with 36 percent of them becoming addicted to it; 9 out of 10 boys and 6 out of 10 girls have been exposed to it by the time they are 18; at conservative Christian schools 80-85 percent of boys watch pornography; 2 out of 5 church-going men watch several times per week.
McDowell is openly skeptical about parents who think they can protect their kids from it. Despite parents' best efforts, children as young as six will have been exposed to pornography. "Another site has, in every 60 seconds, 4,000 pornographic videos that are viewed 24-7. You're trying to tell me that your kid's going to avoid that? Absolutely not! And then these parents say to me, 'Oh, Josh, my precious little daughter or son, they're not going to look for pornography the way I raised them. I say, 'Lady, you better get your head screwed on straight. Maybe they won't look for pornography, but pornography is looking for them and it will find your child."
Calling it "a cancer that's killing us," he doesn't mince any words: "There are pastors who sit in their offices and surf the net for pornography, then walk across the hallway and give leadership for our kids. Our deacons, our elders, our leaders come to church and they lead worship, then they go home and often until midnight, or one in the morning, will surf the Internet for pornography. These are our leaders."
He tells the Christian Post he was able to uncover this shocking information after investing $300,000 to commission the largest scientific study ever done on pornography, involving 3,000 people.
His next statement shows just how shocking this information is: "There's a good number of scientific research out there, but it's all stopping for the simple reason that they cannot find control groups, for the young people not watching pornography."
Along with Covenant Eyes, McDowell Ministries will be hosting the, Set Free Global Summit conference this April 4-7, in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Not just talking about the problem, he says that 80 percent of the conference will be dealing with solutions. "We have one of the top brain experts in the world, neurologists who will explain how literally, physically, biologically, pornography changes the brain. Then, the next scientist, Dr. Williams Struthers, will explain how you can change your brain back."
For more information on the conference: http://setfreesummit.org
