Before Playboy

magazine hit the newsstands in 1954, sexually explicit pictures were not

readily available to mainstream America. Sure, if a man went to the sleazy

part of town and knew where to look, a guy could find some "dirty"

pictures. That's all they were though, "dirty" pictures. No

one pretended they were anything more.

Playboy's strategy

took porn to new levels of acceptability. The marketing approach worked

also. Playboy magazines were put on regular newsstands with time-honored

periodicals, and pretty soon, that respectability rubbed off ("It

has some great articles," we heard men say). By 1970 the President's

Commission on Obscenity and Pornography described the average consumers

of pornography as predominately white, middle-class, middle age, married

males dressed in business suits or neat casual attire.

Well, here

we live in Fayette County, just full of predominately white males who

live in the middle-class and are heavily married, who go off to work either

in a coat and tie or neat casual attire. Should we try to fool ourselves

and believe our married men are not into pornography?

One of the

purposes of the apostolic is to discern what and where are the strongholds

that keep a community in spiritual malaise and lethargy. Many of my fellow

pastors have agreed that Fayette oozes spiritual malaise. That is, there's

no zeal for the things of the Lord; there's no fire of revival that can

stay lit for more than a month; there's no growing thirst and hunger for

God's righteousness. It seems the only hunger is for a quick buck. Even

religion has been a platform for many to engage pyramid schemes for money

(Once, I wish a layman of faith would put as much energy in selfless kingdom

of God building rather than building of a personal kingdom and fortune).

So the question

should be asked: what are those dark forces keeping the cause of Christ

quiet as a church mouse? What's the distraction? I believe we would find

that hundreds if not thousands of the men in our community are bound by

pornography. That would include hundreds if not thousands of church-going

men.

Revival and

spiritual zeal come from holiness and spiritual purity. In no way can

a man be on fire for the Lord while burning with the secret lust for more

porn. One does not have to wonder long to understand why our churches

are so weak and powerless before the forces of darkness. Our men have

been arrested by their addiction to porn.

Pastors can't

lead a heavenly charge into an unholy hell because many of the church's

soldiers have already sold out to the enemy. As I write and you read this

column, I can hear you say, "Oh, no, not here. Not our men. Not our

high school and middle school boys!"

Never before

has pornography been so available, acceptable, and accessed. One husband

tried to help me understand that he watched porn and didn't see it as

a spiritual negative why, even his wife gave him the okay to watch the

trash in her bedroom. Experts who testify before all sorts of governmental

bodies keep insisting that there is a direct link between casual porn

and violent sexual assault.

So what? If

you, man, are reading this column and you are into porn, get some help.

Go to your pastor and confess it. Ask him to steer you to a substitute

addiction like an addiction to the Word of God. If you, wife, are reading

this and your husband is into porn, stop being co-dependent. Insist on

a new beginning in your marriage. In all probability, he has asked you

to do sexual things that are way beyond what you believe is acceptable.

Porn is of the devil.

Therefore without

a doubt pornography as a stronghold that is crippling families, marriages,

churches, and our community in general. I encourage every pastor and minister

and concerned church members to pray and work against it. We can have

the victory through Jesus Christ who came to break every bondage off his

people.

John Hatcher is pastor

of

Outreach International

Center

1091 South Jeff Davis

Drive

Fayetteville, Georgia

30215

770-719-0303

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