On a blustery day early this year, 13,000 people showed up at Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, Mich., for what became known as "Porn Sunday." Two young California pastors with a website called XXXchurch.com - "the No. 1 Christian porn site" - were in town with a silence-breaking message.
Their frank talk about the struggles many Christians are having with pornography has drawn huge crowds in several churches across the country, and now the Revs. Craig Gross and Mike Foster are planning National Porn Sunday for Oct. 9.
Surveys show that 40 million Americans regularly view Internet pornography, which accounts for $2.5 billion of the $12 billion US porn industry. Some 25 percent of search-engine requests are porn-related; 20 percent of men and 13 percent of women admit accessing porn at work.
Focus on the Family, a Colorado-based Evangelical group, was alerted a few years ago when its toll-free clergy-care line began lighting up with calls from ministers - and 25 percent were porn-related. Still, their experience shows that "probably about 20 percent of pastors have a pornography issue," and "many, many every year have to leave the ministry."
Focus on the Family has quietly spent thousands of dollars sending pastors to treatment centers. It also offers churchgoers help through its "Pure Intimacy" program on the Internet, and has set up a global referral network of Christian counselors.
The Christian Science Monitor
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