Morality

Metamorpha Retreat: Endurance

Kyle Strobel — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 13:40:43 -0700

The ministry I co-founded, Metamorpha, is continuing to offer spiritual retreats based on the concept of virtue. The next retreat is on endurance. If you are in the Southern California area, this retreat will be on November 19-20. For more information and to sign up, follow this link.

The Social Costs of Pornography

Sean McDowell — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 08:53:00 -0700

Pornography is tearing apart the fabric of our society. You may think this is an overstatement. After reading, “The Social Costs of Pornography” by the Witherspoon Institute, I think it may be an understatement.

In 2008, the Witherspoon Institute sponsored the first multidisciplinary exploration of the social costs of pornography. Scholars from various fields including philosophy, psychology, and medicine were included in the forum. Every major shade of religious belief was represented, including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, agnosticism, and atheism. And both the left and right in American politics were present. They all agreed that there is a substantial multidimensional, empirical record of the harms pornography brings to society. Obviously, such agreement is rare.

Today’s pornography is different from any in the past in three ways. (1) Accessibility. The Internet has made porn ubiquitous. (2) Quality. Today’s porn is much more hardcore. (3) Consumption. Porn consumption has increased radically with the advent of the Internet. 69% of men and 10% of women report viewing pornography more than once a month. 87% of men admit using it in the past year. The researchers conclude, “In sum, there is evidence that more people—children, adolescents, and adults—are consuming pornography—sporadically, inadvertently, or chronically—than every before” (15).

How does pornography actually harm people? The researchers list a plethora of ways. Each of these points is supported with empirical evidence in the report. Keep in mind that these are objective facts about pornographic consumption, not my subjective opinions.

· Those who view pornography overestimate how frequently certain sexual acts are actually practiced, which increases one’s willingness to do unconscionable things (18).

· Porn viewers physically map their brains based on the images they see. Pornographic consumption re-maps the physical structure of the brain (19).

· Many men who view porn lose the ability to relate to or be close to women (20).

· Porn viewers become de-sensitized to the barrage of imagery, and as a result, child pornography and violent pornographic images often lose their ability to shock and disgust (20).

· Women often report distress and harm when discovering that their husbands view porn. They typically feel betrayal, loss, mistrust, devastation, and anger as a result of their partner’s behavior.

· Porn users have an increased likelihood of divorce and family break-up (23-24).

· Those who had an extramarital affair were three times more likely to have used Internet pornography than those who had not.

· Porn leads men to place less value on marital fidelity and more value on casual sex (24).

· Therapists report seeing fourteen- and fifteen-year-old boys addicted to porn (29).

· An Italian study reported that boys who view porn were more likely to report having sexually harassed a peer or having forced someone to have sex (30).

· Adolescent girls who report using pornography are more likely to report being victims of passive violence such as sexual harassment and rape (31).

· Today’s consumption of pornography encourages sexual exploitation such as trafficking (33).

· Adolescents who view pornography are more likely to view women as sexual objects (35).

· Porn consumption raises the risk of sexually risky behavior (35).

· Men who use pornography are less attractive to potential female partners (37).

· Exposure to pornography decreases sexual satisfaction with one’s partner for both men and women (38).

· Chronic pornography use is associated with depression and unhappiness (38).

· Users often report disgust and shame at finding themselves stimulated by images that would have once repulsed (39).

What do we do? For starters, can you help spread the word about the dangers of pornography? Please consider getting a copy of the report, “The Social Costs of Pornography,” and study it. Talk to your friends about it. Share it with your family and church. Blog about it. Or forward this blog to as many people as you can. There needs to be a renewed conversation about how pornography is damaging this generation. We can no longer ignore the most dangerous health hazard to this generation. Our kids deserve better.

Fighting Your Quarter-Life Crisis with a Good Cause

John Barry — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 06:00:00 -0700

Rather than let my quarter-life crisis continue to be imminent as my twenty-fifth looms around the corner, I decided to be proactive.

When a man has a mid-life crisis, he either gets confused or depressed. If confused, he will likely buy a boat, a car, or that big TV he has always wanted. If depressed, he may become somber and run back to his old vice.

When a man has a quarter-life crisis, he either goes crazy or gets stupid. If crazy, he may start setting unreasonable, often selfish, goals. If stupid, he could do one of the countless things that men who aren't ready to grow up yet do--you know the story.

I have a goal setting personality type, which makes being unreasonable a risk for me. I've set way too many ridiculous goals in my life; and yet when I meet them, I rarely celebrate. Instead, I ponder what went wrong along the way or what I'm going to do next. Both of these steps are good things, but they've often hindered positive feelings. This means that no matter how successful my last year was, I always go into my birthday feeling like the year could have been better. Although I'm always thankful for my relationships--with Christ, my wife, family, friends, colleagues, and others--I rarely reflect on that. Instead, I'm stuck thinking about what didn't happen during the last year and what needs to happen in the next. Sometimes it's holy discontent, but other times, it's just unnecessary mourning.

I imagine many of you are like me and are looking for an alternative to these quarter-life crisis feelings. To fight these feelings and all the possible oncoming craziness, I've decided to combine my goal setting nature with a cause. I'm raising relief funds for the hungry and thirsty in the Horn of Africa. (If you want to learn more or donate, go here.) Let's see how the quarter-life crisis holds up to this battle for a cause.

How do you fight feelings of anxiety about your age in life or goals?

Acceptable Legalism: Finding God in a Stop Sign

Adam Stadtmiller — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 10:05:21 -0700

Psa. 119:47 I shall delight in Your commandments, Which I love.

Everyone knows that if the speed limit says 65mph, you are free to drive 72mph. 7mph over the speed limit is the magic number of what is acceptable without getting a ticket. In school zones that number is only 2.6mph.

This is what I thought until I just got my 2^nd ticket in 30 days. Even though I knew I was breaking the law, I was still ticked. I was mad at the cop for doing his job, politicians for agreeing to egregious laws, kittens and the universe in general.

Over the next few days, God barraged me with messages and teachings about loving the law. Ridiculous! Who loves the law?

The answer to that question was King David. When I came across Ps. 119:47, and especially the bit about David loving the law, I was immediately intrigued. I get following the law because God told me to, but loving the law is totally different.

David loved the law because he realized that laws are a representation of their author. The more you understand a law and its nuance the more you understand the one who created that law. For David, every law he followed became an opportunity to know and love God in a deeper way.

This is actually a form of acceptable legalism. It is a legalism allowed to us by grace. Grace is what gives us the opportunity to follow the law for loves sake. Without grace, you could not choose to follow the law strictly for loves sake. Without grace, law following is a requirement.

How stringently do you follow the law? Do you speed, show up to work late, cheat on taxes or walk when the light is red? Perhaps you are an ardent rule follower. The question to you is why? Is it for the sake of the commandment, self-righteousness or for the love of God!

Here’s a challenge. This week pursue a Davidic type of intimacy by trying to obey every law stringently. Do it because you want to know God. Yes, you are free from the law of death, but this type of legalism leads to life. As believers we need to be careful that our freedom in Christ does not keep us from knowing God.

1Pet. 2:13 Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority.

I've Got Mono: The Challenges and Beauty of Monogamy

Richard Dahlstrom — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 09:36:45 -0700

The New Times published an article recently positing that infidelity was, for some marriages, just the right ingredient needed to keep a marriage strong. The advocate for this lifestyle is none other than Seattle's own Dan Savage, of "Savage Love", Stranger fame. At first blush (pun intended), the article appears not to be worth the time to read. Who cares about some guy's theory that married couples would be happier in some cases if infidelity was an accepted part of the marriage package? But a real reading revealed both the thoughtfulness behind his argument, and the subtleties of deception that run terribly deep in waters of our culture.

Savage readily acknowledges the advantages of monogamy, but adds that there are drawbacks, as he points out when he says, "people in monogamous relationships have to be willing to meet me a quarter of the way and acknowledge the drawbacks of monogamy around boredom, despair, lack of variety, sexual death and being taken for granted". To battle these dangers, Savage is an advocate for what he calls the 3 G's: "lovers out to be good, giving, and game" (skillfully lovers, generous lovers, lovers willing to try new things). It's that third one that's the sticking point for Savage, and he says that when lovers reach an impasse where one party has sexual desires that the other is unwilling to fulfill, it might be best to set them free, to let them go off and find the experience they're looking for. This, Savage says, can keep the love alive in the relationship. The infidelity, in other words, can be a good thing if all parties agree.

If you read my stuff regularly, you know that I read widely, including forays into "The Stranger", the "NY Times", "Fox News", and more. I do this because I believe, strongly, that Christ followers aren't called to separation from the world, but are called to live with discernment right in the midst of the world. If our world is considering non-monogamy as a way to save marriage, I want to know about, discerning what's true in the midst of the proposal, and what's not. So here we go:

What's True - I like that Savage is ultimately concerned with sustaining monogamous relationships. He's an interesting character because he's this funky blend of traditional values that find their origin in who God has made us to be (monogamous) and the values of what the Bible calls "the flesh" or "the sin nature" (depending on your translation). But more of that later. It's interesting too that Savage isn't just trying to keep people living under the same roof. He wants people to be genuinely in love - to avoid the traps of boredom, lack of variety, and sexual death that are often the reality in monogamous relationships; a couple living together for 50 years doesn't constitute success in Savage's book. There's supposed to be real love. Does anyone want to argue with him on that? I don't either.

Let's acknowledge that when the Bible talks about the ideal for marriage, whether it's the vision cast in Genesis 2, or Paul's lofty vision in Ephesians 5 (sacrificial love, service, openness and vulnerability, trust) God's vision is that there be a body/soul/spirit union that's still throbbing with passion as people grow older. Let's not forget Paul's liberating advice in I Corinthians 7 when talking about sexuality: "do not deprive one another" (except by mutual agreement for prayer, which means that you don't withhold sex, using it as a tool for power in the marriage). All of this seems to envision what Savage sees as the ultimate goal, which is a healthy union between two people!

What's Not True - Ah, but the devil is in the details. When Savage posits that a "more perfect union" can be realized by allowing one's partner to fulfill his/her fantasies with some outside party, he's dumped a boatload of lies into ocean, polluting the waters of our thoughts and making infidelity appear, just possibly, to be a healthy part of normal marriage - not for everyone of course, but for some. This plays well (the article was the number 1 e-mailed article in the NY Times for a portion of last week), and is reinforced in books about open marriage, and even in the recent book: "Pre-Marital Sex in America" which reveals the data on how young people are hooking up, a cultural reality among singles that surely prepares the soil for the "non-monogomy" of Savage's marital ethic.

Nope. There are a boatload of reasons why we mustn't go down that road, but let's just address the biggest one:

God's Heart for Monogamy: When Jesus talks about marriage he always goes back to Genesis two at the reference point;always. This means that, though there are accomodations made in the Bible for divorce and polygamy, they're clearly never seen as the ideal. Further, God makes no provision whatsoever for infidelity. Is there grace? Of course, for repentant hearts that see their sin. But Savage leads us into dangers waters when he sees it, not as seen, but as a prescription to marital health. The ideal is always monogamy - saturated with real love.

This notion had fallen on hard times, even during the days of Jesus; so much so that that when he articulates radical monogamy in Matthew 19, the disciples said, "if such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry." Yes, it's hard. But it's the vision, and Savage is plunging a knife right into the heart of it. I had to say something!

: still crazy...in love..after all these years

OK. God's for monogamy. But here's an important thing to say as this winds to a close. God isn't just interested in monogamy.Ultimately, God is interested in love and intimacy. So, if I'm going to be committed to monogamy AND intimacy, this will take me down a road that will strip my soul bare, revealing my vulnerability and fear, exposing my pain and anger, demanding my deepest honesty. In other words:

1. I'll need to be honest with my partner about my sexual struggles, longings, and failures. And I'll need to be a safe place for my partner to be honest.

2. I'll need to work, really work hard, at fanning the flames of love. There are endless forces working against intimacy in our culture, but they needn't win. It's just that I need to recognize those forces and swim upstream against them.

3. I'll need to recognize the difference between sex and food. I Corinthians 6 explains how food and sex are different. I've taught on this many times with students, explaining that, for the Corinthians, sexuality was viewed as an appetite, just like food. When you're hungry you eat. When you want sex... you find it, by any means possible. But Paul explains that sex isn't an appetite in the same way as food, explains that self-denial of our primal urges, far from killing us, will actually make us stronger. Why? We'll be forced to find satisfaction, joy, and meaning, in other ways when sexual expression isn't open to us. We'll need to play music, work in the garden, enjoy good conversation, or good sunsets, or good food.

There's much more to say... but coming from one who's been monogamous AND is still passionately in love, it's important gain a vision for both: monogamy and passionate love: two ingredients which, together, will form a mighty strong, joy infused bond!

How can the church do a better a job of instilling the values of monogamy and passionate love?

If you like this article - please forward it via twitter, or facebook. Thanks!

Babies: Born This Way?

Brett McCracken — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 22:57:54 -0700

I was recently quite disturbed by this story of a couple in Toronto who have refused to divulge the gender of their recently born child, who they named Storm (how perfectly gender ambiguous!). Though Storm does indeed have a gender, Storm’s parents–Kathy Witterick and David Stocker–aren’t telling anyone, not even family and close friends, what it is.

“We’ve decided not to share Storm’s sex for now–a tribute to freedom and choice in place of limitation,” wrote Witterick in an email. “In fact, in not telling the gender of my precious baby, I am saying to the world, ‘Please can you just let Storm discover for him/herself what s (he) wants to be?!.”

“What we noticed is that parents make so many choices for their children. It’s obnoxious,” said Stocker.

There are many troubling aspects to this story, not least of which is the fact that a newborn has been turned into a political statement by his/her “progressive and proud of it!” parents. If we’re talking about giving children more choices and more freedom, did anyone ask little Storm if he/she wanted to be turned into a political statement about gender ambiguity? No one asked Storm, but nevertheless it appears the baby is fated to live a life forever tainted by his/her parents refusal to raise a child with gender as a given attribute of identity.

More troubling is the notion that a baby’s gender is a choice that parents can make for it, or even a choice that the baby can make for itself at some point. I realize that this is contested territory in our society today (look no further than the new documentary Becoming Chaz to see how normalized the notion of gender malleability is in our culture), but I just have a hard time accepting this extreme insistence on freedom of choice in the realm of something as fundamental as gender. Are we really free to become anything we want to be, if science/surgery can make it possible? Where does it end? I suppose it’s a natural outgrowth of our society’s values of autonomy and liberty (no one but me controls my fate!) that now even the bodies we are born with are subject to our consumer preferences.

But perhaps most troubling in this story is the idea that making choices for children is a bad thing–that, even from birth, humans are entitled to decide everything for themselves, and that parents who get too pushy about dos and don’ts are merely cogs in the machine of an oppressive hegemony, hellbent on suffocating the freedom and fancy of autonomous individuals.

Personally, I’m thankful for rules. I’m thankful my parents lived in a world of moral norms, dos-and-don’ts, crime and punishment. I’m glad they didn’t let me decide everything for myself. I’m glad there were structures, guidelines, expectations. How awful to grow up in a formless void of anything-goes, “every feeling you have is true!” vapidity. We are fallen creatures, and every feeling we have is not true, good, or right. We need to learn that. We need people to tell us that we aren’t always right, even when we feel like we are.

In The Tree of Life, the boys have a hard time with their disciplinarian father (Brad Pitt) and seem to favor their more gracious mother (Jessica Chastain). But notice what happens when their father goes away for a trip. Under mom’s lenient watch, they get into all sorts of mischief. They discover their dark side. Freedom, unbound by the accountability of dad’s watchful eye, leads them to sin. It’s fun to be free, but it leads them down a dark path. Ultimately, they need their father. They need someone to tell them no, and they respect him all the more for it. This is loving: Being able to guide the unwieldy whims and freedom of someone you love into a pattern of virtue and restraint. Left to our own devices, free of all constraints and having no choices made for us, we’re bound for all sorts of trouble.

The whole thing reminds me of Lady Gaga’s Born This Way (which I blogged about back in February), an album which sets forth an increasingly heralded ethos of embracing whoever and whatever you want to be. “There’s nothing wrong with loving who you are,” sings Gaga. “Cause he made you perfect, Babe… God makes no mistakes.”

But if God makes no mistakes, why not celebrate the gender of a baby who is born one way and not the other?

What Gaga is really trying to say is “YOU are God, and you make no mistakes… Forget how God, or evolution, or biology made you… None of that matters because you can change it any time you want. You are bound by no one and nothing.”

And that’s an ethos that can only lead little Storm, and the world in which he/she will grow up, into utter chaos.

Heaven & Hell: How the death of Osama Bin Laden creates problems for Bell & Hawking (Part 1)

Matt Chapin — Thu, 26 May 2011 13:12:23 -0700

Last month the U.S. Navy Seals killed Osama Bin Laden, the world’s most wanted terrorist. A man promoting an ideology of death and destruction through his acts and plots of terror was met with praise at his death. People throughout the media world were praising the job of Seal Team 6, and condemning Bin Laden to hell. This occurred throughout various media outlets like talk show host Sean Hannity, as well as comics like Jimmy Kimmel, who declared Osama Bin Laden in hell. They were not the only ones who espoused this, but there wasn’t a large outcry against such declaration. Why?

I believe the reason is because of what C.S. Lewis refers to as the Law of Human Nature. This Law of Human Nature is a moral law which he sums up as “human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it. Secondly, that they do not in fact behave in that way.”(C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity,19)

People intrinsically know that a man who plots such evil upon others is wrong, and should face some sort of penalty and consequence for their actions. There is an ability within us to observe something evil, name it evil, and expect justice to be done. We feel, quite naturally, that evil of this representation deserves hell, or some form of severe punishment as its consequence.

Here we run into a road block with the theology of salvation promoted by Rob Bell a couple of months ago, for he espoused the Unitarian Universalist belief that God may be so gracious and loving as to save people out of hell. Would he declare that includes Osama Bin Laden?

Besides the fact Bell’s view is not supported by Scripture or the early church fathers, what does he make of the death of Bin Laden? Surely it poses huge problems as it conflicts with the message of Jesus Christ, and the Law of Human Nature which are given by God, and I believe is part of what it means to be made in the image of God. We desire justice. God also desires justice. (Psalm 9:16, Isaiah 61:8)

The death of Bin Laden not only poses a problem from Bell’s perspective, but for Stephen Hawking as well. Eleven days ago Hawking came out and said he finds no room for heaven in the cosmos, and reflected his materialist point of view suggesting the human brain is like a computer that will stop working when its components fail.(Physicist Stephen Hawking Says There Is No Heaven, FoxNews.com, May 16, 2011.) It was noted in this article posted on FoxNews.com that Hawking was quoted in the Guardian newspaper saying, “There is no heaven or afterlife for broken-down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.”

How’s that for optimism. Would Hawking assert his materialist view that Bin Laden, the broken down computer Bin Laden, is just one with the sea, and that is all? Because if what he is saying is true, then he should be calling on people to renounce saying Bin Laden is getting what he deserves in hell. In this materialist view of reality, if there is no heaven for those who we would deem good, then there likewise cannot be a hell for those who do evil. Such an idea that there is no heaven, but a hell, or that there is a heaven but not an eternal reality of hell, is truly incompatible on the most basic ideas of right and wrong.

I would like to close these ideas up with a quote from Mere Christianity: “For the trouble is that one part of you is on His side and really agrees with his disapproval of human greed and trickery and exploitation. You may want Him to make an exception in your own case, to let you off this one time; but you know at bottom that unless the power behind the world really and unalterably detests that sort of behavior, then He cannot be good. On the other hand, we know that if there does exist an absolute goodness it must hate most of what we do. This is the terrible fix we are in. If the universe is not governed by an absolute goodness, then all our efforts are in the long run hopeless.” (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 37)

It Is for Freedom

Crystal Renaud — Fri, 20 May 2011 10:17:41 -0700

From Roe v. Wade to lesbianism to birth control, women’s liberation movements have made it their platform to give women a right over their own bodies.

Some good and some not so good have come out if it. But fast forward to today, and we see that women are once again in a fight for liberation.

But this time, it is a personal fight and one that is more often fought all alone. In the last ten years especially, our culture of sexually provocative advertising and media have aided in the trans- formation of women from sexually submissive into sexually aggressive...and sexually obsessed.

As such, this is resulting in a rapidly growing addiction to pornography and sexual promiscuity among women today.

In the New York Times last year an article was written about me, groups I lead, Dirty Girls Ministries, and this whole issue of women’s addiction to pornography.

It struck a chord (or a nerve rather) and left some people saying, “Is this Crystal Renaud an antifeminist? Masturbation, sexual exploration, and pornography use is normal. She is setting women’s lib back a hundred years.”

You can read the comments for yourself. But questions and comments like these could not be further from the truth.

What is liberating about a woman being in bondage to her own perverse sexuality?

Nothing.

I know the bondage of pornography and compulsive sexual behavior firsthand, as I spent eight years of my own life in this addiction.

And what is liberating is taking back ownership of what we see, what we hear, and what we do. And as a result, living lives free from the things that can keep us in bondage.

That, my sweet sisters (and brothers), is liberation.

Liberation that only biblical sexual wholeness can provide you. “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1).
_______________________________

Excerpt from Dirty Girls Come Clean by Crystal Renaud.

Dirty Girls Come Clean

Crystal Renaud — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 17:02:40 -0700

Crystal Renaud is Founder and Executive Director of Dirty Girls Ministries, a non-for-profit ministry helping women struggling with pornography and sexual addiction. Founded by Crystal in February 2009, the desire of Dirty Girls Ministries is to break through the stigmatic barriers that are keeping women in bondage to this addiction. Crystal has used the experience gained from her own 8-year pornography addiction to counsel hundreds of women as well as writes and speaks in various venues on the topic.

In your book "Dirty Girls Come Clean," you write about your personal battle with pornography addiction. When were you first subject to pornography and how did you come to believe that you were addicted?

I first came into contact with pornography at the age of 10 when I found a pornographic magazine in my older brother’s bathroom. There I was at such a tender age and nearly oblivious to what sex was face to face with what was fairly hardcore material. I had a decision to make in that moment to either turn away from it, or open the magazine up and peruse what I had discovered. I chose the latter. What would follow the fateful decision would be an eight-year addiction to pornography and pornography related behavior.

I get posed the question often of “well, why didn’t you tell your mom about what you had found?” Even my mom has since asked me that very question and the answer is this simply—the material immediately filled me with two very different feelings—1) Shame and 2) an odd sense of satisfaction. A battle of feelings that would keep virtually anyone in a bondage of confusion and secrecy.

I realized I had an addiction when my looking at that magazine escalated to seeking more material and the introduction of masturbation and other pornography related behavior began to manifest. And my efforts to “stop” my behaviors remained unsuccessful. My acting out had become unmanageable and destructive to my life in more ways than one (relationally, physically, emotionally and spiritually).

You also started a ministry in February of 2009 for women called Dirty Girls Ministries? What made you choose the name "Dirty Girls" to describe your ministry and what does DGM set out to do?

Dirty Girls Ministries serves as a resource for women who are stuck in pornography and sexual addiction through accountability, support groups and other recovery tools.

One of the most common responses I hear from women in the throes of this addiction is, “I feel so dirty.” The name Dirty Girls isn't about defining or referring to women with these addictions as dirty. We are simply taking on a stigma so many women are already feeling and providing them a safe place to come and find help and hope for recovery through Jesus.

We understand that not every woman who views pornography is addicted, and while we do believe that even just dabbling in it is a slippery slope to be climbing, our focus is truly on those women whose pornography use and sexual behavior has become unmanageable and destructive to their lives.

What are some statistics of women who struggle with pornography addiction?

According to a survey from Today’s Christian Woman and Internet Filter Review, 17% of women struggle with an addiction to pornography, while 25% of Christian women also struggle with pornography. So depending on the demographic of women, it’s one in four women or one in six women. And as far as web traffic, one in three (40% of) visitors to adult websites are women.

What are some of the core struggles for women who are pornography and sexually addicted?

What’s important to know about pornography and sexual addiction, it’s almost never about sex. It’s a core intimacy disorder. We see women all the time addicted to pornography simply because they are using it as a way to cope with pain in their lives. Just like women who cut, or have an eating disorder, pornography functions in the same way in their lives.

Typically the core struggles are unhealed wounds from sexual abuse, absent parent(s), spiritual abuse (the failure of a spiritual leader in their lives) and others.

How are the sexual struggles of women similar to the sexual struggles of men? How are they different?

Men are typically classified as the “visually stimulated” of the human race. While this is true, women are also visually stimulated and are attracted to pornography in many of the same ways as men are. But what makes women and women’s use of pornography all the more destructive and potentially dangerous is our innate desire for emotional connection. 81% of women, who frequent pornographic websites, will eventually escalate their addiction to in-person encounters because of their desire to be close to someone.

Women desire intimacy and emotional connection in a much different way then men do, so pornography looks like a great option to receive both because it creates fantasy and a false sense of intimacy. False, and yet still intimate. Many times we find that women also get caught up in pornography because of a past experience with sexual abuse. Either they were shown pornography by an abuser, or they sought out pornography as a way to understand what happened to them.

What can our churches do to help women who struggle sexually?

It’s as simple as this: Talk about it! And then provide support. If you don’t know how to do that, read my book—or contact DGM. We are here to help.

Just Asking

Jeff Hopper — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 17:22:16 -0700

During Game 2 of their opening round NBA Playoffs series with the New Orleans Hornets, the Los Angeles Lakers debuted a public service announcement intended to discourage anti-gay slurs such as the one made recently by Lakers star guard Kobe Bryant in the direction of an NBA official.

For noticeably and loudly saying this slur so heinous that almost no news outlet dared hint what it actually was, Bryant was fined $100,000. Interestingly, the outcry and fine came only days after a UCLA study reported that just 3.5 percent of Americans are homosexual (a number far smaller than the usual 10-percent figure announced by LGBT groups).

Which leads me to ask: If a slur bothering 3.5 percent of the population earns you a $100,000 fine, and as many as 80 percent of Americans call themselves Christians, would NBA commissioner David Stern truly consider a--doing the math here--$2.3 million fine for the next player who clearly profanes the name of Jesus Christ? Or would such a huge number only apply to a star like Bryant?

Oh, and here's another question: Will I be dismissed for asking as a moralist, or accepted for asking as a pluralist?