Dear reader,
Pornography is one of the tools that is literally destroying the souls of the American people. It has become mainstreamed in the United States, and its effects on our nation are shocking.
We have compiled some of the best research on the topic from leading sources—including official agencies and nonprofit organizations—in a new report. I encourage you to get the facts by reading this report, complete with data, historical timeline, and biblical perspective.
Consider the following:
It is time for Christians to take a stand against pornography in their homes, communities, and nation. Addressing biblical truth on sexuality from the pulpit thoughtfully and graciously is the essential starting point. Christians must become equipped to be ministers of grace and truth in this vital area.
We must advocate for legislation that protects young people from internet pornography, keeps sexually oriented businesses out of neighborhoods, and gets sexualized materials out of public schools. We must support entertainment that affirms wholesome sexual values and oppose that which does not.
We must speak out and fight against this plague, and minister the healing wisdom of God’s Word to the world in need.
Research by: Drew Harris
“The word pornography, derived from the Greek porni (“prostitute”) and graphein (“to write”), was originally defined as any work of art or literature depicting the life of prostitutes”. [1] It has come to mean, according to the American Heritage Dictionary, “Sexually explicit writing, images, video, or other material whose primary purpose is to cause sexual arousal.” [2]
Children in a home that uses pornography often suffer in various ways:
1727 - Rex v. Curl held that publication of an obscene libel was punishable as a common law libel as being "against the peace in tending to weaken the bonds of civil society, virtue, and morality. Commonwealth v. Sharpless found that selling of an obscene painting of a man and a woman in an ‘‘indecent posture’’ threatened the peace and dignity of all residents of Pennsylvania, and had the potential to corrupt and subvert its youth.
1821 - Commonwealth v. Holmes. ("Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure") The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court held that "an obscene libel was a common law offense and punishable as a crime."
1957 - Roth v. United States. Pornography, but not "obscene" material, is "speech" protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution.
1964 - Jacobellis v. Ohio. What counts as "obscenity" is measured by community standards.
1968 - Ginsberg v. State of New York. The law can distinguish between adults and minors using pornography. [43]
1969 - Stanley v. Georgia, holding a Georgia law to be unconstitutional which prohibited the possession of pornography. [43]
1973 - Miller v. California, holding that to be obscene, sexual material must be "patently offensive" and lack any "serious scientific, literary, artistic, or political value."
1982 - New York v. Ferber. Child pornography has no free speech protection.
1986 - Renton v. Playtime Theatres, addressed zoning for X-rated theaters.
1996 - Denver Telecommunications v. FCC, addressed X-rated cable television.
1997 - Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union, addressed internet porn.
2002 - Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition. Child pornography restrictions loosened.
Pornography attacks the dignity of men and women who are created in the image of God, also distorting God’s gift of sex which should be shared only within the bounds of marriage. The Bible condemns acts of sexual exposure, adultery, bestiality, homosexuality, incest, and prostitution.
Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well. Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets. Let them be only thine own, and not strangers’ with thee. Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.
Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.
And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord.
Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body. And God hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by his own power. Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid. What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh. But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit. Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.
For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication.
Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness.
Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband.
And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father’s nakedness.
Moreover thou shalt not lie carnally with thy neighbour’s wife, to defile thyself with her.
Neither shalt thou lie with any beast to defile thyself therewith: neither shall any woman stand before a beast to lie down thereto: it is confusion.
Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.
If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.
None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him, to uncover their nakedness: I am the Lord. The nakedness of thy father, or the nakedness of thy mother, shalt thou not uncover: she is thy mother; thou shalt not uncover her nakedness. The nakedness of thy father’s wife shalt thou not uncover: it is thy father’s nakedness. The nakedness of thy sister, the daughter of thy father, or daughter of thy mother, whether she be born at home, or born abroad, even their nakedness thou shalt not uncover. The nakedness of thy son’s daughter, or of thy daughter’s daughter, even their nakedness thou shalt not uncover: for theirs is thine own nakedness. The nakedness of thy father’s wife’s daughter, begotten of thy father, she is thy sister, thou shalt not uncover her nakedness. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy father’s sister: she is thy father’s near kinswoman. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy mother’s sister: for she is thy mother’s near kinswoman. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy father’s brother, thou shalt not approach to his wife: she is thine aunt. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy daughter in law: she is thy son’s wife; thou shalt not uncover her nakedness. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy brother’s wife: it is thy brother’s nakedness. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of a woman and her daughter, neither shalt thou take her son’s daughter, or her daughter’s daughter, to uncover her nakedness; for they are her near kinswomen: it is wickedness. Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister, to vex her, to uncover her nakedness, beside the other in her life time.
There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel. Thou shalt not bring the hire of a whore, or the price of a dog, into the house of the Lord thy God for any vow: for even both these are abomination unto the Lord thy God.
Figure [45]
Figure [46]
