Proverbs 4:23 Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.
It is so easy for Christians (or any group of people for that matter) to get together and think they are solving problems with phrases like “porn problem” or “drug problem” (like “the war on drugs”) when they are actually just misdiagnosing the source of the problem. like removing the wire from the check engine light in our car instead of locating the actual source we misdiagnose broken people problems.
As a pastor my heart grieves when this horrible way of diagnosing a problem among our members leads to church discipline. There are many people out there wrestling with heart issues that mere observers are innocently ready to label according to the symptom and not the source. I want to encourage you from a pastoral perspective to stop saying “I have a porn problem” or “so and so has a porn problem” instead love them enough to go a bit deeper than that.
We in our brokenness have heart problems. I say we as in all of us. When our human condition interprets sex it does so in broken ways always (this side of the second coming) because our sanctification has not yet been perfected as image bearers. In other words none of us are at our best or what we should be when it comes to being human. Please understand that in no way am I trying to make light of sin especially that of a sexual nature nor am I saying we should not respond with care and concern to sexual sin issues in our congregations. I am actually concerned with how light we make the gravity of sin when we as husbands, wives, friends or parents use (for example) phrases like “porn problem”.
The phrase “porn problem” objectifies (humans become mere objects) and things like sex become almost human or alive in and of themselves. It is like throwing the whiskey in jail when a drunk driver kills someone I mean isn’t that what we should do with a person who has an “alcohol problem”? Get rid of that bad stuff and all will be well… right? From my perspective as a pastor one of the most damaging symptoms of sin is that we like to belittle it (sin) with phrases like “he has a porn problem”. I would argue that church would be much more meaningful, familial and kingdomish (new word) if we would realize that everything that God has created sex or otherwise will be distorted by the heart of man. That’s why we are to guard our hearts because we will always turn beautiful things like sex (for example) into an object called “porn”. We will do this so that we can objectify and distance ourselves from those sinners who have a “porn problems”.
Let’s level the playing field, thinking more theologically and begin realizing that sex as a thing actually has a people problem and we are people not sex. Now let’s see what happens to pornography (something people do) when people begin to have Jesus Christ problems.
The longer I serve in ministry, the more I realize that people don’t act out for no reason. There is almost always some underlying issue.
Ministry in the trenches has a way helping us see that doesn’t it Brad.
Very interesting perspective!
Yes I also agree that this angle of attack changes perspective. I recall when a great friend who became a pastor stepped in from states away to aid me during a divorce. Perspective he shared makes things easier for both sides. In divorce, that dehumanizing and even demonizing(i.e.Nazi to Jews) gives bridge to do ungodly actions to others. Thank you.