We are often asked, how can the church help stop this and protect children?
And I think one of the reasons the church hasn’t been too concerned about it, is because men aren’t being taught in the church what a real man should be. A lot of men, if I can say this boldly, are tied up in pornography themselves. Our culture is saturated with it. And that’s why people don’t react to the victimization of these children, because that implicates them and then they have to say, “I’m guilty in some way.” We have got to do a better job in the church of learning what it means to be a true Christian and a true man as God designed you to be. Addressing porn addiction is a good place to begin.
Visualization to actualization sounds very simple, but so many guys are watching pornography that it’s become considered normal. And children are being exposed to it at younger and younger ages, and the stimulation is more and more violent and perverted. A generation of buyers and traffickers is being groomed through online pornography. When it no longer satisfies to just watch the abuse, some are going to go out there, when they decide to go “actual,” and look for someone to act out what he’s seen. And now he’s looking for a younger person, because only younger or more vulnerable will do the things that he’s seen in pornography. Now that’s hard to hear in a Christian setting, but it’s true.
What is happening in the real world of child sex trafficking, is that there are two ways that the traffickers make money. First, they take pictures from the child’s first act, and sell it to guy who get their kicks watching the taking of innocence, whether the child knows they’re being taken or not. It’s having a sexual experience with that child without consent that plants ideas and desires for more that they find hard to resist. And commercially explicit images of children are a whole billion-dollar market all its own.
Most don’t realize that when they’re watching pornography, they’re participating in child sex trafficking. Whether that child appears to enjoy it or not, as in the case of Lacy, that child is in her own head, thinking of protecting her 10-year-old sister. And by watching, you’re taking away that child’s life. Don’t think pornography that is ‘just one click or one view’ doesn’t hurt anyone, because when you listen to Lacy’s story, Part 1 | Part 2 you have to realize that she that lost all of her junior high and high school childhood to men who produced that video or took those pictures, and because there are consumers like the men who sit in our church pews. We can’t be silent anymore. We need to teach about the connection of the abuse of children that is closely tied to those who watch those images. And the church can help those who are addicted to it to find freedom. We must help them find freedom. Because without their demand, there would be no market and children like Lacy would have a childhood.
Shared Hope developed a Faith in Action kit with all the tools to begin a four-week Bible study with men to find freedom. It’s available at https://sharedhope.org/product/faith-action-kit/ and it gives you all the resources you need to first educate your church, and tools to educate your community!
Receive your free copy of the video Chosen here featuring two survivor’s stories.
Hear the stories Lacy/Stephanie tells in her own voice at Focus on the Family.
Part 1 | Part 2
