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It happened when he was in fourth grade. Clay Crosse was at a friend's house hanging out after school. Crosse said he remembered the events of that afternoon like it was yesterday. "My friend's dad had these magazines and we looked at them. It was amazing to me. It was shocking. I was just a kid, and I knew that I wasn't supposed to be looking at this stuff, but I did," Crosse said.

That afternoon, visions of pornography were burned into his eyes, and more than 20 years later, the popular Christian musician discovered his ministry and his relationships were becoming clouded by a sin that he kept hidden from the world. Now, Crosse said it's time to share his struggle with pornography to the body of Christ.

"It's been heavy on my heart," Crosse said in an interview with Baptist Press. "I'm not the kind of guy who can be a public figure and put on a happy face when something is so pressing on my heart. So I just want to be honest."

Dealing with pornography is not an easy topic to address with believers, especially when it involves one's personal struggle, Crosse said. And while he wasn't addicted to porn, Crosse said it is a problem that many men deal with—and one that can be overcome "with God's strength and support in our lives."

To understand how God released Crosse from his secret sin, he said it was important to understand his story from the beginning.

Crosse grew up in Memphis, Tenn., in a Christian home. He accepted Christ at the age of 13 in a Southern Baptist church and was active in his youth group through high school and college.

"My parents were very strong believers," Crosse said. "So I can't say it wasn't because I didn't have strong people in my life, because I did."

I was talking to a friend the other day and he was telling me that when he was 12, his dad took him to a bachelor party. There were all kinds of bad stuff going on and he saw it all. A few years later his dad bought him his first beer and other stuff to drink," Crosse said. "I can't relate to that. That type of thing would never have happened in my parents' home.

"But outside their home, Crosse experienced his first brush with pornography. "I can't say that I was heavily convicted at the time. When you're that young you aren't really aware of sexuality. But it was the images. I enjoyed it. There's no way around admitting it," he said.

In high school and college, Crosse said he had occasional glimpses of "girlie" magazines. "I would allow myself to see pornographic movies, magazines, that type of thing," he said.

Still, Crosse didn't seem to think he had a problem.

When Crosse turned 23, he married Renna, his high school sweetheart. "I thought that whenever that temptation would come up, I would say, 'It's not a part of my life. That happened when I was in high school. I have a beautiful wife, a great life,' " he said. For the first three or four years of their marriage he said it worked. "I didn't fall to the temptation and it wasn't an issue in my life," he said.

But that would soon change. Eventually, Crosse said his personal standards began to slip. It started through network television shows and comedians. "It's pretty obvious that we live in an incredibly free sexual society with no real parameters. These things began to influence me and I would enjoy it," Crosse said.

Several years ago, in the middle of his vibrant ministry, Crosse said pornography crept back into his life. "Occasionally, I would watch videos or see magazines. It's available wherever you might want to get it," he said. "The bottom line is that I allowed myself to participate again. It was detrimental to me. It was the kind of thing that started to affect my thought life."

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February (Web-only) 2000, Vol. 44