“After a decade of not-so-benign neglect, virtually any adult American has a license the Lord never allowed the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah.” So said Newsweek about our country’s growing lust affair with pornography.
No longer isolated to seamy adult bookstores and dilapidated red-light districts, pornography in forms almost unimaginable has infiltrated the consciousness of middle America. And the physical, emotional, and spiritual costs are only now being taken into account.
At pornography hearings in Miami, Houston, and Chicago, CT senior writer Tom Minnery has listened firsthand to this unfolding human tragedy. “What impresses you almost immediately,” Tom says, “is the level of perversity out there—and what it’s doing to our homes.” Said one woman who had been sexually abused by a husband “addicted” to pornography, “[My husband] began to experiment with tying me up for sexual purposes. I found this very frightening. His approach was that I’d ‘get used to it.’ For the next 11 years I would wonder what was wrong with me.”
As Tom listened to testimonies, he was “also impressed by the dedication of the few willing to do something about stopping pornography. They’re the humanitarians.”
Tom, whose cover story begins on page 16, is currently editing a book on the porn plague to be published by CTi and Tyndale later this year. The book’s purpose is twofold: To educate Christians to the extent of the problem, and to encourage them to action.
“The incredible thing is that laws for combating pornography are already in place,” Tom says. “All we need to do is see that they’re enforced.”
HAROLD SMITH, Managing Editor
