Do Christians buy less online pornography than non-believers? The Associated Baptist Press reports on a recent study suggesting “no”–except, that is, on Sundays.
Harvard Business School professor Benjamin Edelman took the zip codes of subscribers to a top-ten porn seller and analyzed the geographical distribution. He says that subscription rates in regions where more people report regularly attending religious services aren’t “statistically significantly different” from subscriptions elsewhere.
In fact, subscriptions are actually more prevalent in states that have passed conservative legislation on sexuality, as well as in states where more survey respondents agreed with statements like “I never doubt the existence of God” and “I have old-fashioned values about family and marriage.”
An interesting (or depressing) wrinkle is that, in regions of higher church attendance, a smaller proportion of porn subscriptions begin on Sundays. “This analysis suggests that, on the whole, those who attend religious services shift their consumption of adult entertainment to other days of the week, despite on average consuming the same amount of adult entertainment as others,” says Edelman.
So what to make of this study? For one thing, I would note that the criteria of “attending religious services” is not restricted to Christian places of worship. Still, those must be the overwhelming majority.
It’s safe to say, then, that the church has a long way to go in terms of sexual purity. As the study shows, a lot of that has to do with how people compartmentalize their lives, living one way on Sunday and another the rest of the week. And it’s easier than ever these days to go where you shouldn’t; Leadership editor Skye Jethani relays here how, thanks to the Internet, now “every city is Sin City.”
The need is great. What are your churches doing to address lust and pornography?
For more on sexual addictions, see this or that …
UPDATE: GetReligion, a blog that monitors how the press covers religion, has a beef with this study.
