Rationalization

Pornography consumption has skyrocketed in recent years, especially among young people. Despite this, many Americans, including Christians, remain unconcerned about its societal effects.

A new report by Barna and Pure Desire reveals that 61% of Americans now view porn at least occasionally, up from 55% in 2015. Even within the church, pastors are more likely to report personal histories of porn use, with nearly 1 in 5 currently struggling.

The report underscores pornography's widespread accessibility, noting that it "touches all segments of society" regardless of age, gender, or religious beliefs. The increased availability of online porn, coupled with factors like social isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic, has contributed to this surge. One recent study suggested 2.5 million people view online pornography every minute, and online porn consumption has increased by 91 percent since 2000.

While some faith-based efforts advocate for legal restrictions on the porn industry, others focus on helping individuals overcome pornography habits. However, the report highlights a significant hurdle: many people, including Christians, simply don't see a problem with it.

Research suggests that frequent porn use can lead to negative mental, emotional, and relational health outcomes. Despite this, many Christians remain comfortable with their own porn consumption. The reports states, “Over three in five Christians (62%) tell Barna they agree a person can regularly view pornography and live a sexually healthy life.” That’s only four percentage points behind the share of all US adults (66%) who don’t consider viewing pornography harmful.

The report also explores the impact of pornography on relationships, particularly between men and women. Women are more likely to report negative effects, including feeling less attractive to their partners. Additionally, the study reveals that young people are increasingly exposed to pornography at younger ages, with the average age of first exposure now 12.

Possible Preaching Angle:

While there are efforts to address the issue, the report emphasizes the need for churches to offer support and resources for those struggling with pornography. By fostering a community where people can find help and healing, churches can play a crucial role in combating the pervasive influence of pornography.

Climate anxiety and environmental destruction have been added to the list of apocalyptic fears. Nuclear war is now no longer our only worry. A large group of philosophers and scientists in many fields are now proposing that our time on Earth should come to an end. What was once considered good—steady population growth, decline in global poverty, and rapid progress in health science and medicine—should now be looked at in a completely different light. According to an article in The Atlantic:

The Bible gives the negative commandment “Thou shalt not kill” as well as the positive commandment “Be fruitful and multiply,” and traditionally they have gone together. But if being fruitful and multiplying starts to be seen as itself a form of killing, because it deprives future generations and other species of irreplaceable resources, then the flourishing of humanity can no longer be seen as simply good. Instead, it becomes part of a zero-sum competition that pits the gratification of human desires against the well-being of all of nature—not just animals and plants, but soil, stones, and water.

If that’s the case, then humanity can no longer be considered a part of creation or nature, as science and religion teach in their different ways. Instead, it must be seen as an antinatural force that has usurped and abolished nature, substituting its own will for the processes that once appeared to be the immutable basis of life on Earth. This understanding of humanity’s place outside and against the natural order is summed up in the term “Anthropocene,” which in the past decade has become one of the most important concepts in the humanities and social sciences. ... It is a rejection of humanity’s traditional role as Earth’s protagonist, the most important being in creation.

Author Pete Greig shares the following story in How to Pray: A Simple Guide for Normal People:

I was walking the darkened streets near our house one night, reviewing the day before bed, remembering how I'd driven Sammy [my wife] and the boys to the cinema and how someone had cut us off. I'd yelled at him. Sammy had yelled at me. I'd yelled at Sammy. Hadn’t she seen how dangerously the other guy was driving? Had she forgotten that we had vulnerable children in the car? Didn't she know there was such a thing as righteous anger? She'd gone silent.

We arrived at the cinema. The film had been great. Life had moved on. No big deal. But now in the stillness of these darkened streets, as I returned to that moment, it seemed that God was siding with my wife. I sighed. "Okay, I'm sorry. I admit it: I lost my temper. I shouldn't have yelled at that driver. Lord, help me to be more patient tomorrow."

There was a pause before I sensed him telling me to apologize to our sons. This thought annoyed me, and I found myself protesting. "That's ridiculous. You're making this bigger than it is. My kids don't need me to apologize. They won't even remember such a trivial incident. Do you have any idea what the traffic is like around here?"

Ten minutes later, I was sitting on Hudson's bed. "Son, I just want to say sorry to you for something. Do you remember me yelling at that man on the way to the cinema?" Immediately, he nodded. "I shouldn't have done that. Mum was right. Christians are supposed to be patient and kind. I set you a bad example. That's not how I want you to grow up and treat people. I'm sorry." Right away, he put his arms around my neck and squeezed me tight. "That's okay, Dad.”

A minute later, I was in the room next door, making the same speech to Danny, and the same thing happened. He immediately knew exactly what I was talking about. He hadn't forgotten either. He listened to my apology and didn't think it was crazy. He hugged me and told me it was okay. It's a silly, mundane story, and that's the whole point. We are changed--conformed into the likeness of Christ--through a thousand small choices like these.

Author David Wells asks:

What is worldliness? (It is) that system of values, in any given age, which has at its center our fallen human perspective, which displaces God and his truth from the world, and which makes sin look normal and righteousness seem strange. It thus gives great plausibility to what is morally wrong and, for that reason, makes what is wrong seem normal.

In an interview with Terri Gross, Grammy Award winning songwriter/singer Brandi Carlile was asked about her church’s refusal to baptize her when she was a teenager. The host, Terry Gross asked, “How were you told that you weren't going to be baptized?” Carlile responded,

I was doing the things I thought I was supposed to do. But on the day of my baptism my friends and family had all been invited to the church to see this go down. I got there and was taken aside and told that unless I declared that I intended to no longer be gay, that I couldn't be baptized that day. And it just came as such a shock … it was a big shift in my life spiritually and musically and emotionally.

Gross then asked, “What was the shift spiritually?” Carlile replied,

Well, it made me rethink, where God was in this church? Was God in these people? Was God in these displays of piety, like this grandstanding of baptism, and these testimonials? Or was God maybe in places I'd yet to go, like in music or outside of my town on out on the road out of my house?

At that point I had never even been on an airplane before. So, it's when I knew that it was time for me to seek beyond my station. ... It gave me a sense of a faith in God that's an unshakable by the whims of culture, by politics, by people or by organized religion, and by (the) church specifically.

Currently, Carlile and her wife have two children and they live on a compound in the state of Washington with their extended family. The singer/songwriter she idolized, Elton John, has become a friend.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Carlile turned away from her church and her evangelical faith because she would not give up her homosexual identity. Redefining church, the Bible, and God to fit one’s choice of lifestyle is extremely dangerous and an example of false postmodern religion.

In 2013, New York City narcotics agents announced an unusual indictment of five Brooklyn men. These types of indictments are, unfortunately, commonplace in metropolitan areas like New York, but this one did stand out.

The men who were charged were members of a Sabbath-observant drug ring. Though cavalier about New York’s drug laws, the group was scrupulous about observing the Sabbath. Text messages from members of the gang show them alerting their clientele of their weekly sundown-to-sunset hiatus.

Text messages, used as evidence against the group, included group chats to clients, “We are closing 7:30 on the dot and we will reopen Saturday 8:15 so if u need anything you have 45 mins to get what you want." The name of the NYPD sting operation that led to the drug bust: "Only After Sundown."

When a group of friends and families decided to hike to Shoshone Geyser Basin in Yellowstone, they tried to come prepared for the unexpected. But what they didn’t prepare for? Fines, probation, and a temporary ban from the park. Three of them pleaded guilty to the minor offense of “foot travel in a thermal area,” after being discovered by park rangers trying to cook their food in the park’s hot springs.

Park representative Linda Veress said, “A ranger responded and found two whole chickens in a burlap sack in a hot spring.” The ranger found the group and questioned them about their behavior before issuing citations. According to Veress, the laws in place that prohibit access beyond designated trails are there to protect not only the park itself, but the public as well. Hot spring waters can exceed 400 degrees Fahrenheit, with the potential to cause “severe or fatal burns.” Such was the case earlier this year, when a 3-year-old girl suffered second-degree burns after falling into a hydrothermal area. The same thing happened in 2016, but the 23-year-old died from his burns.

Eric Romriell says that he and his friends did their best to be careful, double-packing the chickens inside a roasting bag and a burlap sack to avoid contaminating the waters. He said, “The way I interpreted it was don’t be destructive, and I didn’t feel like I was.” Dallas Roberts, another member of the group, says he saw some signage indicating they were in a closed area, but didn’t think the signs applied to the hot springs themselves. He agreed that the group wasn’t doing any damage, but added, “I can see that we should not have done that.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

It's easy to rationalize disobedience when we think we're doing it for a good reason. But often the restrictions are in place for our own safety and protection. We violate them at our own peril.

It's hard to imagine that anything literally hanging from utility poles across Manhattan could be considered "hidden." But throughout the borough, about 18 miles of translucent wire stretches around the skyline, and most people have likely never noticed. It's called an eruv (pronounced “ay-rube”) and its existence is thanks to the Jewish Sabbath.

On the Sabbath, which is viewed as a day of rest, observant Jewish people aren't allowed to carry anything—books, groceries, even children—outside the home (doing so is considered "work"). The eruv encircles much of Manhattan, acting as a symbolic boundary that turns the very public streets of the city into a private space, much like one's own home. This allows people to freely communicate and socialize on the Sabbath—and carry whatever they please—without having to worry about breaking Jewish law.

As the writer Sharonne Cohen explains, eruvin were created by “the sages of the Talmud” to get around traditional prohibitions on carrying “house keys, prayer books, canes or walkers, and even children who cannot walk on their own.” New York City isn't the only metropolis in the US with an eruv. They are also in St. Louis, Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, and numerous other cities across the country.

A cynic might wonder at the effort required to string wire around huge swaths of public space, in order to allow adherents of a religion to do what the tenets of that religion would otherwise prohibit. Even some religiously-minded observers might find it hard to imagine a God that wouldn’t regard this as the flagrant concoction of a city-sized loophole.

Possible Preaching Angle:

1) Excuses; Rationalization - We might shake our heads to think that anyone could believe that they could get around God’s law using this scheme. But in retrospect, aren’t we guilty of the same thing when we push the boundaries and think that we can get away with finding a loophole in God’s laws when we sin? 2) Jewish People; Law; Sabbath - As a positive illustration, this might be a loophole but at least this story shows how seriously our Jewish friends take their commitment to honor the Sabbath.

Rabbi Adam Mintz, co-president of the Manhattan eruv, talks more about it in this video.

Author Anne Bokma left her fundamentalist Christian church in her 20s. She recently spent a full year investigating and experimenting with numerous forms of popular New Age spirituality, from yoga to witchcraft, magic mushrooms to death cafés.

Bokma recalls the time in her early 30s when she prayed really hard. She was eight months pregnant and in the hospital experiencing premature labor pains. A nurse waved the ultrasound wand over her belly and after many minutes of trying, could not detect a heartbeat. A doctor was called as Bokma and her husband started to panic. The doctor also could not find a heartbeat. Bokma immediately began “bargaining, begging and beseeching” God. She didn’t really believe in a supernatural entity who personally intervenes, “but this did not stop me from crying out for mercy in my hour of need.”

Bokma tells the rest of the story, showing that her prayer was never really sincere:

When all hope seems lost, praying means you’re at least doing something. After searching in vain for another couple of minutes, the doctor … picked up the cord attached to the ultrasound machine and dangled it in front of our eyes. It hadn’t been plugged in. Our baby was alive, though not because of divine intervention. This made me think about what Mark Twain must have meant when he said: “Under the circumstances, swearing seems more apt than prayer.” Some might have called this incident a miracle. We called her Ruby.

In an interview about his book (2020), apologist Timothy Paul Jones was asked:

In your final chapter, you talk about how one barrier to the faith is the way Christians, both throughout history and today, have used the Bible in ways that are abusive to the Bible. So many today find it difficult to trust a book that was used to justify the Crusades or used to justify chattel slavery. How would you answer the individual who’s struggling with that objection?

Jones replied:

Well my answer is the Beatles’ White Album. As we all know, the Beatles’ White Album, especially the song “Helter Skelter” was used by Charles Manson as an excuse for the Manson murders. He felt like the White Album was calling him to commit all of these murders, and yet nobody has ever indicted Paul McCartney for those murders. And the reason that they haven’t is because of the fact that the misuse of the White Album doesn’t reflect on its creator. Just because the White Album was misused doesn’t mean the creator of it was at fault. And I think we have to help people recognize that: The Bible is used [to justify terrible things]. But was it rightly used for these things?

The rain, a pileup on the freeway—"the boss has heard them all," said Gene Marks in The Washington Post. Excuses for being late to work are essentially the same in every industry, according to a Career Builder survey of more than 1000 HR managers. The most common reasons for employee tardiness are pretty familiar, with traffic (51 percent), oversleeping (31 percent), and weather (28 percent) topping a managers' list.

But among the most unique excuses bosses have heard: "I was here, but fell asleep in the parking lot," "my fake eyelashes were stuck together," and "an astrologer warned me of a car accident on a major highway, so I took all back roads. "Another that raised eyebrows: 'I had morning sickness'"—that was from a male employee. The article noted, "One things for sure: innovation is not dead in America."

Possible Preaching Angles: Funny, yes, but don't we all have our own creative ways of excusing our sin?

In her book Primal Loss, author Leila Miller explores the thoughts of 70 adults who watched their parents divorce. They still have negative feelings about it and have experienced significant impacts into their adult life as a result. Here are some excerpts:

I believe [the divorce] instilled a fear of abandonment in me with regard to all of my relationships. I developed problems trusting people to be there for me, believing that when the going got rough, people would leave me. I never learned any skills for solving conflict in relationships. As much as I desperately craved intimacy and love, the closer someone came to me, the more terrified I was of getting hurt, or worse—abandoned. I unconsciously sabotaged relationships, as I didn't know how to receive and accept real love …

I'd want people to know and understand that people with divorced parents see the world differently. It's just how it is. Even with the "best" divorces like mine, a seven-year-old should never be in a position to somehow take the responsibility of her parents' emotions. She should never have to think about which parent gets to hear or see something from her first, for fear of hurting the other parent's feelings. She should never have to feel like she doesn't belong in the home of her parents. None of these things were done on purpose. My parents did the best they could to keep me at the center, to keep me as the focus, so that my life could have minimal turbulence.

A parent might be able to totally start over with a new spouse … [but the children's] worlds will forever be fundamentally split. Forever. There is no starting over with a clean slate; things are now complicated and fractured. Divorce starts a family onto two different paths that, as the years unfold, grow further and further apart. It's not a onetime event, but rather an ever-changing and ever-widening gap that only the children are really tasked with straddling and reconciling, season after season, change after change.

Bottom line: even the best divorces have profound, apparently life-long negative effects on the children. Parents who rationalize their divorce as somehow better for the children are engaging in denial, plain and simple.

In his book, Dan Ariely talks about our tendency to be dishonest when we're in a tough spot. John Ortberg expounds on it in his book, Soul Keeping:

Ariely's book clearly gives empirical verification for what you and I know happens all the time. Here is a tiny example I hope you cannot relate to: Ariely says, "Over the course of many years of teaching, I have noticed that there typically seems to be a rash of deaths among students' relatives at the end of the semester. It happens mostly in the week before final exams and before papers are due." Guess which relative most often dies? Grandma. I am not making this stuff up.

[Another research study] has shown that grandmothers are ten times more likely to die before a midterm and nineteen times more likely to die before a final exam. Worse, grandmothers of students who are not doing well in class are at even higher risk. Students who are failing are fifty times more likely to lose Grandma than non-failing students. It turns out that the greatest predictor of mortality among senior citizens in our day ends up being their grandchildren's GPAs. The moral of all this is, if you are a grandparent, do not let your grandchild go to college. It'll kill you, especially if he or she is intellectually challenged.

When it comes to excuses, law enforcement officers tend to have heard them all. But recently two drivers came up with some novel excuses. When a driver in Western Australia was pulled over for driving 10 miles per hour over the speed limit, he told police, "The wind was pushing me." The comment didn't amuse the officer, or prevent him from writing a $150 ticket.

Then in the Chicago area, a 25-year-old woman was pulled over by police around 4:15 a.m. after officers watched her vehicle cross the center lane and the double yellow line. When officers pulled the vehicle over, the woman told them she was coming from a bar and "was doing nothing wrong," according to authorities. Then she told police she was driving to White Castle so she could "sober up." One of the police officers note, "Numerous avenues are available to those who chose to drink to get home safely such as Uber and Lyft. Driving around to sober up is not one of them."

You've seen them—the colorful, wristwatch-like fitness trackers. (Maybe you're even wearing one right now.) They count your steps, give you stats on your sleeping habits, and more. Sounds like a great way to get healthier and maybe lose weight in the process, right? Well, maybe not. A study claims that the wearers of these popular pieces of wrist wear lost less weight than people who didn't wear them.

And, even more surprising, it turns out the problem might be the wearers themselves. The lead author of the study put it this way: "These technologies are focused on physical activity, like taking steps and getting your heart rate up. [But then the wearers of these devices] would say, 'Oh, I exercised a lot today, now I can eat more.' And they might eat more than they otherwise would have." As a result, the researcher concluded, "It doesn't look like assigning someone wearable technology will make that big of a difference." As an article on NPR noted, "Ultimately these devices are most effective when the people using them are already dedicated to tracking their fitness. People who are less motivated might not get the same results."

Possible Preaching Angles: (1) Sin; Blame; Responsibility—Living in a fallen, sinful world—with fallen, sinful natures—means that we can only place so much blame on our circumstances. Oftentimes, we are the problem. (2) Spiritual disciplines; Motivation; Spiritual Growth—Just "wearing" spiritual disciplines (like participating in worship, listening to a sermon, or reading Scripture, etc.) won't make us more spiritually fit. It also requires our motivation and inner attitude.

Johnny Depp says that he doesn't have a "physical need" for alcohol, but in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine he also admitted,

[Alcohol is] more my medication, my self-medication over the years just to calm the circus. Once the circus kicks in, the festivities in the brain, it can be ruthless.

I'm kind of socially inept. And [alcohol] was always a great crutch. Mingling at parties and stuff like that has always been not a nice experience for me. It's just not comfortable …. So I found I needed to drink in those situations. Just slam a couple down and go, "OK, I can muster up enough small talk to meander my way through this thing and get out the other side unscathed."

Possible Preaching Angles: (1) Alcohol; Addiction; Bondage, Spiritual—Like all of us, Johnny Depp is in spiritual bondage to something that he needs to make it through life. (2) Idol; Idolatry—Depp calls alcohol his "crutch." Isn't that just like having an idol? (3) Anxiety; Fear; Worry—Notice how even someone as famous and successful as Johnny Depp struggles with anxiety and fear in social situations.

In his book Predictably Irrational, researcher Dan Ariely claims that most of us are masters at deceiving ourselves and justifying our actions. In particular, we often make our decisions based not on what's right, but on what we want.

Ariely tells his own story of buying a car. "When I turned thirty," he writes, "I decided it was time to trade in my motorcycle for a car, but I could not decide which car was right for me. The web was just taking off, and to my delight I found a site that provided advice on purchasing cars." Professor Ariely describes how he answered all of the questions on the website, which then recommended that he purchase a Ford Taurus. He describes his reaction this way:

The problem was that, having just surrendered my motorcycle, I couldn't see myself driving a sedate sedan. I was now facing a dilemma: I had tried a deliberative and thoughtful process for my car selection, and I didn't like the answer I got. So, I did what I think anyone in my position would do. I hit the BACK button a few times, backtracked to earlier stages of the interview process, and changed many of my original answers to what I convinced myself were more accurate and appropriate responses .… I kept this up until the car-advertising website suggested a Mazda Miata. The moment the program was kind enough to recommend a small convertible, I felt grateful for the fantastic software and decided to follow its advice.

Commenting on what he learned in the process, Professor Ariely says, "The experience taught me that sometimes we want our decisions to have a rational veneer when, in fact, they stem from … what we crave deep down."

Possible Preaching Angles: (1) God's Will—With our tendency towards self-deception, we sometimes determine God's will based on what we really wanted in the first place. In other words, God's will = what we want. (2) Desires, sinful—Although some of our desires are good and healthy, some of our desires are based on the sinful bent of our heart.

There's a story about a man who walks into a restaurant and orders a Coke. As soon as he receives it, he throws it in the waiter's face. The waiter is ready to fight, but the man says, "Oh, I'm so sorry. I have a horrible compulsion. I can't help it. Whenever someone hands me a drink, I throw it in their face. Please, forgive me." Then the guy says, "I'm working hard to overcome this compulsion. Would you bring me another Coke?"

The waiter says, "Do you promise not to throw it in my face?"

The guy responds, "I'm going to do everything I can not to throw it in your face. I'm working really hard to resist."

So the waiter says, "Okay, I'll bring you another one."

Soon the waiter comes back with another Coke, and the guy throws it in the waiter's face. The waiter says, "I thought you said you wouldn't do that."

The guy apologizes: "Oh, this compulsion is so strong. I promise you that I will check myself into an in-patient clinic to get some help. Forgive me. I'm so sorry."

The guy felt genuine guilt and sorrow, so he checks himself into a clinic, and for one month he gets intense psychotherapy to deal with his compulsion. When he gets out of the clinic, he goes back to the same restaurant, and he walks in and says, "I'm cured. Give me a drink."

The waiter says, "Wait a minute. I had to change my shirt last time you were here. Are you sure you're cured?"

The guy says, "I know I'm cured. I promise."

The waiter says, "Okay, if you're cured, I'll bring you a Coke." And so the waiter brings him a Coke. The guy looks at it and throws it right in the waiter's face. The waiter says, "I thought you said you were cured."

The guy says, "I am cured. I still have the compulsion, but I don't feel guilty about it anymore."

In his book Wired for Intimacy, Christian psychologist William M. Struthers lists the following stages of how men get hooked on pornography:

• Denial—"Sure," they may say, "I've looked at it in the past, but I don't anymore." Most men will confess their struggle with pornography only under the conditions of anonymity and confidentiality.
• Minimization—At this stage a man will argue that his pornography use is insignificant and has no real effect on his life. He might say, "Well, I do look at porn, but only occasionally. It's not like I'm addicted to it or anything."
• Normalization—At the next stage men say, "Everybody does it." Explaining the use of pornography as a common form of entertainment is referred to as normalization.
• Rationalization and Justification—At this stage a man finds logical reasons to argue why porn is okay. You rationalize what you are going to do and you justify what you just did.
• Celebration—Over time and with repeated exposure, many men so completely buy into the deception of pornography that they don't feel a need to defend their habit. Instead, they even celebrate it. As a result, a man's conscience is seared and his moral compass becomes seriously compromised.

The authors of the book Mistakes Were Made (but not by me) argue that our tendency to justify our actions is more powerful and deceptive than an explicit lie. They write:

[Self-justification] allows people to convince themselves that what they did was the best thing they could have done. In fact, come to think of it, it was the right thing. "There was nothing else I could have done." "Actually, it was a brilliant solution to the problem." "I was doing the best for the nation." "Those [jerks] deserved what they got." "I'm entitled."

[For example], when researchers ask husbands and wives what percentage of the housework they do, the wives say, "Are you kidding? I do almost everything, at least 90 percent." And the husbands say, "I do a lot, about 40 percent." Although the specific numbers differ from couple to couple, the total always exceeds 100 percent by a significant margin. It's tempting to conclude that one spouse is lying, but it is more likely that each is remembering in a way that enhances his or her contribution.

Over time, as the self-serving distortions of memory kick in … we come to believe our own lies, little by little. We know we did something wrong, but we gradually begin to think that it wasn't our fault, and after all, the situation was complex. We start underestimating our own responsibility, whittling away at it until it is a mere shadow of its former hulking self.