Pornography

NASHVILLE (BP) – Pornhub’s recent reaction after its site was reported to be swarming with rape videos, even of children, still falls short of what is needed, a Southern Baptist theologian and an ethicist said.

OMRO, Wis. (BP) -- A great majority of Protestant pastors were approached by staff or members for help with marital infidelity, premarital sex, pornography and other sexual sins, according to new data released by Barna Group spanning a year. But only a third of pastors said they felt "very qualified" to address the preponderance of issues staff and members broached, Barna said in the survey of 410 mainline and non-mainline senior and executive pastors. Eighty percent of pastors including Southern Baptists were asked to help or counsel a staff or church member dealing with marital infidelity, the most prevalent problem in the study, Barna said.

GREAT FALLS, Va. (BP) -- Internet safety advocate Enough Is Enough (EIE) continues to call for Starbucks to keep its November pledge to block Wi-Fi pornography from its 29,000 U.S. coffee shops by 2019. "We will continue to engage the media to keep the pressure on Starbucks until they finally implement filtering in their U.S.-based stores," EIE President and CEO Donna Rice Hughes said today (Dec. 3). "It's time for America's children and families to enjoy the same peace of mind in a safe Wi-Fi environment that Starbucks offers its loyal customer base in other nations."

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP) -- A free e-book, "Porn and the Pastor: The Life and Death Consequences of Addiction in Ministry," has been published jointly by Southern Equip, a resource center for pastors from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and The Gospel Coalition, a fellowship of churches in the Reformed tradition. The e-book, edited by C. Jeffery Robinson and Garrett Kell, is available as a download at The Gospel Coalition website, thegospelcoalition.org.

RICHMOND, Va. (BP) -- Let me just come out and say it: pornography is a problem that impacts the mission field. In our #MeToo era, we're used to seeing web articles speaking of the dangers of pornography. We hear -- and it is most certainly true -- that pornography is both the result of and fuel for the objectification of humanity. Pornography makes another human less like a person and more like a snack. And yet, so often our recent reminders on the internet about the dangers of, well, the internet and other peddlers of this smut focus on that young man alone in his bedroom late at night. However, the grip of pornography reaches into more than ...

NASHVILLE (BP) -- Churches and parents must model and emphasize a godly respect for human sexuality to protect children from the pervasive and savvy culture of pornography, speakers in a religious webinar addressing the subject said Tuesday (Nov. 7.) No longer adequate are the internet filters parents have relied on to prevent exposure to pornography, said Dean Inserra, lead pastor of City Church, a Southern Baptist congregation in Tallahassee, Fla. He was the main speaker in the webinar hosted by the interfaith Religious Alliance Against Pornography (RAAP).

NASHVILLE (BP) -- How to counter teen pornography use within faith communities is the subject of a webinar to be hosted twice in November by the Religious Alliance Against Pornography. Among the webinar's presenters is Dean Inserra, pastor of City Church in Tallahassee, Fla. At least two Southern Baptists serve on the alliance's advisory board: K. Marshall Williams, pastor of Nazarene Baptist Church in Philadelphia, and Dan Darling, the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission's vice president for communications.

NASHVILLE (BP) -- At least five states have officially declared pornography a public health crisis or harmful to the public, and at least one other is considering a similar measure, according to bill updates filed on state legislature websites. A resolution passed by the Tennessee Legislature declaring pornography a public health hazard was awaiting Gov. Bill Haslam's signature April 21. Days earlier, Tennessee became the fourth state to adopt such a resolution, joining Utah, South Dakota and Arkansas.

NASHVILLE (BP) -- The National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) has released its 2017 Dirty Dozen List of companies most responsible for promoting pornography and sex crimes among adults and children in homes, libraries, hotels and other places. Amazon, the American Library Association (ALA), Amnesty International, Backpage.com, Cosmopolitan magazine, HBO, Snapchat and YouTube are repeats on the 2017 list, with the ALA and Cosmopolitan making the list the past five consecutive years. Comcast, EBSCO Information Services, Roku and Twitter are newcomers.

NASHVILLE (BP) -- Tennessee and Virginia would become the latest states in the U.S. to declare pornography a public health hazard under resolutions introduced in the states' legislatures. Tennessee Senate Joint Resolution 35, which was filed in the state Senate Tuesday (Jan. 24), urges the state to "recognize pornography as a public health hazard leading to a broad spectrum of individual and public health impacts and societal harms." The resolution acknowledges the need for "education, prevention, research, and policy change at the community and societal level in order to address the epidemic" harming the state and nation.