Promise Keepers Chairman and CEO Ken Harrison recently made an argument against pornography during the two-hour virtual kickoff of the 2022 Promise Keepers Marriage Summit event that was livestreamed on Monday.
During the event, the leader of the men's ministry organization recounted a conversation he had with fellow men in which they spoke about pornography.
According to the Christian Post, Harrison recalled how some of his male friends said "they couldn't help themselves" when it comes to porn consumption and that "God created them to be that way." The Promise Keepers CEO argued against them, saying that it was untrue.
"God didn't create you to be that way. God created you to have an intense longing for your wife," Harrison explained. "For the two to become one flesh. Sin created that same longing for every other woman."
Harrison went on to explain that the Bible teaches Christians to "flee from sin" and "[run] in terror from it" because it will ruin one's relationship with his wife and children. The Promise Keepers CEO added that men need not "live their lives laden down with lustful thoughts and lust."
"The Bible didn't tell you to flee from lustful desires when it couldn't actually happen," Harrison explained. "You can't get there in your flesh, you can't get there by trying harder, you can't get there by feeling guilty, but you can get there by giving your life over to Christ."
Harrison also spoke about female sex workers who are employed in the porn industry, saying that these women in porn are not "doing it because she's having fun" but rather "because she's been sexually traumatized, or abused, or trafficked."
The Promise Keepers CEO warned that the people behind the porn industry aren't creating the filthy material "because they're your friends" but because "they make more money to exploit more women" every single time a person consumes pornographic content.
The statistics in the U.S. when it comes to porn are staggering. According to CovenantEyes, only 55% of adults aged 25 and older believe porn is wrong. Meanwhile, 90% of teens and 96% of young adults are "either encouraging, accepting, or neutral when they talk about porn with their friends."
Moreover, only 43% of teens believe porn is "bad for society" compared to only 31% of young adults aged 18 to 24, 51% of millennials, 44% of Gen X-ers, and 59% of Boomers. When it comes to religion vis-a-vis porn, "64% of Christian men and 15% of Christian women say they watch porn at least once a month."
When it comes to how porn impacts marriages, 68% of divorce cases in the U.S. actually stem from one party meeting a new lover through the Internet, while 56% involved one party having "an obsessive interest in pornographic websites." In addition, up to 70% of wives of sex addicts may be diagnosed with PTSD.
Porn has several negative impacts on marriage, including a dramatically reduced trust between intimate couples, a belief that promiscuity is the "natural state," which leads back to Harrison's friends belief that "God made them that way," and a lack of attraction to family and child-raising - all of which are devastating.
