Carl Thomas, who recently took over XXXChurch from Craig Gross, knows all too well the harms of porn, having been addicted for many years before finally breaking free.
Sadly, he says there was little help from the Church - something he wants to change.
He speaks to Christian Today about what the Church can do to really help those struggling with secret addictions just like he was.
CT: How has porn addiction affected you personally?
Carl: I was what you would call the 'typical case', just a kid growing up in a super religious household where we never talked about these topics. My first experience of porn would have been when I was about 10. I was at my friend's house and he had found a Playboy magazine. It really went from there and grew over time. Back then it was VHS tapes and the cable box, but when I went to college that was when the internet started kicking in.
CT: And that ramped up the addiction?
Carl: Oh yeah, because it made the access a lot easier, which meant that a lot more was being consumed.
CT: At what point did you decide you'd had enough?
Carl: My addiction continued all through dating and didn't stop even after getting married and having our first child. But there was this one time I had pneumonia and thought I was going to die. I felt like it was God's judgement on me and so I went to my wife in tears, confessing all these issues that she didn't even know about.
It didn't go away overnight. There was another four or five years of ups and downs, but I just remember getting more serious about my faith in general and hearing a really good message from a pastor about being all in. It was from that point that I started to tackle the issue a lot more head on, I found a good accountability partner and around the same time started going to seminary after being in the insurance business for 17 years.
I particularly remember one conversation I had with someone that opened my eyes to the fact that this issue was holding me back from everything I wanted to do. I started to be able to say 'no' because I realized it just wasn't worth what I was losing.
CT: It's interesting that your struggle went hand in hand with being a churchgoing Christian. Did you ever feel like your church was somewhere you could get help?
Carl: The answer to that question is very easy: no. And that's what makes ministries like XXXChurch a necessity. Because you can't find the help and support you need in the places you need it. I'm not trying to trash the church but what you find is a lot of churches talking about how bad porn is while at the same time not really being prepared to talk about this stuff with the people experiencing it. There are of course some churches tackling this problem aggressively, but I would say they are few and far between.
CT: What's your priority in taking over XXXChurch?
Carl: One of the things I'm most passionate about is getting to the bottom of this question: why are we so afraid of tackling this thing? Why are we so hesitant to talk about it? It's a tough subject but that's no excuse. Why do pastors think they can get off the hook by just getting up one Sunday a year to do their 'porn message' and point out the elephant in the room, but not do anything to actually help people?
I've heard so many of these messages that they're almost predictable. For one thing, they usually focus on men and overlook the women, which really sucks for the women struggling with this. But they generally go something like: hey men, you kind of suck if you do this; it's hurting your marriage; it breaks up relationships and families; you really need to talk to someone and get some help; good luck! That's basically the message.
They never actually step forward with a resource or a programme that can help people. And the guy in the pew is sitting there thinking, talk to who? That's been the problem, I don't know who to talk to and clearly you don't want to talk to me because you've just told me to go and talk to someone else!
CT: What in your experience tends to happen when someone steps forward to say they are struggling with this?
Carl: I've heard the same stories all the time. Someone comes to me and says: 'I went to my pastor and it didn't go well.' Or: 'I went to my pastor and the response was just: you need to pray more.'
But, seriously, the Church needs to do better than that!
In my own case, for example, everyone came to know I was the XXXChurch porn guy because a local newspaper did a story on me. I was tired of feeling ashamed and it's part of my story. I'm not proud of my porn addiction, but I am proud I was able to overcome it and that my journey could be used by God. But after that, whenever guys came up to me in church, there was a 95% chance he was going to talk to me about his porn issue. It was like I was the only guy in church that people felt comfortable talking about this with.
CT: Why do you think it's like this?
Carl: I think the average person would feel more comfortable walking into a church and admitting they have a drug problem or alcohol problem than a porn problem. Or for example, debt problems. It's easy to say you are a financial mess in church and you can get help for that. It's the kind of thing you can talk about over a coffee and no one's going to judge you. But if you admit that you have a porn problem, it becomes a 'behind the curtain' conversation - because it's sex and sex is kind of dirty and icky.
In the new evangelical climate, it's very trendy to be like 'oh, we're a seeker church and we're here for hurting people'. But bring up masturbation in your small group and see how many people are rushing to have that conversation! But if we can't talk about it in the church setting, where can Christians talk about it? Church should be a safe place to talk about these things but it's not and that's why so many people stay trapped.
Until we get to a point in church culture where we can talk about this like we can talk about other stuff, it's not going to get better, because I think the thing that keeps guys trapped more often than not is fear - fear of being found out, fear of being 'that guy', so they don't reach out and they just try to manage it on their own or do some self-study. And it doesn't work and so because of that culture they stay trapped.
CT: It's interesting that church culture is like this when we live in such a sex-saturated society.
Carl: The sexualization of our culture is all around us so it's a little weird if we don't talk about it. But there's also sexualization happening inside the Church too. There are important questions around what our speakers and worship leaders wear, for example, and what we wear going to church. Some people go to church wearing something that almost looks like it's for the club. It's ok to want to dress nicely but who are we dressing for?
So there is a sexualization happening even within the Church. Are we just not going to talk about that?
It's the ultimate irony that people will come from outside in the world where literally everything is sexualized, and come into the church and see everyone wearing tight clothes and looking sexy, and the pastor up on the stage talking about his hot wife, and they will think it's not that different here. Except that it is, because out in the world, you can actually talk with your friends about your porn issue, while in church, all of those conversations around porn are curtailed.
