Digg Covers Evangelicals and Porn
An interesting development has been taking place on the popular news site digg.com. An article entitled Poll Finds that Evangelicals are Addicted to Porn made it to the front page of the "World and Business" section. This in turn linked to a press release hawking the site ChristiaNet.com and their recent survey of site visitors about sexuality. According to the press release, the "cancerous infection of pornography" has made addicts of 50% of all Christian men and 20% of all Christian women.
The press release is rather abusive of both statistics and language, and really has no business being read for data. It is simply an advertising piece for ChristiaNet.com and Second Glance Ministries (a ministry aiming to promote healthy and pure sexuality among Christians). Somewhat more interesting is the actual survey data available on ChristiaNet.com's website.
A quick glance at the survey should raise several concerns about the claims made in the press release, which in turn made their way onto digg.com.
The basic repression argument against Christian sexual morality is that Christianity rejects sexual activity except within the bonds of marriage and thus represses natural human desires which end up manifesting themselves in other ways (cited examples range from pornography viewing to child molestation). It is a fairly basic and fairly common argument. The problem that people seem to have in countering it is a strong tendency just to point to the Bible or to theology and say, "No, God says don't do it."
While from a logical level, that should be sufficient for a believer, it is rather unsatisfying. If Christians are going to go around "repressing" natural urges, shouldn't the focus be on what such repression is nurturing? If God really says, "don't be promiscuous" or "don't look at porn" doesn't he have a reason? And if there is a reason for the rule, wouldn't it make more sense to focus on the reason and its benefits, rather than to point to the rule itself? My frustration and dissatisfaction with Christian sexual morality has always been that it provides a strict rule without any clear explanation of the reason behind it. When debating points about Christianity in a cultural marketplace like digg.com, I really wish Christians would offer more than "don't"s.
The press release is rather abusive of both statistics and language, and really has no business being read for data. It is simply an advertising piece for ChristiaNet.com and Second Glance Ministries (a ministry aiming to promote healthy and pure sexuality among Christians). Somewhat more interesting is the actual survey data available on ChristiaNet.com's website.
A quick glance at the survey should raise several concerns about the claims made in the press release, which in turn made their way onto digg.com.
- This survey is terribly subject to self-selection bias. Since it was an Internet survey to visitors of the ChristiaNet.com site, the people taking the quiz are clearly relatively Internet savvy. And the most available source of pornography today is the Internet. But many Christians, perhaps even most, are not Internet savvy, and thus pornography is much less accessible.
- At the same time, questions about one's personal sin are probably subject to underreporting--so it's impossible to claim any sort of accuracy.
- The survey never asked about addiction to pornography. In fact, the question is "Have you ever struggled with pornography?" which is entirely different from "Are you currently addicted to pornography?" To make the leap that anyone who has ever struggled with pornography is currently addicted to it is absurd.
- If 50% of males were really addicted to pornography, more than 40% of them would be masturbating (190 out 463 reported masturbation was a part of their life).
- Many non-Christians posting on digg (at least those who weren't trolling simply to bash religion) pointed out that it seemed hypocritical for Evangelicals to condemn the very thing they were doing. In turn, it was argued, that it's not hypocritical because they are admitting that they are sinning, and the admission of their own failure is an important step towards recovery and sin. If you actually look at the survey results, this shouldn't even be a debate: 57% of males and 40% of females admitted to sexual sin. It's confession, not hypocrisy. Any moral or ethical framework of any substance, Christian or otherwise, would come crashing down if it could not be espoused by those who fail to live up to the goal they set for themselves.
The basic repression argument against Christian sexual morality is that Christianity rejects sexual activity except within the bonds of marriage and thus represses natural human desires which end up manifesting themselves in other ways (cited examples range from pornography viewing to child molestation). It is a fairly basic and fairly common argument. The problem that people seem to have in countering it is a strong tendency just to point to the Bible or to theology and say, "No, God says don't do it."
While from a logical level, that should be sufficient for a believer, it is rather unsatisfying. If Christians are going to go around "repressing" natural urges, shouldn't the focus be on what such repression is nurturing? If God really says, "don't be promiscuous" or "don't look at porn" doesn't he have a reason? And if there is a reason for the rule, wouldn't it make more sense to focus on the reason and its benefits, rather than to point to the rule itself? My frustration and dissatisfaction with Christian sexual morality has always been that it provides a strict rule without any clear explanation of the reason behind it. When debating points about Christianity in a cultural marketplace like digg.com, I really wish Christians would offer more than "don't"s.
posted by VK | 9:35 AM
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