Posted on 01/14/2002 2:14:57 PM PST by truthandlife
Two young ministers have taken a provocative approach to combating pornography.
Craig Gross and Mike Foster have launched what they bill as "the No. 1 Christian porn site," and taken their message to the heart of the adult-entertainment world.
The pair took a booth at the annual "Adult Video News" trade show in Las Vegas last week, the showcase for the multibillion-dollar porn industry that includes its own "Oscars" for categories such as "most outrageous sex scene."
"If Jesus were walking the earth today, we think that He'd be here, too," Gross told the Los Angeles Times. "After all, [He] hung out with prostitutes and stuff." Gross and Foster were there to talk about their new website, which aims to help people leave the porn industry and get free from Internet-porn addiction.
Gross said they did not go to judge. "What good would that do? We decided the best thing to do was to actually be in the show and try to talk to the people in the industry in a professional and respectful manner and not be confrontational."
Gross and Foster hope their XXXChurch.com site might draw cyberspace surfers looking for pornography. They say they recognize the name might offend some, but they chose it because "it's provocative and memorable. We have combined the seedy and the sacred for a purpose. We wanted the name to stick in the minds of millions."
The site includes a "prayer wall" where visitors can post appeals for prayer, free "accountability software" that tracks a computer's users' Internet travels, and a sign-up form on which supporters pledge to be accountable about their own struggles and be honest about "the dirty little secret."
The new ministry is backed by the pair's friends at Crossroads Christian Church in Fullerton, Calif., where Gross is on staff.
"As a church and a ministry, it is very near our hearts to help people overcome sexual addiction and to help them have healthy sexual boundaries with other people," senior associate pastor Jud Wilhite told the Times. "Obviously, this ministry is directed right at that and going right into the middle of that arena, trying to be a light."
At the AVN show, the XXXChurch booth was wedged between a company advertising explicit Japanese cartoons and another selling gay sex films, the Times reported. Some in the industry dismissed the ministry, said the newspaper – but it did find one actress who prayed the rosary each week and said, "I believe in prayer and God. It makes me a better person."
At their website, Gross and Foster say the church has "an incredible opportunity to be a place of true healing and restoration for hurting and broken people in regards to pornography. But it must first be bold enough and care enough to take on the dirty little secret."
They say they are trying to tackle Internet porn head-on: "We believe that if the pornographers are using the Net to promote their product, then we need to use the Internet to promote our message."
Charisma News Service is a division of Strang Communications.
You're probably right, but who knows? Serious Catholic historians no longer doubt that there have been several popes that could have partied with Caligula.
In one of the countless porn threads here on FR there was a source everybody found believable that put the revenue at a couple hundred mil a year. Still a fair chunk of change, but nothing rivaling Coke. For good reason, if there were THAT much money in a decentralized industry like porn why would anybody go into any other business. If there were 13 billion a year in porn revenue without the distribution and advertising moxy Coke has to beer just how many trillion do you think Coke could make if they switched businesses?
No one under 18 is allowed into the adult areas.
I assume that you are referring to this passage:
1 Cor.5:9 ¶ I wrote to you in my epistle not to associate with immoral people: 10 Yet not altogether with immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then ye must needs go out of the world. 11 But now I have written to you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such a person no not to eat.
The prohibition is against eating with someone who calls himself a brother (a Christian), not with unbelievers, because that would mean we could not minister to them and persuade them to come to Christ. I believe that it is quite possible that God has directed these men into this ministry.
So do I. Good for them :)
Years ago a friend said to me that, "Jesus ate with the junkies, but he didn't shoot up with them."
Looks like this outfit crosses over that line.
I wonder if they're a front for "The Family" (formerly known as "Moses Berg's" outfit, "The Children of God", famous for such travesties as "flirty fishing" and so forth)?
I don't see anything wrong. In fact, it all looks good. These guys are out there, on the frontlines.
I always thought it would be a sad day when we express more shock and concern at people out there trying to turn people away from destructing themselves and/or others.
Sad day, today.
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