Confession of a Nerd (Reflections on Porn, Part 1)

Mark Driscoll is releasing a book on Porn. I applaud anyone in the Church who talks about this issue, the silence is killing us. The very nature of Porn is something to be hidden and done in isolation, so bringing the discussion out in the open is the first step we as the Church need to take. I should start by saying I was addicted to Porn since I was very young, I didn't have access to Porn until I was 18. That might not make sense to some, but hopefully over the next couple of days I will walk through my journey and it will become clear. I should also say that Christ is the over comer, if not for Him I would still be enslaved to my addiction. I also think there are things Christ would have us do in response to addiction. I do think the way we approach Sexual Addiction (Porn Addiction is included in this) needs to be modified. I'll get into this later.

This post I want to talk about how I believe I cultivated a heart where this addiction would thrive, and this is the part that makes me a little leery of Driscoll's methods. First I don't know anything about Driscoll's book other than the Intro and the 1st chapter. I hope he nails it. The second is that wanting to be really macho and tough led me to Porn. I have struggled to listen to what Mark says because often times he is blatantly promoting that all Christian males should be macho and tough. I grew up with a father who was a great wrestler and a muscular construction worker. I grew up looking up to sports hero's and cowboy's. Seems pretty normal and all American. I played sports all through High School. The thing is God gave me a brain that is really good in Math and Science, and a body to match that brain. I'm skinny and mediocre to below average in sports. There is nothing wrong with that, unless you're in a culture that idolizes sports and the macho/tough image of males. The assumption in my young brain was that I am failing at "being a man". The next step was to find a place where I could be a tough man, and that turned out to be my own fantasies. This is where the root of the problem of sexual addiction lies. Paul talks about exchanging the truth for a lie, and that is what we do with Porn. The images just help us further convince our lying mind that our fantasy is real. This is my problem with the tough guy image. Being a man does not mean being "tough".

Of course I only notice this in retrospect. Driscoll is my brother, no matter how I feel about his style. This is just a caution when we promote that God wants all males to be macho and tough, we may be destroying the nerd who is sitting on the back row.