Podcast: Pornography, addiction, and the Church: A conversation with Ian Henderson from The Naked Truth Project

This article is part of the Affinity Talks Gospel Podcast series.

Content Warning: This episode discusses sensitive topics related to pornography and its impact on individuals and society. While handled with care, parents may wish to listen first before playing it around younger children.

In this episode of Affinity Talks Gospel Podcast, Graham Nicholls and Lizzie Harewood are joined by Ian Henderson, Founder and CEO of the Naked Truth Project, a ministry committed to ‘opening eyes and freeing lives’ from the damaging effects of pornography. Ian shares his personal story and explains how the accessibility and nature of online pornography have changed dramatically in recent years, creating serious challenges for individuals and society.

The conversation explores the reality of porn addiction, its impact on relationships and mental health, and the Church’s role in offering hope and support. Ian provides practical advice for parents, pastors, and church leaders on how to engage with the issue, helping those who struggle and equipping the next generation to navigate a hyper-sexualised culture.

With insights from neuroscience, biblical teaching, and over a decade of ministry experience, this is an essential conversation for anyone seeking to understand the pervasive influence of pornography and how to respond with wisdom and compassion.

To access the free resources the Naked Truth Project provide visit: nakedtruthproject.com

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Topics addressed in this Podcast:

• The impact of pornography on individuals and society – Ian Henderson explains how the accessibility and nature of online pornography have changed dramatically, leading to addiction, relationship struggles, and broader cultural effects.
• Engaging with non-Christians on this issue – The discussion explores how to talk about the harms of pornography in secular settings, using scientific research and real-world consequences rather than purely theological arguments.
• Cultural double standards and the ethical porn debate – The episode examines society’s contradictory attitudes towards pornography, including the increasing push for so-called ‘ethical’ porn.
• How churches and pastors can address pornography – Practical advice is given for church leaders on how to talk about this issue with their congregations in a way that reduces shame, offers hope, and provides meaningful support.
• Resources and support for those struggling – Ian shares information about free tools and programmes available to individuals, parents, and churches to help those affected by pornography use and addiction.

Transcript

[AI generated]

[0:11] Hello and welcome to Affinity Talk’s Gospel Podcast.

[0:14] You are most welcome. My name is Graham Nicholls, the Director of Affinity, and I’m joined by Lizzie, who can introduce herself. Hi, I’m Lizzie. I am Executive Officer at the Association of Christian Teachers, but I’m here to help host this podcast, and we’re here as well with Ian Henderson from the Naked Truth Project, Have I got the name right there? You have, yeah. Naked Truth Project is exactly right. I didn’t know whether it had a definite article there. Well, do you know, I’m sure the branding people in our team would be very concerned about whether it’s there or not. I tend to be a little bit more flexible about whether I include it or not. We’ll get an angry email at some point. That’s right. Tell us a bit about yourself, Ian, sort of before we’re talking about the actual organization, tell us anything that would be useful to know about you.

[1:14] Yeah, OK. So I live in Manchester with my wife and we have two daughters. So one is 21. She actually lives in Rio at the moment. So that’s where she is. And then our other one is nearly 18 and she’s still with us in Manchester at the moment. I’m not, as you can tell by my accent, a Mancunian by birth. So we moved up about 20 years ago, a little bit longer than that, to do some work here and have stayed. So it’s our adopted city. But yeah, and that’s where we are. And what else do you want to know? We’ve got a smelly dog. Where did you grow up?

[1:57] Uh, well, a little bit all over the place. I did my kind of teenage years in, in Norfolk, actually on the Norfolk coast, uh, a place called Hunstanton, sunny honey, uh, was where I went to school.

[2:11] Um, I was actually born in Oxford and so kind of spent some time in Oxfordshire as well before that.

[2:16] So yeah, I’ve, I’ve kind of moved around about and so I have a few little Norfolk kind of accent things so i say january um instead of january um but i don’t i do say human not human so i’ve sort of somehow kept some things and not other things from being from norfolk would you call yourself a nowhere person that’s the kind of sociological definition that people are oh that’s not one i’ve heard of um yeah i guess yeah it’s interesting isn’t it and my i mean my girls are born and bred mancunians and there’s definitely identity in that isn’t it for people who have kind of been in one place all their life um certainly throughout their childhood um but uh yeah i i’ve not heard that one before a nowhere person yeah i think that there’s somewhere people are nowhere nowhere person as person who’s still moved around a lot um okay you can google it’s probably a better definition than i’ve just given you but it’s it’s a kind of phenomenon um it’s changing a bit because of economics lots of people are going back to their hometowns to have to live after university now so they they become a bit more rooted in their area but um what would you call yourself lizzie i mean i’m a northerner i was born in i was born in the northwest actually spent my first 18 years there but i’ve moved around i’ve also lived in oxfordshire ian

[3:32] and wales and now i’m um in yorkshire okay i’ll definitely say i’m a northerner yeah um Ian.

[3:41] You started this organization, which we correctly named, Ish, Naked Truth Project.

[3:47] What is it? And then you can tell us why. And then make a follow-up to that. But what is this project? And then why did you do it? Yeah, so Naked Truth has a mission to open eyes and free lives from the damaging impact of pornography. That’s our kind of what. And in many ways, that’s really, I guess, two key areas of work. So we talk about having work that’s both upstream and downstream. So downstream would be where we know in society, in local church as well, people are drowning because of their porn use. There’s addiction, there’s struggle, there’s dismay, there’s discouragement. And so part of our work is recovery work. That free lives bit is about actually providing practical support and help trying to pull people out of the water, trying to give people hope and help that they need. But also you maybe heard the kind of famous Desmond Tutu quote.

[4:57] Or story, it’s almost like a parable really of a man who was rescuing people that he saw were drowning in a river and then he would rescue one and then another and then another. And Desmond Tutu says at some point, someone has to go upstream and find out why all these people are falling in the river in the first place. And I guess that’s the other part of our work really. So as well as that kind of restorative recovery work, we are also involved in awareness and education. So we work in schools with high school aged pupils. We work with parents. We work with parliament. We are just trying to address that question as well of how do we get people to a place where they can understand and see the harms of pornography and hopefully have less people falling in in the river and drowning. So, yeah, open eyes is awareness and education. Free lives is kind of recovery and support. And we’ve been doing that for over 10 years now. So I started the project around 2012.

[6:05] We established a charity in 2014. So, yeah, this last year we’ve just had, we were celebrating a kind of 10 years of being an established charity. And I’ll be honest, I didn’t sit down with my careers advisor when I was in my school in Sunny Honey and say, yeah, when I’m 40, I might start a porn project. That feels like a good idea. That feels like a career move I’ll make. But it is something certainly I felt over 12 years ago that God was kind of asking me to step into. And I think now more than ever, I think both within the church and within society, people can see the need for that and the importance of that. But I’ll be honest, when I started, it felt like a very taboo thing to talk about. It was… Taboo I think to kind of even mention porn in in kind of church settings and it was taboo within kind of culture to suggest there might be something harmful about it you know people would talk about it but there wasn’t an acknowledgement that it might be addictive or it might be you know dangerous or or harmful to people and so I think over the years we’ve seen a shift we’ve seen people begin to understand some of their harms but I think we’ve still got a.

[7:29] On the website i i did a little research before um we met online and um just reading a little bit of your story illuminate um i mean why you feel so passionate about this i wonder do you feel comfortable in sharing any of that or is that something you prefer not to talk about no absolutely um yeah i’m i’m very um happy to because it is it is an important part of of that why question that graham asked um i mean really i i i talk about two things that that happened in the year 2007 so my um my my daughter was born in the year 2007 that’s not one of the two things um but but um in that same year um one of the things that happened was was, very personal, uh, and one was, was very public and everyone would have heard about it. The personal thing was that my father was arrested for having indecent images of children on his computer, um, uh, abusive, uh, child pornography. And, um, for us as a family that came as, as a complete shock. We, uh, had no idea that even, um.

[8:44] You know, porn use was, was something that my, my father was struggling with particularly it came out of the blue for us um he was um christian involved in church life uh was a ceo of a youth charity where he lived he was um you know perhaps not if you were to meet him someone you would think would be struggling with with that uh or involved in that and and what we what we found out over the kind of following year uh was that he had hidden uh what i would call a porn addiction uh for decades um and towards um the end of those decades that had escalated and that had spiraled into him crossing uh the line from legal mainstream content to to illegal.

[9:35] Abusive content um and i think i think for me one of the one of the things that felt significant about that um for us as a family particularly a few years later when i was probably in a place where i was beginning to reflect a little more um you know obviously initially you just have shock and pain and and all those other emotions that you have to to to think about but i began to think about the fact that i did know who my dad was you know i knew who he was what values he had what beliefs he had um and and i began to just try and understand really as i said that that his porn use wasn’t just a discipleship problem or a habit that he wasn’t kind of dealing with or talking about that there was something else happening here um and as i say you know about over over a decade ago i don’t think.

[10:38] We had the research perhaps we have now society in society around things like non uh um substance addiction for example i think we now understand you can get addicted to gambling for example or you can get addicted to your phone or you know we we’ve kind of got a bit of a better of understanding around addiction. But I think for me, that was the first time I began to, to read and research and perhaps understand something of my dad’s journey that, yeah, this wasn’t just about, um.

[11:11] When he was using pornography, it wasn’t just about choice. There was something more going on there that, that, that addiction I think was playing its part. Um, and, and so that, that began for me then, uh, I, I, I think some, uh, a road of thinking around, well, what sort of support, what sort of help did my dad need? And if he had taken that help much earlier on, you know, If he had found that help when he was looking at mainstream websites and things like that, what would that have prevented for his life? And also, obviously, in terms of what would that have prevented in terms of the victims of abuse who were involved in the material that he was found with. There was a question there of what could have stopped this from happening. And so that’s why our work is focused on people who struggle with mainstream pornography. We don’t work with offenders. We don’t work with people who may have crossed that line themselves. There are some amazing organizations out there that do that work. But our work as Naked Truth is focused on those individuals, Christians or non-Christians, faithful no faith who have reached a place where they’re recognizing that porn use has become a life controlling issue it’s become uh something they can’t just sort of through willpower um.

[12:40] Or even accountability uh just stop that it seems to become more than that and and and actually offering them some of the kind of professional support in the same way that you probably wouldn’t just say to an alcoholic you just need to try a bit harder you know that there is there is perhaps a need for yes prayer but also professional support um we we that’s that’s where we kind of began to to ask questions about what would it look like for someone to get get help when they need it and and so that was that was one of the things that that i think, caused me to, to, uh, think about naked truth was simply asking that question. What would my dad needed? And, and because it’s such an issue that has so much shame attached to it and so much, um, uh, often things are hidden and a secret. And, and, and so I think we began to explore options, which you can talk about later of how could somebody access help that might not mean they just go to, you know, their local church leader or a group that’s running somewhere, is there ways in which people could get help? So back in 2014, we started online groups on this strange platform that no one had ever heard of called Zoom.

[14:02] Because we recognized actually the technology that had given anonymity and accessibility to what was harmful. That same technology can provide anonymity and support. To people who perhaps didn’t feel able to go and talk to somebody quite yet uh and so yeah that that was how all naked truth began really it was just going okay let’s just explore this could we do something could we offer support and help online so that people could access it uh perhaps in in their car at lunchtime when nobody knows but begin to get some of that support and help um but in that same year sorry going go on you know you go with your second point because you’re I couldn’t quite work out whether the two points were encapsulated in what you

[14:47] just said. So keep going with your. Yeah, well, no, just the second thing that just happened in that same year was that Steve Jobs stood on a stage in California and held this piece of plastic in his hand saying today Apple will reinvent the phone.

[15:01] And it was the same year as smartphones being launched. So although I think, you know, we recognize that porn’s been around forever, really, what happened really in that year was seismic. It was a game changer because it really was the beginning of a new generation with anytime, anywhere access to unregulated content. And as I say, my daughter was born that year. That’s all she’s known. So her whole lifetime, smartphones have been part of her life. She is what psychologists and sociologists call a digital native. You know, that is all she has known. And that shift from, you know, the sex shop to the smartphone, for example, is significant in, I think, the…

[15:54] How big this has become as an issue and so i think probably even back then you know uh people would sort of be saying well you know isn’t this just something that some people struggle with sometimes and so yes that happened to be your dad but is it really that bigger thing uh whereas i think now what we understand is uh this is huge so in 2020 for example 49 percent of uk adults uh told ofcom that they’d seen porn that month um so you know what we’re seeing here is that a porn user isn’t just kind of like a man in a dirty mac coming out of a sex shop it’s anyone who owns a product made by mac or samsung it you know that shift was really significant and and so that’s another reason that’s another part of the why there is that personal story but actually the The other why is that this is an old enemy, but with new weapons, if you like. This is something that even in our, you know, the lifetime of our children has changed kind of almost immeasurably. We can’t really quite comprehend it. And so you say the word pornography, and that will mean different things to different people and different generations.

[17:10] You know, to some people, they just think, oh, a few magazines or VHSs.

[17:15] And they’re like, oh, is it really? Why? Does it really need a charity? Uh whereas for other people it you know it means this digital world that that is actually huge um you know um yeah go on sorry i was just wondering could you so i guess as christians we have you know um we’ve got the bible which tells us exactly how we can healthfully kind of conduct relationships including sexual relationships but how do you when you’re kind of um when you’re faced with people who perhaps aren’t believers how do you lay out the damages that pornography does so if you’re speaking to parliamentarians what is your kind of I don’t know your your mission statement why is porn so bad for society for families for people yeah I mean one of the things we would do for example in school so I think we’ve seen something like 100,000 school pupils in the last decade and obviously the majority 99.9% of them would be sort of non-faith based schools we do a few things in a few kind of faith schools but mostly we are doing exactly what you’re saying is we’re having to put forward the reasons why porn might be harmful to young people who a think this is just normal and a bit of harmless

[18:37] fun why wouldn’t they great you mean I can get onto a.

[18:41] Porn site for free and I don’t have to prove my age to anyone what what’s the bad news you know that’s that’s where they are um and so having to start from that point uh and help them think that through is is a key part of our work so so really there’s kind of three areas that we would focus on in school for example and that would be a and this would be a similar conversation but in a different way if we were talking to to parents or parliamentarians and and the three areas really that we focus on is how porn.

[19:11] Is harmful to our physical health uh so we would point to the peer reviewed research now that there is increasing amount of that we’ll talk about how porn online porn digital porn is a super stimuli um in in terms of the way that the brain works and so therefore the way the brain responds to porn is that there is a an overload of those kind of natural chemicals like dopamine and other neurochemicals that the reward system gives us so people do get a high but also they they’re what comes with that is is escalation and tolerance uh so that what used to turn you on six months ago doesn’t in the same way anymore so you need to do more of it or a more extreme version of it just to get the same feeling that you had and so that what we’re seeing through that scientific research is that porn use can and does lead to addiction and dependency.

[20:13] So that’s one of the things we’d talk about. We’d also maybe talk about what is becoming an increasingly recognized phenomenon within.

[20:23] The nhs of porn inducer rectal dysfunction for example i don’t know if you were expecting to talk about ed in your podcast but but that is now something that gps are diagnosing they’re noticing men in their 20s mid-20s see coming to see them around this problem and they’re they are linking doctors are linking the fact that those individuals are only able to have an erection when they are watching porn um and but in in real relationships in real life that isn’t happening and and they’re also acknowledging that perhaps those young those young men have been using porn for for 10 years they started when they were teenagers when they were 15 and 10 years on this is what’s happening so these are physical things that are happening with with the body uh that we would talk about you know that that’s not a moral or value-based thing that’s just that this is physically what we’re learning and understanding and in the same way that back in the 1930s people would you know doctors would prescribe and recommend cigarettes because there just wasn’t the scientific research. They just thought it was a bit of harmless fun.

[21:24] We are realizing now that the research, the medical research is helping us understand that there might be a public health issue here around porn use. And that’s one of the conversations we’re having with parliamentarians certainly is, can we get porn to a place where in the same way gambling is now, it’s called a public health crisis. And there are other countries where they’re probably a little further ahead on that kind of declaration and understanding.

[21:57] So there’s that piece. The second thing that we would talk about is the impact that porn has on our relationships, the way we see ourselves, our self-esteem, our body image, some of those things, mental health around that. And there’s kind of various statistics around mental health and porn use, but also just the way we see other people and the way that we we treat other people so again um you know there’s been government reports linking um violence against women and girls and um porn use and that there is this this link between those things and it’s not surprising really you know when you when you find out that 88 of porn videos contain physical violence or aggression and 97% of those, the targets are women. Um, and then you have people like, uh, the NSPCC talking to young boys and 44% of those young boys say that porn influences their ideas about what sex should be. And, and, and it is, you know, it’s not difficult to, to imagine that if this is the, the, the majority of, of the content.

[23:10] Because one of the things that’s changed is not just how accessible porn has become, but what the actual content is. It has become abusive and violent. If a teenage boy puts porn into Google, what they don’t get is topless pictures of Sam Fox. Like I would have if I was looking for that when I was a teenager. It is violent, abusive, aggressive content. What we would probably call hardcore content. It’s the first search results. And so the links that we’re now beginning to see between how that affects the way that young men and boys feel they’re supposed to treat women and in relationships, the way that young girls feel they’re supposed to respond in relationships is all being normalized and shaped by porn. So that would be a second thing that is a huge concern to lots of people in society, whatever their values are. And then the third one really is the industry itself and just what we’re understanding now around the exploitation and the coercion that in some cases.

[24:12] Examples of trafficking and exploitation that exists within what is actually an unregulated and very dark industry. Um and so they’re kind of three areas where we want young people for example to ask well you know is this good for me is this good for my health uh we want them to be thinking about what’s in it what are the messages what are the ideas that that i’m being taught and and how did it get made you know what what’s the actual story here uh behind this screen who’s the other who is that person and so they’re all speak of the harms and there’s more we could say and and if you start to bring in faith as well and things like that. But in that kind of non-faith context, there’s still a very strong arguments that I think people go, yep, that makes sense.

[25:02] That’s important. We need to be talking and thinking about that. Just a couple of other clarifying questions. One’s more of a cultural one. Is it true that there’s a sort of I don’t know what you call it, a double standard or a confusion in culture generally in that.

[25:18] They can see some of those harms you’re talking about and society would generally frown on abusive children and abusive videos and they would talk about addiction as being a problem.

[25:30] But I guess there is a difference between faith groups and Christians in particular and general culture in that pornography in its broadest sense is not considered bad um is that difficult to navigate sometimes because because you can talk about the harms in sort of narrowly defined ways that perhaps most most of culture agrees with but most of culture doesn’t agree that it’s it’s bad in general is that true yeah again.

[25:57] I think it it depends doesn’t it um who who you’re talking about in in culture and and certainly there would be people who wouldn’t have faith but would have a problem with the objectification of other human beings for example and and you know you might have you know someone who would say well i i have no faith but i am a feminist and therefore my my issue with this is around you know the way that women are being objectified or sexualized or whatever and so you know you might have those a conversation with someone who that’s that’s their reason for for saying actually i don’t think this is fine and and i think what’s shifting is is as a is i think people who say oh no it’s fine what’s the what’s the problem tend to be operating from a lack of understanding of what pornography has kind of morphed into so they’re still kind of using a slightly kind of old lens in terms of their thinking they are thinking of porn as just almost being a bit like oh it’s those magazines and it is and so they it’s just what i used to see but is now online and they’re not.

[27:06] Necessarily thinking about oh okay i think when people have a deeper understanding of the violence or the exploitation or the nature of content it is a lot harder to find people going oh no okay this is is all right now then politically or um you know uh.

[27:26] People might say well we still believe in freedom of speech we still believe that that you know porn sites should be should be allowed to exist and people should be able to kind of put up what they want and and stuff like that but i think particularly a lack of regulation around consent the lack of um perhaps ethical kind of um practices in terms of how how porn is created, the majority of people are concerned about now because of what porn’s coming from. So they would argue for a more ethical porn. You know, that would be their argument. Can I jump in there? Because I suppose through some of the work that I’ve been doing…

[28:05] I’ve noticed there has been increased awareness about the extreme violence and the kind of immoral practices that have been involved with pornography. But there’s something that does unnerve me in that in many sort of sex and relationships and education lessons, children are now being asked to consider the morality of not necessarily porn, full stop.

[28:35] But how porn can be produced ethically. And i’ve seen a number of um lessons lesson plans and even videos that have been offered to children through curriculum where they are given better alternatives to access porn that has been made ethically that has been made with full consent that represents a range of body types now obviously i have a moral problem with that because of the way that a those people are being objectified anyway whether they’re being paid substantially or not and be the way that sex and promiscuity and is is portrayed in this way that is is given this um sort of you know as long as you’re doing ethically it doesn’t matter in what context or whom you’re doing it with and and then there’s just that that problem again being exposed to explicit material which in itself is wrong we We know what the Bible says, but also then can still lead to more extreme forms. But yeah, what do you have?

[29:37] What’s your perspective on that kind of the ethical porn industry?

[29:43] I mean, my perspective as a Christian, for me as an individual, I would be saying, well, that’s an oxymoron still in my mind. You know ethical pornography that is you know they that i don’t see how pornography can be ethical because of of of what it is but in nature uh but i do understand the you know the the the importance of of journeying with people and and kind of meeting people where they are uh when you’re kind of talking about about some of this stuff so i would.

[30:25] You know, if we were, if we’re talking about something within a kind of parliamentary context, you know, I, I would be wanting, I would, I would be saying regulation is a good thing. We want better regulation around this. Uh, and, and so I could campaign for, you know, porn to be, you know, all forms of porn to be illegal.

[30:48] And, um, you know, that could be my aim. I could say, let’s just make it all illegal but i recognize that’s probably not realistic um and so actually it it makes sense for for me uh to be saying actually we want to find where there is common ground and common belief and and and so to work with organizations who for example might be wanting to see ethical pornography um you know as their end goal then yeah there’s so much work to be done let’s join forces in going getting to that first step if that makes sense you know because because something that is quotes ethical is certainly better than something that is unregulated um um so i think i i would want to work towards what is better but it might not be my ultimate belief that that is what’s best if that that makes sense and i think one of the problems we can sometimes have as the church is how we posture ourselves in some of these conversations is that sometimes we posture ourselves with a little bit of a kind of, um.

[31:58] Uh a moral kind of uh you know this is wrong which we we may believe but i think sometimes that is then difficult for people to work with us to to actually find a common change that we would we would equally want to achieve um and so um you know i don’t know if it’s always helpful uh for people to say i’m you know we would say as an organization we’re an we’re anti-pornography You know, we’re not, we’re not, we’re going to not, you know, we could just say we’re anti-addiction, but we don’t. We say we’re anti-pornography.

[32:36] But we recognize the fact that, you know, if we want to try and, there is the potential to see change through collaboration. And part of that collaboration, I think, is working with people who might not have the same end goal. Yeah, I suppose, in increments. Yes. Similar in some of the abortion discussions and we hate abortion, but if we can move the limit to be later,

[33:08] earlier, sorry, for abortions being illegal, then we’d say that’s a good thing. That’s a win, even though it’s not pure. um can i ask you a really backward question then we need to go forward to what should pastors and parents kind of know and what should they do but it’s one a really basic question which i because you were in such good full flow i didn’t ask give us a definition of course pornography.

[33:32] As compared to films that people might watch that might show people having sex, yeah no that’s a really important so again in school we we define um we give we have two definitions of pornography. The first is a dictionary one, which would be pictures, images, and films that are designed to stimulate sexual excitement. So actually, and that’s like a Collins English dictionary definition, that actually would include your Netflix series where there’s some sex scenes in. But what I would say in a school setting, for example, our team would say school setting is imagine walking around a museum uh with your grandma and you walk into a room and there’s a load of naked statues from the greek era are you looking at porn with your grandma um and and so we we are clear to say i you know.

[34:29] The the purpose the function is is is important in the definition so probably the museum curator wasn’t thinking about trying to stimulate sexual excitement for that to make money they were probably thinking about art and history um whereas you could actually watch a pop video on youtube that has no nudity or sex in but could be pornographic because of how it’s filmed and how it’s filmed is aiming to stimulate sexual excitement to get more clicks and views so it’s not as simple as saying is it about nudity or is it about you know seeing sex because that definition for me broadens that understanding um and and then that and also allows art and allows for you know the fact that yeah a life drawing class uh is is is probably not uh you know i think a christian could sit in a life drawing class and not feel like oh my goodness you know am i creating pornography as I draw this person in my doing my art degree, I would say, no, you’re not.

[35:29] So that’s how I would define pornography. But then the second definition we use. Yeah. The second definition we use is that pornography is the junk food of healthy sex and relationships. And so what we talk about in school is that there is something better and there is something beautiful about about sex and about uh you know commitment and love and relationships with others um and and the problem is that what what porn is often is that kind of quick fix easily accessible.

[36:04] Damaging to our health version of what is actually a good thing you know and and i think it’s again important for us to posture ourselves as as saying sex is a good thing it’s just that porn is a kind of counterfeit, hollow, reduced version, an unhealthy version of something that is good and is beautiful. And we would say, given and created by God. And so. That’s another part of the definition for me we talk about how jamie oliver is somebody as a chef who is passionate about food uh but has been campaigning against junk food for for decades now and there is possible to be both it’s possible to be passionate about sex and relationships uh and campaign against what is unhealthy uh in like something like porn uh and i think again And that’s part of, part of our, I think our challenge as the church is how we talk about sex and relationships in a way that, that is actually positive and, and healthy, um.

[37:07] And, and actually acknowledges, you know, what is, what is good as well as acknowledging

[37:13] what is, what is damaging. Um and you know i think maybe historically in our desire to to kind of acknowledge what is damaging um about about sex we either don’t talk about it at all um because uh or you know or you know we can come across slightly like well we’re kind of anti anything that’s to do with that stuff um but hopefully you know we we understand that in the in the context of love and commitment and relationships this is a beautiful and a good thing and particularly for teenagers for example which is as i say where we would talk about this something you know people are very curious about so not not talking about it doesn’t help um because then they get their sex ad from porn which is the worst place to get it from you know um and so you know i think lizzie would understand that you know we’ve got to be talking about it but talking about it well um rather than just ignoring it or hoping that you know it’s going to go away because it’s not particularly if you’re a teenager um so how do we do that yeah did you have a point lizzie just now.

[38:26] I’ve got lots of points, but I want you to have the opportunity to ask questions, Graham. No, the thing is, Ian, this is so interesting. We could do another couple of hours on this because you’re both passionate and well informed about it.

[38:40] So we’re benefiting from all that. So it becomes a bit unstructured in my mind because I’m thinking about 100 questions at the same time. Just trying to sort of narrow it down to thinking about people who might listen to this. There could be parents, there could be pastors. um so on what what should they know and what should they do uh it’s not a simple answer but just just to get started i mean um yeah for example we we have talked about it and we have we do make references sometimes in sermons about it uh we’ve done separate seminars on it actually we’ve got we’ve done some of our own but actually we’ve got one of your speakers coming to to speak on a sunday evening in february i think yeah so we are talking about it but what what what yeah what should we know what should we be doing as christians particularly yeah that’s that’s uh let’s maybe separate the two um because i think there is a kind of unique um conversation perhaps around for parents and i appreciate there’ll be people who’ll be thinking about this with almost with two minds as they listen to this they might be listening as

[39:47] a parent going oh my goodness this is my children and the world they’re growing up in. Even if I’m not struggling with this, oh my goodness, what do I need to do to help them, protect them, talk to them?

[39:58] And then there may be people who have children or don’t have children who are either thinking about themselves or people in their congregation or their small group or whatever. And they’re like, what does it look like to talk about and help me or them? And so let’s separate the two. I mean, I think the important thing to say at the beginning um i would say is the first thing that we need to be intentional about is reducing shame and offering hope um and i think whether that’s whether we’re talking to our children or whether we’re talking to the person in our small group who said this is something i’m struggling with um or in our church if we’re a church leader or even or indeed if we’re talking to ourselves I think there is so much shame attached to this, particularly within the church context. It’s something that we’ve kind of kept in the shadows. It’s something that we’ve not talked about. And because of that, that is just perfect conditions for shame to grow. And that shame is evident in all sorts of ways.

[41:10] It hugely affects the way we see ourselves. It hugely affects what we think God might think of us. It hugely affects actually what we think we are qualified to do within the church. You know, lots of church leaders, you know, so frustrated that people aren’t stepping up and doing more. And what we find with the hundreds of Christians that we speak to every year, those who are going through our programs and our groups, so many of them who are Christians will say, in the church context, I felt I couldn’t get involved with this. I couldn’t help with that. I couldn’t do this because I was questioning whether I’m even a real Christian because I struggle with this issue. And so trying to reduce shame sounds obvious, but as you talk about something, that is often the immediate response. So yes, we need to talk about it. Yes, we need to be kind of bringing it into conversations, into sermons, creating spaces for conversations to happen. But we have to not just talk. We have to talk with the right tone. We’ve got to talk with a tone that reduces shame and offers hope to people. And one example of this might be, for example.

[42:33] In a recent Barna report, which came out last year, so very recent statistics of Christians and churches around this issue, Um.

[42:47] 75% of Christian men and 40% of Christian women admitted to watching porn occasionally. 22% of practicing Christians said they watched porn weekly and 7% daily. So we’re talking quite a lot of people in your, in your congregation, potentially, you know, this is a real life issue right now. It’s not just something that they struggled with in the past. This is something that they’ve dealt with this week or this month, or maybe even today. And so how we talk about that is really important. Interestingly as well, from that same report, 44% of women reported watching porn. So kind of closing that kind of historical gender gap that we think exists actually. And I remember, for example, in one of our team who had struggled with porn in her kind of adult, young adult life, and was a Christian and was in church, he said, the only time our church talked about porn, there was one time. And there was a Sunday service. And the person who was talking about it got up and said, guys, today we’re going to talk about porn. I know that’s going to be tricky. I know it’s going to be difficult. And so, ladies, you can just switch off right now. Because for the next 20 minutes, we’re talking about porn. And what that did, what seemed like just a little humorous, kind of just trying to ease into what is a difficult topic. Actually, I.

[44:12] Really caused a huge amount of shame for her because she’s like, well, I already thought I’m, you know, I was already questioning, is there something wrong with me? Am I the only one? Am I, you know, I’m, I’m a Christian woman looking at porn. Is there something seriously wrong with me? Am I a real woman? Am I a real Christian? And it just reinforced that. So I use that story just to highlight how important it is. You know, people talk about being trauma informed in the way that we act and respond. And that’s actually really important in this area too. But being shame informed, make sure that we are thinking about that as we talk about it.

[44:49] And then in the same breath, talk about it with hope as well. Go on, Lizzie. Yeah, I just, I want to sort of not push back, but I just want to ask a question. How do we then as Christians, because I think it’s a really good point, the more that we kind of hide things and keep them underground, And I suppose the greater the potential is for them to fester and for the problem to get worse because no one must seek help. But how as Christians do we keep that tension between not inducing monumental amounts of shame, but also saying that there is something that should induce a certain level of regret and shame about some kind of behaviour. Um and that’s not to kind of demonize people who struggle with this in the same way that you shouldn’t demonize people who have a gambling addiction or you know are an alcoholic or occasionally you know drink i suppose that’s what i’m trying to say is there not some kind of.

[45:49] Innate instinctive thing that god has placed in us that there is something shameful about this but yeah how can we i don’t know i don’t know whether i’m just i’m just saying how do we keep that tension that is right i think yeah i think it’s a really good question i i i was thinking about what ian was saying about how we speak about it and i i know i’ve done better and done worse in that sometimes you can highlight it in a way that um suggests it’s the worst thing you could possibly be doing um and it’s in some special category all of its own but i think just in the same way you would want to encourage people not to envy, not to be greedy, not to lie.

[46:31] You want to prompt and prod people’s consciences, if they are watching pornography, to say this is morally wrong, this is wrong before God, and this is something you will need to repent of. But at the same time, like we would do with every sin, encouraging people to say there is forgiveness and there is freedom, and there isn’t shame in the sense of.

[46:55] Desperate shame i’m not quite the right word there’s a difference between repentance yeah i don’t think shame is biblical but i think recognizing wrong is biblical yeah shame is a kind of an unsatisfiable desperation yeah sure yeah no no i see will not repent actually because it’s it’s even too shame to repent sorry and i’m uh i’m taking over the answer but um i’m reflecting on it out loud sort of thing yeah i mean i think i think there’s two two things uh that occur to me as you ask that question is he what one is context um so you know as i think about jesus and how he, corrected and challenged people what i think is really interesting is in kind of public settings it feels like you know he focuses particularly on the for the for the people who are broken or powerless or hurting, he focuses on the good news. He focuses on restoration and it doesn’t have to be like this. There’s something better. There’s hope for you.

[48:03] And I think that would be one of the things I would say that when we’re in that kind of wider context where we’re talking about this issue, let’s talk, let’s raise it. Let’s take it out of the shadows. Let’s talk about it as we know this is something that some people in, in, you know, in the congregation day, well, you’ll be struggling with this. Uh, and, and.

[48:24] We want you to know that actually we believe that this isn’t who you are. This isn’t your identity.

[48:30] This isn’t the sum of you. This isn’t your future. That God actually has something for your life that doesn’t have to include this. And that you can, yes, be forgiven, but also you can be restored and you can be healed. And it’s a language that acknowledges that it’s a reality, but it focuses on what is hopeful. I think then when you are one-to-one with people that’s where there is context to maybe be a little bit more yeah like hang on a minute that’s not okay is it you you said you had you said you were gonna um do something that you didn’t do and that’s why you know you’ve you’ve you’ve fallen down again because you actually didn’t put into place the things that you knew you needed to and And that can be a bit more direct, but I think because the context is small group or one-to-one, I think, and I think, you know, no one knows what Jesus said to Zacchaeus, right? When they were having dinner together, but what he did in public was acknowledge him and accept him. What happened in a private conversation somehow led to repentance that you were saying, Graham, and we don’t know what happened in those private conversations. But I think that that’s helpful for me is that when I think about talking about it in a public space, I want the main feeling to be one of acceptance and hope and good news and change. And then when we’re working with individuals, pastorally or.

[49:59] You know, in friendship, I think that’s when you can be a bit more direct and corrective.

[50:04] But because there’s trust and there’s relationship and love, it reduces the shame. Yeah yeah so is this is there more you want to say in terms of what because we’re nearly out of time because we sure um is there more you’d want to say to make sure sort of church leaders and um youth leaders and so on would be aware to do i think we’ve said quite a lot about awareness of the topic itself but um you said in general bringing out to open do you got any kind of, specifics yeah i mean we we have um a load of resources for churches uh and within that there there’s that’s deliberately stuff we’ve created to help train people so whether you’re a small group leader whether you’re a church leader whether you’re a youth leader um and so i probably at this point particularly with limited time i’d kind of signpost that it’s free it’s uh if you just go onto the app store you can download um and just look for nt churches um and you’d be able to find that or just visit our website nakedtruthproject.com and um just look for the tab that said part the churches and you’ll find there’s a lot of free resources there because i think um.

[51:21] You know, it’s helpful to know how can I, what can I signpost people to? And we, as I said, we run groups, we have kind of professional.

[51:31] Uh, and kind of expert support for people. And one of the things you can do often is just signpost, you know, that’s the, sometimes the thing you can say, okay, I’m, I’m not necessarily the expert that you need. Uh, I want to journey with you. I’m going to walk with you. I’m going to pray with you on this journey, but you actually need to go and get some some support here and and so to know what that support is uh you know we provide that we provide that it’s as i say it’s online so anyone can access it um and it’s available there’s um materials that are watch on demand and then there’s live groups as well that people can can join and so i think one of the things if you’re if you’re a church leader for example is just find out what it is we do we offer support for users for partners of users we offer support for parents as well so just get to know a little bit about the issue but also get to know a little bit about what we do because then that will be easy for you to know oh my goodness okay i don’t have to figure this out on my own there are some people who this is their area we can we can sign post.

[52:37] But as I say, there’s also some training around, uh, okay, this is how you can practically and pastorally walk with someone. Um, so that, yeah, they might be getting, they might be getting that, that professional help from our team, but actually, yeah, how you have a conversation with somebody in that first moment of disclosure is vital. You know, what you say and don’t say is vital.

[53:04] They might have a negative experience and then never look for help because it was just everything they were fearful it would be. And so part of that training is how do you have those first conversations well, or how do you make sure that you bring.

[53:24] Um yeah that hope that and help that we talked about so i would really recommend people just get hold of some of those resources because i think lots of reasons why churches and church leaders in particular don’t talk about porn is because they don’t feel equipped to deal with what might happen if they talk about porn you know they’re worried it’s going to be this kind of can of worms that will get opened up and and and so that’s why we’ve created these resources as i say they’re free they’re available that you can work through in your own time anyone in your church or team, if they run a small group or something, they can get that same training as well. And it’s just some videos and it’s some resources that hopefully mean that you feel a little bit more equipped and able to talk about this openly because you know what you would say in that moment if it happened.

[54:12] We also, as I say, run stuff for parents. We run a regular parent workshops online that just give real practical tips for parents on how do you talk about this issue, as well as how can you put some things in place, some practical things, some software things you can do. So we try and cover both, the kind of practical and the conversational. And that’s for parents of younger children, as well as parents of teenagers. And so again, if you go to the website or if you download the app,

[54:43] you’ll see dates for when those are happening and they’re free again as well. So hopefully people can just access some support when they need it. It sounds really good. And I’ve looked at some of the resources that are really helpful. I think as well as pastors and as church leaders and as Christians in general, we do have lots of resource.

[55:06] As long as we understand the issue where there are things we are familiar with in terms of the grace of god forgiveness new life repentance the holy spirit working in our lives christians encouraging us our life of prayer um you know daily disciplines of bible reading and prayer all those things they all connect with this it’s not like this is in some super super category of sin that those things can’t impact like it’s got some sort of you know shield around it that the Prayer doesn’t work for that. It works for other things, but it doesn’t work for that. So we don’t want to be simplistic and say there aren’t physiological and habit reasons why this is particularly hard and challenging. And we also don’t want to say that there’s not, in God’s common grace, lots of good knowledge out there.

[55:54] But it is, in the end, part of the general category of sin that we can repent of and find forgiveness of and freedom for, which we should be familiar with as Christians. Absolutely. And I think two quick thoughts on that. One would be, I think, as humans, my belief is that we are like hybrids.

[56:15] You know, not the car version, which is electric and petrol, but we are, you know, we’re spirit and we are flesh. And you know the angels are all spirit aren’t they animals maybe are all flesh but we are this hybrid of the two um and i think that’s just important to remember that god god created us physical beings but then he breathed his life and his spirit his ruach into us and so actually there is this kind of hybrid response that i think is helpful for us to remember you know that Yet there’s a physical, practical thing that is going on in the brain of somebody who is using porn. And there might be a physical, psychological response. But there is a spiritual thing that is happening in a person as well that is connected to sin. And so there is a spiritual response that comes with that. And I guess the famous Ezekiel 37 passage is a helpful kind of… Biblical reminder of that too, you know, where you see the dry bones that say we have no hope, there’s no life in us. And one of the things that God does is he gives Ezekiel proximity to those bones. So he has to get dirty, actually, ritually unclean, in fact.

[57:33] And I think part of our conversation might have felt a bit unclean for people to listen to, but I think it is important. It’s what God sometimes asks us to do is get close, understand it. But then when it comes to him prophesying to the bones it’s interesting isn’t it that there’s these two things there’s the initial prophecy to the bones that causes a physical thing to happen over a process actually you know bone and then and then tendon and then flesh and i think there is a process that people can take part in when it comes to this issue and and some of that is physical but even when that had happened you know he still had to prophesy to the breath to the spirit to to enter into those bodies because they aren’t just physical beings. There is a spiritual part to them too. And so I think for us, as we think about what does it mean for us to write a better story, to prophesy to our congregations and our communities, I think it’s both. It’s believing that God does heal through process and practical and physical things, therapy and support and community and those things. But also he looks to us to believe in spiritual transformation and for his spirit and breath to bring change as well. And I think we see that as a biblical model of the two hand in hand. So exactly what you’re saying, Graham, is that we’re created to be both.

[58:57] And therefore our response as church needs to be both.

[59:00] If we just do one, if we just pray, sometimes there’s lots of people we’ve spoken to who said, I’ve had lots of prayer and I’ve still not seen change.

[59:09] And actually they probably needed some practical support for others it’s like if you just have practical support and you don’t bring god’s spirit and life into this situation then you’re going to fall empty they fall short too we need to look at both things uh and that’s probably a helpful way to close maybe i don’t know yeah no it’s it is i was going to say that thank you so much ian um you’ve given the website and um some people want to look at those resources and yeah they are really good i’ve just been looking really into things yeah good very good thank you very much yeah thank you thank you.