Pornography: Lies and Chains

Pornography: Lies and Chains
James 1:13-15

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Intro:
“Don’t talk on this subject, preacher, it’s inappropriate.”
Oh yes, we must, and let me tell you why. The world talks about it and no one isn’t touched by it…it’s high time the church take a stand!
“But, I don’t use porn, and I’m sure my spouse and kids don’t.”
Good, then you won’t be on the spot at all today!
Pornography is big business. According to U.S. News and World Report, the industry 5 years ago grossed an estimated $10 billion. That figure represents an expenditure of about $30 per person in the United States. That’s more than is spent annually on gambling! And it has the same links to organized crime!
Porn is now as American as Apple Pie, and has found a place in every corner of our society, including the church. We’ll talk about that in a minute.
It’s now a $12 Billion dollar a year industry in the US alone! This amount is much larger than Hollywood’s domestic box office receipts and larger than all the revenues generated by rock and country music recordings. Americans now spend more money at strip clubs than at Broadway shows, off-Broadway shows, in Branson, or regional, and nonprofit theaters; at the opera, the ballet, and jazz and classical music performances -- combined. It is today the #7 grossing industry in the US!
The revenues of the porn industry in the U.S. alone are bigger than the NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball combined. Worldwide porn sales are reported to be $57 billion. To put this in perspective, Microsoft, who sells the operating system used on most of the computers in the world (in addition to other software) reported sales of 36.8 billion in 2004.
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Most of the profits being generated by porn today are being earned by businesses not traditionally associated with the sex industry -- by mom and pop video stores; long-distance carriers like AT&T; by cable companies like Time Warner, and by hotel chains which now earn millions of dollars each year by supplying adult films to their guests.

The United States is now by far the world’s leading producer of porn, churning out hard-core videos at the astonishing rate of about 150 new titles a week.

Each year, Americans spend more than $150 million ordering adult movies on pay-per-view.

Playboy’s Web site now averages about five million hits a day.

Telephone sex -- Every night, between the peak hours of 9 p.m. and 1 a.m., perhaps a quarter of a million Americans pick up the phone and dial a number for commercial phone sex.

There are now more outlets for hard-core pornography in the United States than McDonald’s restaurants.

The introduction of pornography to the information highway has made home computers the fastest growing and primary mode of distribution of illegal pornography.

* 38 percent of adults believe it is ‘morally acceptable’ to look at pictures of nudity or explicit sexual behavior
Morality Continues to Decay. Barna Research Group, 3 November, 2003
* 59 percent of adults believe it is ‘morally acceptable’ to have sexual thoughts or fantasies
Morality Continues to Decay. Barna Research Group, 3 November, 2003
* 38 percent of adults believe there is nothing wrong with pornography