Hundreds of Christians gather to discuss Church’s response to pornography

Four hundred Christians are attending a conference in London this afternoon which aims to equip church leaders to resist “the damaging culture of watching porn”.

The P Word conference, which is organised by Christian charities CARE and Naked Truth is being held at the Emmanuel Centre in Westminster. It aims to help church leaders and others in ministry understand the problem and provide practical advice to help people resist pornography.

CARE, who last organised a conference on the subject 15 years ago, say the issue of pornography is “crippling church ministries”. They point to a recent survey from the Barna Group which revealed 93% of pastors say porn is a bigger problem in their church than ever before.

Opening the conference, the founder of Naked Truth Ian Henderson told those gathered that pornography had been, “a taboo subject for far too long”.

He added that the conference would bring “hope and help” although he admitted “I’m not sure that there’s a silver bullet. Often the freedom we’re looking for does take time.”

Speaking via video link, co-creator of The Marriage Course and The Parenting Course Sila Lee said pornography was an “unavoidable issue” for the Church.

She said that by “normalising pornography”, society was “normalising lies”.

“We have to go on in a loving, kind way talking about the truth”, she said.

In her talk on ‘Porn and parenting’, Katharine Hill from Care From The Family revealed that 12-17 year old boys are the biggest category of porn users.

“Let’s not sleep walk into a society where watching porn is normal” she said.

The conference also featured video testimonies from former porn addicts and a former adult movie performer. Short talks were given by Revd Cris Rogers, Bethany MacDonald and Danielle Green and topics including ‘Creating a culture of dangerous honesty’ and ‘porn and performers’ were covered.

Delegates were also encouraged to make use of a 24/7 prayer room which was open for the duration of the conference.

Speaking before the event, CARE Chief Executive Nola Leach said: “Porn is a massive problem in our churches and this conference is a rare opportunity to explore the issue from a clear, biblical perspective and look at practical ways we can resist this huge challenge.

“We know God wants His people to be pure, but faced with the reality of porn being more available now than ever before, the church is at a crossroads.

“We do not want to surrender to a culture of pornography consumption and our hearts desire is for the P Word conference to inspire church leaders with a fresh passion for purity and a fresh vision for how to help people who struggle with porn in a grace-filled and informed manner.”

written by Sam Hailes as appears on Premier Radio uk