A pastor in Nevada, US, is planning to hold a National Porn Sunday on Feb 6.
Craig Gross, the founding pastor of XXXChurch.com a Christian group that helps people battling pornography addictions, is counting on his friends from among child porn convicts and former porn actors to help him with the Sunday.
He has produced a video in which NLF players supported the move. The video, according to Gross, will be shown at over 300 participating churches across the US.
The issue of pornography, Gross says, is not addressed effectively in churches. He calls the subject ‘the elephant in the pew’.
Matt Hasselbeck, a popular professional baseball player, is one of the stars in the video.
The XXXChurch has a tracking software called X3Watch to which users can sign up. If members who sign up for the software visit any site with objectionable content, it triggers an email to the member’s wife, friend, parent or anyone he has added as an accountability partner.
Hasselback has added a teammate and his wife as his accountability partners.
“If the church stopped consuming (porn), we would put a huge dent in it,” Gross said in a reference to individual churchgoers who are still addicted porn.
Gross is 35 and an ordained pastor. He founded the XXXChurch in the early 2000s after he heard stories from teens in his youth group who were involved in pornography and struggling to come out of it. Pastor Gross runs the site full time today.
Though Gross says he himself was not addicted to pornography, there are thousands of people out there that he would like to get out of the habit.
Once, one had to work hard to find it. Now, one has to work hard to avoid it is what Gross says about the all-pervasiveness of pornography.
Gross says the Bible is very clear on the issue. It falls into the category of sexual sins. He cites Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians in which he tells the church to ‘run away from sexual sins’ in this respect.
A former porn star Ron Jeremy, who Gross befriended, is all praise for the pastor’s work.
“He didn’t go just to a church and preach against porn, he goes right to the porn conventions. He gets booths and hands out Bibles to all the porn stars and says ‘Jesus loves porn stars’. No one else does that,” Jeremy is quoted as saying in a CNN report.
“If you’re a really religious Christian and you follow the letter of the law with the Bible, you should not watch porn – I agree with Craig on that one,” he said. “I like what Craig does. He tries to keep people out who don’t belong in porn and don’t belong watching porn. It’s not healthy for them – maybe they’re getting addicted to it.”
On the website, Gross has written an open letter to Charlie Sheen, an American actor, serving rehab since Jan 2011. In the late ’90s, Sheen was in the news for his relationship with former pornographic actress Ginger Lynn. He was also involved in a relationship with former pornographic actress Heather Hunter.
The letter to Sheen has the title; ‘Can Charlie Sheen Watch Porn Sunday in Rehab?’
The letter is as follows:
“Charlie,
We know you have a thing for porn. We know you like porn stars. We know you have admitted your life is falling apart all around you. We can’t promise you any porn stars in this video but if you like football we got a few NFL stars in the video.
Everyone keeps their clothes on and the music soundtrack is not as hot as those XXX films but I think you will enjoy the words shared and be encouraged by the message.
Porn is dangerous. It will take you to places you never thought you would go. National Porn Sunday is all about helping people get free.
I don’t know what they have you doing in Rehab before the game Sunday, but what about watching Porn Sunday? The video will be playing all day long at www.pornsunday.com and www.xxxchurch.com.
Craig”
