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The Danger of Awareness ONLY


If you have paid attention to the news lately you have probably noticed that people have started take notice of the harmful effects of pornography. TIME magazine had an entire issue dedicated to porn and recently Utah state senator, Todd Weiler, states that pornography use is a public health crisis as he argued to pass a bill in his home state. With the increasing efforts of organizations like Fight the New Drug, Covenant Eyes, and XXX Church, people are starting to see the harmful and destructive effects of porn. However, after doing some thinking myself and reflecting back to my childhood when a similar health crisis was taking place I’m not sure if all of these efforts are, in and of themselves, actually helping.

Now don’t misunderstand what I am about to say. The sites that I mentioned before and all of the exposure this problem is getting is a good thing. The work and money that is being done to help is fantastic, and I hope it continues, but I am afraid if that is all that is done about this porn pandemic in our country and the world, it will only get worse.

The porn awareness campaigns of late are very reminiscent of the D.A.R.E. campaigns when I was in grade school. Did these programs do a good job at educating young people on the harmful effects of drugs and alcohol? Absolutely! I remember signing the pledge to stay drug free as did the other 30 kids in my class. If you grew up in the 90s you probably remember this as well. Why then when high school came around almost all of those same kids fall into drinking and drug use? When looking at the statistics of drug use among teenagers over the last 20 years you notice that there has been relatively no change. Were programs like D.A.R.E. successful then? Yes and no. Did they educate? Yes. Did they decrease drug use in teens? Not really.

So what is the problem?

When dealing with things like drug use or pornography addiction, if all we do is educate, change will not happen.

Again, awareness is worth something. Here at Overcome that is one of our main functions. People need to know that there is a problem. There is a cancer in the darkness tearing families and churches apart. But if all we do is make people aware of the problem and fail to actually help people then all we will have is well informed addicts, and the problem will only get worse.

So what do we need to do?

It comes down to the individual. Not just the addict but also those around him or her. It comes down to you and me. We each need to decide to do something. Start an accountability group. Porn-proof your house. Have honest conversations about porn with your loved ones. Doing these and things like them and continuing to educate gives us the best chance at making a real impact in the fight against porn.

So share this article and then actually do something.

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