"Is porn driving men crazy?"

Naomi Wolf's article "Is porn driving men crazy?" poses a great question. I've seen several photos like this one below lately, (it isn't part of Wolf's article) which had made me ask the same question. I mean, really? Really? Looking at porn on a wide-open computer screen. In a crowded room? While live TV is happening? That's just stupid, nuts, and dumb. You have to be crazy to be that stupid, nuts, and dumb. (I'd posted about this porn peeping bankster here)

CNN-is porn driving men crazy?
By Naomi Wolf:
"It is hard to ignore how many highly visible men in recent years (indeed, months) have behaved in sexually self-destructive ways. Some powerful men have long been sexually voracious; unlike today, though, they were far more discreet and generally used much better judgment in order to cover their tracks.Of course, the heightened technological ability nowadays to expose private behavior is part of the reason for this change. But that is precisely the point: so many of the men caught up in sex-tinged scandals of late have exposed themselves – sometimes literally – through their own willing embrace of text messages, Twitter, and other indiscreet media.What is driving this weirdly disinhibited decision-making? Could the widespread availability and consumption of pornography in recent years actually be rewiring the male brain, affecting men’s judgment about sex and causing them to have more difficulty controlling their impulses? ... The hypothesis among the experts was that pornography was progressively desensitizing these men sexually"

She asks a good question. She offers a different possible answer to it than I would. I say it is the fallen-ness of our sinful world and the fact that satan inhabits it. He is actually the god of this world and operates within it through the boundaries that God sets. (more here). On the other hand, Wolf could be unknowingly exactly right, because of this verse in which Paul spoke of some people who, "Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;"

The full verse is: "The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron". (1 Tim 4:1-2). The Matthew Henry commentary on this verse explains, "The instruments of promoting and propagating this apostasy and delusion. It will be done by hypocrisy of those that speak lies, the agents and emissaries of Satan, who promote these delusions by lies and forgeries and pretended miracles, v. 2. It is done by their hypocrisy, professing honor to Christ, and yet at the same time fighting against all his anointed offices, and corrupting or profaning all his ordinances. This respects also the hypocrisy of those who have their consciences seared with a red-hot iron, who are perfectly lost to the very first principles of virtue and moral honesty."

We get desensitized to sin. Once engaging in it, unless we repent and confess immediately, presenting ourselves for a spiritual bath by the Holy Spirit, we remain unclean in that little spot, and we get used to the unclean feeling. We decide that it wasn't really so bad, and we do it again. And again. Until we're so strewn with scar tissue from the searing of our consciences, we become inured to the effects of sin and never even feel its pricks any more. And before long we have men exposing themselves publicly in ridiculous ways that they have convinced themselves are fun because they have lost any ability to feel shame. (Anthony Weiner comes to mind ). I think that the effect of this culture's perpetual exposure to and engagement in sin, our brains are being rewired to be desensitized to sin, especially the sexual sins of homosexuality and pornography.

God told Jeremiah to tell the Israelites:

"Are they ashamed of their loathsome conduct? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush. So they will fall among the fallen; they will be brought down when they are punished,says the LORD." (Jer 8:12). God told Jeremiah to speak that to God's people at the end of a long list of sins they were committing, which also included deceit, straying from the ways of God, listening to false prophets who say all is well, being greedy, and rejecting God. He punished them. Will He do less with us? Surely not!

Edward Gibbon wrote the book The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. He spent twenty years researching it. Through his research Gibbon realized that all great nations, Rome included, have fallen for the same reasons. Those reasons can be boiled down to just five.

1. The undermining of the dignity and sanctity of the home, which is the basis of human society.
2. Higher and higher taxes; the spending of public money for free bread and circuses for the populace.
3. The mad craze for pleasure; sports becoming every year more exciting, more brutal, more immoral.
4. The building of great armaments when the great enemy was within; the decay of individual responsibility.
5. The decay of religion, fading into a mere form, losing touch with life, losing power to guide the people.

This has been a somber week. We see continually that the sunset of the United States of America is upon us. Other nations are angry with us, and civil tumult abounds from within.

In the face of all this stood one man. Not a governor. Not a presidential candidate, not a high executive. A man. A man who believes in God and who led thousands in Reliant Stadium, yesterday in a day of prayer and fasting. TX Gov. Rick Perry, troubled by the terrible state our nation is in, prayed. He asked Christians to turn to God for answers to the nation's troubles. This is the only correct response.

"Gov. Rick Perry called on Jesus to bless and guide the nation’s military and political leaders and “those who cannot see the light in the midst of all the darkness. Lord, you are the source of every good thing,” Mr. Perry said, as he bowed his head, closed his eyes and leaned into a microphone at Reliant Stadium here. “You are our only hope, and we stand before you today in awe of your power and in gratitude for your blessings, and humility for our sins. Father, our heart breaks for America. We see discord at home. We see fear in the marketplace. We see anger in the halls of government, and as a nation we have forgotten who made us, who protects us, who blesses us, and for that we cry out for your forgiveness.” (source)

Will you cry out for forgiveness? Jesus is listening, and His arms are open.
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