God himself turned me and I turned. Free of slavery for 29 years, it was no credit to pastoral confrontation, strategies of avoidance, or confession to man. Only the manifest mercies of Christ reaching me as this poor man cried out in secret.

That’s my point. So long as the Community is pointing you to Christ and not merely seeking to give therapy.

“Hey, I watch porn” on a tee shirt- I think it’s a great great idea. It would be like the bat signal beacon- it says, hey, I need some help here.

I should have kept Luther’s “Sin boldly” in context. If I have it correct, it reads something like this, “”Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly… Pray boldly – for you too are a mighty sinner.”

Not a license to sin, but a recognition of the fact that we are sinners.

Too bad about the judgmental Christians.

I admit just broadcasting “Hey, I watch porn” on your T-shirt would probably be a bad idea. Too many judgmental Christians who would reflect the hypocrisy of the pharisees and not the loving kindness of Christ. However keeping it in a confidential Biblically based accountability relationship (as defined in our Building Integrity in Relationships videos) can be a truly powerful demonstration of the hand of God shaping our lives to be more like Christ.

Covenant Eyes is a tool to help facilitate that relationship to the purpose of purging sin from ones life. Will every single person who uses it use it for that purpose? Probably not.

Romans 6 asks “Should we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We have died to sin, how can we live in it any longer?”

Perhaps you should call Covenant Eyes, “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away.”

I can see some value to this program at least for conscience sake. At least if you are are going to sin you can do it boldly.

Lydia Brownback wrote a beautiful piece on sin called, “Just Jesus”in the diaries of a postmodern Christian section of Modern Reformation magazine sometime last year. Well worth reading. I’ll have to go dig it up, I might be wrong on the author. Have any of you read it?

I agree wholeheartedly that software doesn’t affect the heart, only behavior. You are right: when people stop at software programs they are dragging their feet on real repentance, changing their behavior but still treasuring the sin in their heart. I completely agree that repentance that is skin deep isn’t real repentance.

You said, “There is something to the software that allows the men not to truly repent.” Surely, the “something” is not really in the software, but in the heart of the person (and I can see by what you wrote that you would agree). There is something to dry laws that allow men to not truly repent of alcoholism. Dry laws and Internet software are strictly behavior modification tools. Nothing more.

So what’s the value of monitoring software?

You asked, “What is the real difference between having someone monitor my Internet usage and having someone monitor the conversations I have with my wife?”

First, I think you would agree there is a difference between the sin of viewing Internet pornography and the sin of being mean to my wife. The first sin is intrinsically private (no one has to know about it) and the second sin already involves an accountability system (i.e. my wife holds me accountable to how I treat her). I don’t need someone to record my conversations with my wife because I already have something that takes careful note my conversations with her: her own ears.

But still your question is intriguing.

I want to answer it by asking a better question.

First, we need to ask “Should I be accountable to to the body of Christ for how I treat my wife.” The answer is, “Yes.” Should I be accountable on if I allow pornographic images enter my home and my mind. Yes. I say Yes because of how I understand covenant community works Scripturally. I say Yes because regardless of how true accountability affects my tendencies to sin, to be in covenant community (involving quality accountability) is a matter of loving obedience to the Lord. I say Yes because my sin affects the Body of Christ, and my sanctification is in their interest. To maintain an individualistic view of sin reflects an unrenewed mind. Just ask the children of Achan who died for his greed (Joshua 7:25) or the 70,000 Israelites who died because David took a census (1 Chronicles 21:14).

So if we agree that I should be accountable in the first place, then we ask what the best means of that accountability is. If we think that recording conversations with my wife at home and passing them off to others is a proper and helpful means of accountability, then go for it. But because there is already a covenant community relationship going on between me and my wife, then this sort of technological means is probably superfluous and cumbersome. I don’t reject the idea of recording conversations with my wife because I reject the concept of being accountable for them, but because I reject it as a reliable and helpful means of accountability. If a problem arises in the area of how I speak to my wife, then she can talk to me about it, and if it isn’t dealt with sufficiently, then others can come into the picture from the Body of Christ in an appropriate manner.

This is the same with monitoring software. If I deem it to be a poor means of accountability, then using it is unnecessary. (There are other monitoring programs out there besides Covenant Eyes that are pretty poor programs.) But if a program is fitting, helpful, and reliable, then it may be wise to use it.

It is helpful to differentiate between means and ends in our discussion. If one rejects the idea of accountability (as I have presented it in my replies) altogether, then it is unnecessary to talk about whether recording my Internet usage is helpful. If the end is rejected then a discussion about the means is superfluous. If, however, I accept that being accountable for obedience in my heart, my thoughts, and my actions is a good thing—a God-given means of grace in the Body of Christ—then a discussion of means can be helpful.

By the way, I totally agree with your response to Gary: There is no such thing as porn that doesn’t affect a marriage or a person’s sex life. Well said.

Luke Gilkerson
Covenant Eyes

“to enhance your sex life”

Gary,
read Matthew 5:27-28 and tell me how you reconcile this with the idea that we can use pornography to enhance our sex life. Sex, whether in the mind or in tangible reality outside of the marriage covenant is not permissible, it is not an aspect of Christian liberty.

Personally, I would ask the pastor and elders of your Church what they thought of this notion.

Ad well, I fail to see any correlation between a knife and porn. On top of that, the knife is never good or bad, it is the person who use it that acts morally or immorally, to suggest otherwise is to embrace gnostic ideals.

A knife can be good or bad depending on how you use it. So is porn. Too much becomes addiction. Just a bit can enhance one’s sex life.

Anyway, just an opinion.

You said: “I think there is nothing wrong with pornography as long as it does not affect the person’s marriage or real sex life.”

There is no such thing as porn that doesn’t affect a marriage or a person’s sex life.

Why should I have someone monitor my internet usage if I don’t have someone living in my house to make sure I never yell at my wife?

I do understand that some people need this kind of thing to snap them out of their cycle of behavior or whatever. I understand that VERY well.

But if the goal isn’t to one day graduate to going without it, then it is, as you said, a crutch they are leaning on, when there is a far better crutch, namely Christ, who promised us that he will give us victory over sin by his Spirit, because sin is no longer our master.

Has he set us free or hasn’t he?

I don’t have an accountability partner to monitor how I talk to my wife. I don’t record conversations in my home that my wife and I have, and then send them to my buddy so he can listen to them as a deterrent to tyrannical behavior in my home. I don’t do that. In fact, the notion would probably come across to everyone reading this as ridiculous.

So my question for you is, what’s the difference? What is the real difference between having someone monitor my internet usage and having someone monitor the conversations I have with my wife?

Well, you might say that many men fall into problems with porn on the internet because it’s so easy, and because no one will know.

But can’t you say the same thing about yelling at your wife or treating her badly? Who’s gonna know? Sure, you can say that your wife will know, and she’ll go and tell the elders on you. Not likely though. It happens all the time and no one knows about it. The elders just get the shock one day of finding out that so and so is getting divorced.

No, wives don’t often go complaining about their tyrannical husbands very often.

So if I’m mean to my wife, no one will know. It’s private. It’s secret.

So what prevents me from being mean to my wife?

Two things. 1) Fear of God, and 2) my love for her.

How could I treat her badly when I know it grieves God? And how can I treat the woman I love badly?

Sure, every now and then I’m less than polite to my wife, as all men are. But in general, it works out ok. And no one knows about it. If I’m very considerate of my wife, no one knows about it, and if I’m mean to her, no one knows about it. It’s private, between me, her and God.

So sure, the internet is private. Sure it’s easy to get sucked in. Sure you can keep it secret from even your wife.

But why is the prescription different for this particular sin? Why do we need blocking software to control us when God has promised that HE will control us?

Should I wear a shock collar that shocks me every time I raise my voice, so that I stop yelling at my wife?

Well, I suppose it would work. But is that the best thing to do?

If I had a problem with yelling at my wife, is a shock collar really going to solve the problem? Sure, I’ll get shocked a lot, and I’ll learn to stop yelling at her, but the desire to yell at her will only be inflamed. I’ll resent her because in my mind it will be her fault that I have to wear this stupid, humiliating collar. I’ll hate her because I can’t yell at her. Instead of yelling at her, I bet I’d start beating her. No yelling, just the back of my hand. I bet that’s what would happen, if I were a man who had such problems.

If I yell at my wife, it is a manifestation of rage, of anger and of hatred towards her. Basic sinful nature, right? The law says to love, so the sinful nature hates. So if I yell at her, that’s borne of the sinful nature that hates her. The problem isn’t my yelling. The problem is the hatred in the heart. Solve the latter, and the former will disappear like magic.

A shock collar would not make me love my wife any more or hate her any less. It would have no effect on it. I’d just have to find another way to manifest it.

The software is like a shock collar. We are smarter than Pavlov’s dog.

If I have a problem with porn, and my buddy gets to monitor my internet usage, I’ll find other ways. The lust is not gone.

And the thing is, if the lust is not gone, it doesn’t really matter if the behavior has changed. The behavior is only evidence of what goes on in the heart.

What men need is a change of heart. They need to repent. There is something to the software that allows the men not to truly repent. Now the monitoring programs, ok, but the blocking programs? The man doesn’t have to renounce his sin in his heart, but can still treasure it. Only now, he’s frustrated because he can’t do anything about it. How is this helping? How has he renounced his sin? Repenting means turning away from sin even in your heart. That’s true repentance.

Didn’t Jesus say that looking at a woman lustfully is the same as adultery, only it’s in the heart? And isn’t Jesus saying that you are wrong to pat yourself on the back for not sleeping with the woman, even though you really wanted to, since your desire amounts to the same thing? Isn’t Jesus saying that an unconsummated desire is the same as a consummated one? Isn’t he saying that both are equally displeasing to the Lord?

These programs don’t affect the heart, they affect the behavior. And while that’s good on the one hand, it CAN be bad when people STOP there, which they often tend to do.

Meanwhile, they still lust after every woman they see in their hearts, and no decease of actual sinfulness has taken place.

You said: “that it’s his fault for not getting his wife trained well.”

I feel like we’re speaking two different languages here. My wife submits to me not because I’ve trained her with carrots and sticks, but because I have won her over by loving her, by putting her first, by wooing her and getting her to trust me.

About a “masculine projection of sexuality into feminine expression” I have little to say. Sorry. I’m not sure what you mean or what the significance is. Are you saying that women by nature are more prudish, and porn helps men fantasize about loose women? Maybe that’s part of it. But there’s a whole lot more to it than that.

You said: “Men who have wives that have “respectfully submitted” still like smut.”

Zrim, I don’t know how much clearer I can be. I am NOT IN ANY WAY connecting a wife’s behavior with whether or not he is more or less likely to want to look at porn. Whether or not a man looks at porn, or whether he wants to, bears no causal relation whatsoever to his wife’s submissiveness. A wife’s faults are not an excuse for a husband’s sins. And frankly, her faults are more than likely the result of HIS faults.

So a man can in no way blame his wife for his pornographic appetite.

The most unsubmissive wife in the world does not in any way make a man want to look at porn.

The most submissive wife in the world cannot prevent a man from wanting to look at porn.

The only cause for a man wanting to look at porn is his lustful, wicked heart that rages against his God.

You said: “Sometimes, guys, it’s just about sex. It’s not all that complicated.”

Let’s replace that with sin.

“Sometimes, guys, it’s just about [sin]. It’s not all that complicated.”

So I guess if someone were to ask you, “why do we sin?” your answer would be, “because we just do.”

Yes, it’s about sex, but what pushes us in that direction? Yes, it’s about sin, but why? What’s going on in our hearts? How is it hatred against God?

We have a natural appetite for food, and sometimes we satisfy that appetite with good, nutritional food. But sometimes we eat Twinkies.

Your argument makes porn look more like eating Twinkies than spitting in God’s face.

But porn is a rejection of God; it is the worship of an idol; it is a sin of the most fundamental sort. It is dramatically wicked, and the bad fruits of it are many.

Gazing at porn is not just a natural appetite channeled in the wrong direction in need of a simple little correction. No, it is an act of idolatrous worship. It’s not some small, trivial little thing that can be corrected by a simple little change of attitude, “I want to be a more manly man.” It’s far more than just about sex.

It’s about a rejection of God’s Word in favor of the apocryphal word of Satan, as spoken in the image of a naked woman.