As in order asked...

"have anything new to add to the conversation?"

No.

"What do you think?"

Well, from the video, they spoke a lot of words, however, it is a pity that they didn't say anything useful.

"Do they have anything new or helpful to add, or are these the same answers and ideas you've been hearing for years?"

Yeah, you nailed it, they are saying the same words I heard way back in the nineties...you know, come to think of it...further back...eighties even.

/sigh

You know, porn is a symptom of a much larger and deeper problem in our society...and that problem that affects us all is called materialism.

We christians here in the United States are so damnably materialistic...want, want, want, have, have, have, need more, more, more.
When is enough, enough?
Not enough money, work harder.
Still not enough money, get a second job.
Our family?
Hey, sacrifices must be made!

Want that car, sure, go buy it.
What?
Have the job, but don't have all that money for that BMW you still can't afford even with your two jobs?
No problem...that is what credit is for!
Like those shoes?
What is another pair to the two dozen you already have in your closet!
Clothes, shoes, jewelry, jaw-dropping large homes with an unbelievable monthly mortgage, cars...we have so much crap with money we don't have for things we don't need.

Materialism...that is our spiritual Achilles heel, not porn.

'Good' sex. 'bad' sex, 'benign' sex... among people is riddled with fantasy, and inseparable aspects of soul and spirit. We project our human 'qualities', longings, needs, love and fear into the very mixed blessing of sex.
The essence of it is not material, but spiritual.
There is a psychological, mythical, non-material basis in each porn slave or master's actions 'on stage'. That it's demeaning is a part of it. That's the 'me versus them', disconnected mindset we associate with the 'industry'.
Some people turn to 'entertainment' - or temporary 'highs', with the hunger coming on immediately the thrill is over.
It's idolatry of course.

Great clip; I found Tim Keller's thoughts especially thoughtful.

Off topic... it strikes me as funny that this is titled "John Piper on Porn" when the clip shows him saying very little...

I think what bothers me most about discussions like this and the Every _________'s Battle series of books is that they never get to the heart issue of the problem--selfishness or self-love. Why does God hate porn? Because it's dehumanizing. It's perverse because it reduces people (or "the other",if you will) to products to be oggled and consumed at will.Much porn has an embedded message of humiliation and disrespect for the opposite gender,and much of it reinforces a misanthropic chauvinistic worldview.This would contribute to the conversation of why it's wrong and harmful, wouldn't it? But God forbid a theologian points out that God's creation matters to Him, even when scripture itself instructs believers to esteem others higher than self. I guess the Bible isn't theologically deep enough.

I'm not a Calvinist, nor do I see the Reformation as the high point of theology within our faith, which I assume is something these men share in common. What struck me is when confronted with the problem of sin they all used legal jargon (now adopted as Christian jargon) to remedy sin. I kept waiting for them to stop talking about justification & start talking about Jesus.

Too, thankful as I am for it, the cross is but one aspect of the gospel & not it's achieving moment. Jesus' entire life, teaching, resurrection are the gospel. Sadly, we have reduced Jesus to God's mechanism of grace instead of taking in His whole life.

So much legal jargon.

Matt, I can't comment on your criticism of Every . . . Battle books because I haven't read them, but I resonate strongly with your assertion about why God hates porn. I think you hit the nail on the head. And, yes, this issue can't be divorced from materialism in general either, but istm making that encapsulate the whole problem here is also way too superficial an explanation. On a theological or philosophical level, I think we need to look at how we are portraying/understanding God and humanity in relationship to Him in order to understand why disordered consumption in any form deforms us and all our relationships.

On a practical level, the Twelve-Step Recovery model is arguably more successful in helping people overcome such additions than other models of accountability, and certainly than theological preaching alone (however presumably "correct" that preaching is!). I believe this is because the 12-step model is based on a more fully biblical understanding of how God works in our hearts (sometimes even anonymously as a Higher Power), being as it is based on actual human experience of what enables us to overcome us from addiction and selfishness, not abstract theories cooked up by theologians based on rationalistic understandings of statements in the Scriptures! (Obviously, I have my bias here.) Of course, I don't believe that the founders of the Twelve-Steps would have arrived at their model apart from the basically Christian world view and understanding of God they were already working from.

Somewhat ironically, I have found that the "Penal Substutionary Atonement" theories on which this discussion relies was responsible for my inability to reconcile the picture of "God" it presented with the vision of Christ as He is portrayed in the Gospels and especially in His passion taken on its face value! I believe Penal Substitution is a subtle distortion of the meaning of the Atonement and gives a faulty explanation for why Jesus had to die for our sins, such that it warps our understandings of God in His motivation toward us and His love as expressed through Christ. No doubt, it consequently also is a contributing factor for why many modern believers and lapsed Christians have so gaping a hole in their hearts craving to be filled, and which void the enemy is all too willing and ready to rush in with his degrading and destructive substitutes.

I am only twenty years old, and cannot remember a time when Internet pornography was not readily available: I am of the so-called "porn generation." I have been hearing since childhood of porn's dangers, which are invariably presented with detached, doctrinal answers for why porn is wrong, and how with "accountability" and counseling, the "addiction" to it can be conquered. Such do not address the issue of why pornography is presently endemic in our society, and why it will likely only get worse, including (and perhaps especially) among Christians.

Because the American Christian subculture has not resisted feminism, and by extension the sexual revolution, it has likewise utterly failed to mitigate the tremendous upheaval incident to the sexualizing and consequent social fragmentation of the West. The familial pillar of society has been shattered, and community lost. For all of the talk of church's centrality, most churches do not foster a sense of community except among the initiate: churches are made of families, for which reason the health of the former is inextricable with the latter.

Young people are incredibly bored and lonely, in a culture that both necessitates the postponement of marriage, and leaves sex with a girl the sole means whereby a young man may prove to himself and his peers his masculinity. All is a result of feminism and the sexual revolution, for which my generation will have to pay the spiritual price. It is no wonder, then, that fornication and its propaganda flourish. Pornography is a fiery snake sent among us as judgment, and I do not see how its effects can stop until it has laid waste what little remains of our civilization. "They shall commit whoredom, and shall not increase, because they have left off to take heed of the Lord."

I agree that a solid understanding of the gospel would help someone overcome addiction to porn, but I think that there is some additional nuance here that would be helpful.

For example, the pastors are dangerously unclear about the role of shame here. This is not merely a psychological critique; Paul knows that a distinction needs to be made between godly sorrow and destructive shame. It may actually be counter-productive to simply increase feelings of shame, because they can increase feelings of inadequacy, and if the person is using porn to escape feelings of inadequacy, than this might actually tighten the addiction's grip. (Keller seems to be getting at this perhaps.)

Also, I think that some discussion of the dynamics of why people use pornography is also essential. There is no shortage of biblical explications of what's going on (idolatry, false intimacy, ect.) that can't also be integrated with insights that psychology has gleaned as well in order to de-mystify what's going on. There is some part of sin that will remain ultimately mysterious, but that doesn't mean that we can't at all understand the sorts of processes and dynamics that drive sin.

(As a side note, I do not think feminism explains much of these dynamics, since feminism has tended to be mostly critical of pornography. The "Sexual Revolution" idea seems to be circular: presumably, we are trying to explain why pornography use is increasing, and we can't explain that by simply saying its part of a bigger trend. Materialism may make more sense, in that our formation as consumers has hollowed out a space within us that we have to fill with endless consumption of ephemeral and fleeting products and now experiences. What is pornography but the consumption of an ephemeral and fleeting sexual experience? Like other products we buy, it demands nothing from us after the transaction is complete.

Jon, thank you for your comments. You make some very insightful observations, and my heart really goes out to you and all your peers! I have a teenage son. With our own children, we have really tried to avoid the kind of detached, fear-inducing, shaming instruction about sexuality that relies so heavily on warnings of the dangers of the abuse of sex and doctrinal argument that you describe experiencing, and which we also experienced when we were young (and which we know failed to protect us from pornography's harmful influence). Instead, we have always focused with our children on proactively talking to them about the goodness of God's plan for sexuality and tried to give them a vision and hope for a healthy adult marital relationship. As a result our children have always been very open with us about their feelings and bodies, etc.

That didn't stop my son from discovering and viewing internet porn (and not talking about it with us) not long ago. We still had to tell him we knew what he had watched, and he was naturally ashamed, not wanting to talk about it. We thus experienced for the first time in any significant way with our son what God went through with Adam and Eve after they ate the apple. It was heartbreaking to see his sense of shame cutting off the openness in our relationship. Still, not to exacerbate that shame, our conversation focused simply on what we knew and our response (to cut off his access to the offending site and remind him that we are able to review his Internet history) and let him know we weren't mad at him, our actions were to protect and not to punish him, and that we understood the temptation and cared about the destructive effects of porn (which he already understands intuitively) on his relationship with himself and others.

The point you bring up about the importance of real community and the problem of loneliness and boredom is absolutely huge. It is so very critical to our healing from any kind of sinful inclination that our theology translates into the kind of loving community for which God created us. If it doesn't, I think we need to look twice at our theology. I've found there is no spiritual healing apart from a real experiential connection with God, and we can't have a real experiential connection with God while we cling to understandings of Who He is that are distorted or false and which blind us to the true nature of His love for us on the one hand or our responsibility to fully engage in the struggle against sin on the other (confident of God's grace and help in the process). How other believers treat us as well as what we are explicitly formally taught in the home or from the pulpit both contribute to how we understand the basis of our relationship with God--and of the two, modeling and formal instruction, we know modeling is by far the more critical factor. It is a tremendous battle in our frenetic Western culture to cultivate real community even in the home, let alone in our communities of faith. May the Lord help us all by His Holy Spirit to foster authentic and deep loving relationship with Him, with ourselves, and with one another.

Matt Miles asks the question: "Why does God hate porn?"
Then, instead of actually finding out what G-d's answer is, he answers his own question with: "Because it's dehumanizing. It's perverse because it reduces people (or "the other",if you will) to products to be oggled and consumed at will."

the point Matt makes is agreeable to me, and if he had just come out and said it without invoking the diety...I'd think it would carry more weight in this discussion.
However. he did not, and so it is not G-d answering Matt's question, it's Matt answering his own question which makes it rhetorical and not very informative about what G-d has to say.

But Karen, you say,
"but I resonate strongly with your assertion about why God hates porn. I think you hit the nail on the head."

And I disagree...I think Matt swung and missed the nail completely.

Rome, the most pornographic society if ever there was one, and Greece as well... and yet the Church struggled, not with videos, but with the temple prostitutes, concubines, and slaves...who...pretty much acted like concubines.
But...
What did Paul do there?
What did Paul say to all the followers inside Rome, or Greece?
Did Paul write:
"gouge thine eyes, so thou seest nothing, and poke thine neighbors eye, so theyeth seest nothing as well, for better that all be blind that suffereth the dehumanization of Roman and Greek Society would have you beholdeth!"

People...seriously, why does porn rise to the surface of our discussion when materialism, which we are all infected with, is hardly ever discussed?
Why does G-d hate porn and we never hear about his hate towards our own selfish predilections for our comforts while all the while praising his name while others wallow in misery, or suffer because we're calloused and hard-hearted?
G-d hates porn?
I say, G-d hates any and everything that is outside his will, and that...you can find in the bible.

When we, as Christians, followers of the Living G-d, act outside his will, either through commission or omission, we have sinned.
Therefore, the question isn't are we covered by grace if a pastor indulges his eyes with porn, as messers Piper, Keller, and Carson would conclude. The question is...does the Pastor want to be forgiven?
The rationalizations men give for their behaviors indicate their inner spiritual thinking...and it isn't just porn...it's everything...that is outside the will of G-d that men, and women rationalize to continue in their pleasure without restraint or caution or care for another.

Personally, I think you all have missed the point completely...and so too, has Messers, Piper, Keller, and Carson.

"G-d hates porn?
I say, G-d hates any and everything that is outside his will, and that...you can find in the bible."

(And you can't find the fact that God values His creation? But I digress.)

The point is, I agree with your statement which implies focusing on materialism would be just as futile as zeroing in on porn or feminism or whatever we decide the scapegoat should be at the moment. The heart of an issue is dehumanization, a distorted view of God's creation. It's self-centeredness, obssession through self-love or hate, and it's just as apparent in materialism as any other sin. Either way, it's putting self above God.

And while I was answering my own question both question and answer were based on my understanding of God and His view of man based not only on experience, but also of the Scriptures as a whole and lots of prayer on the matter. I've asked God, and sought the matter out. If I need to just pull out proof texts I could, but I see this focus (selfishness as an issue) in the overall context of the Scriptures.

God values His Creation. Sin dehumanizes (defaces the image of God in) us. This is completely Scriptural. I totally got that, Matt!

Would some like a proof text? "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish . . . "

I'm confused that we're analyzing this conversation by "anything new" or "same old ideas." I believe both Dr. Carson and Dr. Keller answered the question perfectly: it's only the power of the Gospel that will truly liberate us from slavery in a worldly identity towards freedom as God's adopted sons. That goes for marriage angst, debt issues, human approval, substance abuse, and everything else. Beyond this we can speak in Steps and Plans, but it requires a foundation of the Gospel.

Guilt, shame, and fear are poor motivators to sustain long term freedom. It's a starting point but it's grace that drives us. On a practical level, that costly sort of grace will lead us to leave behind things like total privacy (on internet browsing) and unaccountable time. But in light of God's grace it really doesn't feel like a restriction at all.

"There is a sense in which sexual sins are different from all others. In sexual sin we violate the sacredness of our own bodies, these bodies that were made for God-given and God-modeled love, for "becoming one" with another. Or didn't you realize that your body is a sacred place, the place of the Holy Spirit? Don't you see that you can't live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for? The physical part of you is not some piece of property belonging to the spiritual part of you. God owns the whole works. So let people see God in and through your body." 1 Corinthians 6:18-20 (The Message paraphrase) The whole chapter is great and appropos to the subject.

sheerahkahn, how do you decide when enough is enough? Are you in a position to decide for others? Obviously, you think owning a BMW is out for a true Christian. What would be the appropriate vehicle to own that would announce real spirituality? How many sports do your children participate in? How often do you eat out and where? The point I am trying to make with you is that you are changing the subject from the question asked here and actually stating that porn is not an issue. Whether you are aware of it or not, there are many Christian men of limited financial means who struggle with an addiction to porn. That you would write them off and tell them that their problem is simply that they are materialistic seems uncharacteristically judgmental and unsympathetic with other things you have written here in the past.

I have been set free from a 30 year addiction to pornography by Christ for 14 months now. What worked for me was Celebrate Recovery, a 12-step program created by John Baker and Rick Warren 20 years ago at Saddleback Church, CA.

I often describe the small group part of Celebrate Recovery (the benefit) as such: For the first time in my life I learned that other men that knew the real me actually could and did love me. This revelation of Christ's love, reflected through these other believers, led me right back to my savior and the amazing grace that is Jesus.

If you are an addict, lost in helplessness right now, I encourage you to check out Celebrate Recovery.

Mike, you are the poster child for my comment above about the practical effectiveness of Christian twelve step programs! Thank you being vulnerable enough to share your testimony. You said:

"For the first time in my life I learned that other men that knew the real me actually could and did love me. This revelation of Christ's love, reflected through these other believers, led me right back to my savior and the amazing grace that is Jesus."

That says it all right there. That is how to live the gospel. I'm sure Piper, Keller, et al are quite sincere in their struggle to understand how to minister effectively to strugglers in this area. But I get a little put off by the aspect of the discussion in this video that tends to keep the gospel message abstracted into debates about sin vs. grace (penal substitutionary ideas of all this vis-a-vis the "satisfaction" of God's "justice" seem to me to be the unspoken context for understanding the need to parse such things). Truly proclaiming the gospel, as others have pointed out, is the essential foundation for any real lasting recovery from sin, but the idealogical "gospel" and the real gospel lived out too often are very different things. Only the latter can claim to be a true proclamation of the gospel.

"Either way, it's putting self above God."

Okay, Matt, I got a better idea of what you are getting at, and the quoted sentence is what caught my eye, and I agree with this statement. I suspect we're not to far apart in our thinking.

Now...
That you would write them off and tell them that their problem is simply that they are materialistic seems uncharacteristically judgmental and unsympathetic with other things you have written here in the past.

Melody, Melody, Melody.../sigh...how to answer you.
I seem to confuse you a lot which doesn't surprise me.
So...let me see...how to explain myself...hmm.

The way I percieve you seeing the world is in a fuzzy liberal/conservative way, liberal being more or less bad, conservative being the lesser evil of the two, if not somewhat better if not teetering on good.
And so, from there, I percieve that some of this thinking, this way of seeing the world has flowed over into your theology as well. This part took some time for me to figure out, and after carefully rereading many of your posts I began to recognized the pattern...and so, I began to understand you a lot more.

For me...evil choices are evil choices, one being the lesser of the two doesn't change the basic nature of either, and one being somwhat good isn't good enough for me to consider it being better than the other lesser "good" choice.

So...just so you and I are on the same page, I have a basic understanding of where you are coming from, and from that basic understanding of where you are coming from I should never have had any expectations of you understanding me.
Some day...perhaps, but...yeah...things are the way they are, and I have no choice other than to accept them as they are.