The two Porn Scars conferences, featured in the October issue of Youthwork, were cancelled due to lack of tickets sold. The reasons behind the lack of interest for such a widely advertised event are unclear. There may have been confusion over who the conference was aimed at, embarrassment, or a lack of interest from youth workers and leaders. We asked the woman behind the conference, Karin Cooke, to give us her view:
The aim of Porn Scars is to clean up the Church worldwide of pornography. A dirty Church can’t impact society but one free and healed of porn can. The Church should be leading the way in highlighting the dangers of porn but we cannot present a conference to a near-empty venue. I do not believe that the minimal uptake was due to lack of publicity or awareness that the conference was taking place. Publicity was done through Premier Christian Radio and Youthwork as well as via social media, so why the lack of interest and uptake? I believe it’s a mixture of things:
Apathy: The Church has become indifferent to the increasing nature of pornography. There is a definite absence of interest when it comes to actively scrubbing the Church clean from porn.
Fear : For some there is an apprehension of the can of worms that may be opened if porn is faced head on. And this fear is preventing the keys to freedom being used.
Embarrassment: For too long sex has been seen as a dirty, unuttered word. Churches are full of individuals with their own viewpoints and experiences of sex but also their own unanswered questions and concerns. Sex has become taboo in Church. People need to stand up, shake off their embarrassment and find their role in the big porn clean-up.
Lack of leadership responsibility: A ‘leader’ is defined as a person who is followed by others. Leaders need to take bold ownership of the issue so that their congregations can talk about it.
Ignorance: Too many individuals have a lack of knowledge and understanding about porn and its deadly effects, and are doing nothing to combat this ignorance with education, despite it being available to them.
Lack of accountability: There is a significant lack of personal accountability within the Church. There is no church in the UK that isn’t affected by porn but this isn’t reflected in our pastoral care of individuals.
Karin Cooke is the leader of Freedom Church, Hereford.