CONFRONTING PORN
A Comprehensive Guide for Christians
Struggling with Porn & Churches Wanting
to Help Them.
By Paula Hall
Care / Naked Truth. 177 pages. £16.99
ISBN 978 1 905 691 463
Pornography-use is a growing issue in our society and in our churches. We need to be better equipped.
So it’s always good to see a new book that’s serious about helping people change. Hall’s accessible and gentle words have many strengths. In seven intriguingly-designed chapters, she helps those who use pornography, and those who stand alongside them, to grasp the complexities of porn, its consequences, the nature of addiction, the difficulties associated with supporting someone who struggles, and the reality of hope. She takes seriously the physiological aspects of pornography-use that can all too easily get over-looked.
Asking questions
She is an outstanding ‘question-asker’ and anyone who is struggling with pornography will doubtless benefit from the analytical thought-starters she provides at the end of each chapter for individuals, pairs or small groups. Throughout the book she points to encouraging passages of Scripture that will certainly provide edifying fuel for Christ-centred reflection.
But readers should be alert to the fact that the book reads as thoroughly ‘integrationist’ (that is, it’s a book where psychotherapeutic and scriptural material sit alongside one another as fairly equal partners) and it doesn’t set out the same kind of rigorous biblical theology that undergirds some other resources on the market. While some readers won’t mind this at all, others will struggle at points – longing for the biblical model of a Word-centred, Spirit-inspired life of repentance and faith to sing out a little more clearly.
However, whether we see it as ‘a comprehensive guide’ or part of a wider range of resources that help to inform this tricky issue, it’s well worth a read. And the 40-day exercise in memorising Scripture in the appendix? I’ll definitely be giving that a go!
