Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility

West Bank Town Becomes ‘Big Prison’ as Israel Fences It In

20 hours ago

Trump Says He’s Willing to Let Migrant Farm Laborers Stay in US

20 hours ago

US Electric Vehicle Tax Breaks Will Expire on Sept. 30

2 days ago

Eyeing Arctic Dominance, Trump Bill Earmarks $8.6 Billion for US Coast Guard Icebreakers

2 days ago

Trump’s Sweeping Tax-Cut and Spending Bill Wins Congressional Approval

2 days ago

Americans Celebrate Their Independence With Record-Breaking Travel Numbers

2 days ago

US Supreme Court to Decide Legality of Transgender School Sports Bans

2 days ago

Nvidia Set to Become the World’s Most Valuable Company in History

2 days ago

Poll: 41% in US ‘Extremely Proud’ to Be American, Near Historic Low

2 days ago
Why the Christian Right Opposes Pornography But Still Supports Trump
The-Conversation
By The Conversation
Published 7 years ago on
April 9, 2018

Share

Many commentators have pointed out the hypocrisy of Christian leaders who claim a moral high ground while supporting President Donald Trump. The latest scandal involving an alleged extramarital affair with pornographic film star Stormy Daniels proves no exception.

The Christian right that supports Trump has found ways to justify their support of the president, for example, with analogies of how God used King David, a man with personal flaws, for the greater good of the country.

Opinion

Kelsy Burke

All the while, however, evangelical leaders remain definitively opposed to pornography. In the words of an evangelical celebrity and outspoken opponent of pornography, Josh McDowell, it is “probably the greatest problem or threat to the Christian faith in the history of the world.”

As a sociologist who studies how evangelicals talk about sex,
I see evangelical Trump supporters’ reaction to the latest Stormy Daniels scandal as fitting right into how evangelical Christians have responded to pornography in recent history.

The Christian Anti-Pornography Movement

Christian opposition to pornography has long been connected to larger efforts to impose Protestant morality onto American politics and culture. Sociologist Joseph Gusfield would call it a “symbolic crusade” – which is less about porn per se and more about broader social concerns over changing gender roles, sexual norms and family life.

Long before the Christian right emerged in the 1970s and 1980s, for example, Billy James Hargis an evangelical preacher and radio host, warned that pornography encouraged the spread of communism. Hargis first gained national attention in the 1950s for preaching against communism in his radio program “Christian Crusade.” He was convinced that homosexuality, sex education and pornographers fueled a communist-friendly moral decay.

Later in the 1980s, evangelical Protestants mobilized against the sexual revolution of the 1970s. One of their targets was the pornography industry that had grown with the invention of the VCR and led to pornographic videos entering American homes.

Along with other anti-pornography organizations, the fundamentalist Protestant political organization, the Moral Majority, supported efforts to enforce and increase obscenity laws to regulate and reduce pornography.

The Moral Majority’s platform linked pornography with their other concerns, suggesting that pornography, just like homosexuality or abortion, contributed to the moral decline of America.

More recently, evangelical and Latter-day Saints or Mormon politicians have been urging states across the country to pass resolutions declaring pornography to be “a public health crisis.”

All these political efforts sent a straightforward message: Porn is bad.

Evangelical Self-help and Sex Advice

But the story is not so simple. In the 1970s, an evangelical self-help and sex-advice industry emerged that put a religious twist on a cultural obsession with personal and relationship satisfaction and happiness.

At the time, authors like conservative political activists Tim and Beverly LaHaye and Focus on the Family founder James Dobson acknowledged that porn was a problem that Christians (almost always men but on occasion women) faced. Their writing focused on how pornography harmed marital relationships and personal well-being. At the same time, however, it described how devout Christians may be pornography consumers.

While clearly opposing the consumption of porn, self-help and sex advice book authors also normalized it. In their book, “Pure Eyes: A Man’s Guide to Sexual Integrity,” evangelical writers Craig Gross (also founder of the anti-porn website XXX Church) and Steven Luff asked their readers directly,

“Are you ready to admit … that you struggle with something that almost any man could be tempted by?”

How Evangelicals Relate to Porn

Today, there are evangelical books, websites, conferences and small groups to support evangelicals who are troubled by their own pornography use.

Such resources describe pornography as potentially “addictive” and a ubiquitous temptation in our technology-driven world. Indeed, as sociologist Samuel Perry finds, even conservative Protestants who believe pornography is “always morally wrong” are only “somewhat less likely” to consume pornography compared to other Americans. He calls this “moral incongruence” and explains how conservative Protestants’ “avoidance of pornography does not (and perhaps cannot) keep pace with their professed opposition to it.”

This moral incongruence has changed how evangelicals relate to pornography. The moral conviction against porn remains strong, but there is also sympathy for its consumers.

Whereas non-evangelicals may observe a contradiction when it comes to supporting both Christian values and President Trump, I have found in my research that conservative evangelicals don’t have to see it that way. Their logic supposes that giving into sexual temptations is part of the human condition: People are prone to sin and must seek forgiveness and support.The Conversation

A man like Donald Trump, in other words, could benefit from the pages of evangelical self-help books. But his sexual failings needn’t get in the way of conservative politics.

Kelsy Burke, Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

DON'T MISS

What Are Fresno Real Estate Experts Predicting for 2025 and Beyond?

DON'T MISS

First California EV Mandates Hit Automakers This Year. Most Are Not Even Close

DON'T MISS

Trump to Sign Tax-Cut and Spending Bill in July 4 Ceremony

DON'T MISS

Madre Fire Spurs Evacuations Across 3 Counties, Grows to More Than 70,000 Acres

DON'T MISS

Clovis, Sanger, Madera, and Bass Lake Will Light the Sky With Fireworks Shows Tonight

DON'T MISS

Oil Dips Ahead of Expected OPEC+ Output Increase

DON'T MISS

613 Killed at Gaza Aid Distribution Sites, Near Humanitarian Covoys, Says UN

DON'T MISS

Fresno County Authorities Investigating Suspicious Death of Transient Man

DON'T MISS

West Bank Town Becomes ‘Big Prison’ as Israel Fences It In

DON'T MISS

Israeli Military Kills 20 in Gaza as Trump Awaits Hamas Reply to Truce Proposal

DON'T MISS

Valley Crime Stoppers’ Most Wanted Person of the Day: Rachelle Maria Blanco

DON'T MISS

Russia Pounds Kyiv With Largest Drone Attack, Hours After Trump-Putin Call

UP NEXT

Madre Fire Spurs Evacuations Across 3 Counties, Grows to More Than 70,000 Acres

UP NEXT

Clovis, Sanger, Madera, and Bass Lake Will Light the Sky With Fireworks Shows Tonight

UP NEXT

Oil Dips Ahead of Expected OPEC+ Output Increase

UP NEXT

613 Killed at Gaza Aid Distribution Sites, Near Humanitarian Covoys, Says UN

UP NEXT

Fresno County Authorities Investigating Suspicious Death of Transient Man

UP NEXT

West Bank Town Becomes ‘Big Prison’ as Israel Fences It In

UP NEXT

Israeli Military Kills 20 in Gaza as Trump Awaits Hamas Reply to Truce Proposal

UP NEXT

Valley Crime Stoppers’ Most Wanted Person of the Day: Rachelle Maria Blanco

UP NEXT

Russia Pounds Kyiv With Largest Drone Attack, Hours After Trump-Putin Call

UP NEXT

Boxer Chavez Jr Expected to Be Deported to Mexico to Serve Sentence, Mexican President Says

Oil Dips Ahead of Expected OPEC+ Output Increase

20 hours ago

613 Killed at Gaza Aid Distribution Sites, Near Humanitarian Covoys, Says UN

20 hours ago

Fresno County Authorities Investigating Suspicious Death of Transient Man

20 hours ago

West Bank Town Becomes ‘Big Prison’ as Israel Fences It In

20 hours ago

Israeli Military Kills 20 in Gaza as Trump Awaits Hamas Reply to Truce Proposal

20 hours ago

Valley Crime Stoppers’ Most Wanted Person of the Day: Rachelle Maria Blanco

20 hours ago

Russia Pounds Kyiv With Largest Drone Attack, Hours After Trump-Putin Call

20 hours ago

Boxer Chavez Jr Expected to Be Deported to Mexico to Serve Sentence, Mexican President Says

20 hours ago

Markets’ 90-Day Tariff Pause Rollercoaster Nears an Uncertain End

20 hours ago

Trump Says He’s Willing to Let Migrant Farm Laborers Stay in US

20 hours ago

Trump to Sign Tax-Cut and Spending Bill in July 4 Ceremony

President Donald Trump is scheduled to sign a massive package of tax and spending cuts into law at a ceremony at the White House on Friday, ...

19 hours ago

President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 12, 2025. (Reuters File)
19 hours ago

Trump to Sign Tax-Cut and Spending Bill in July 4 Ceremony

The Madre Fire burning near New Cuyama has scorched 70,801 acres as of Friday, July 4, 2025, afternoon, making it California’s largest wildfire of the year, with only 10% containment and multiple evacuation zones in place. (CalFire)
19 hours ago

Madre Fire Spurs Evacuations Across 3 Counties, Grows to More Than 70,000 Acres

19 hours ago

Clovis, Sanger, Madera, and Bass Lake Will Light the Sky With Fireworks Shows Tonight

A pumpjack operates at the Vermilion Energy site in Trigueres, France, June 14, 2024. (Reuters File)
20 hours ago

Oil Dips Ahead of Expected OPEC+ Output Increase

Palestinians gather to collect what remains of relief supplies from the distribution center of the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, June 5, 2025. (Reuters File)
20 hours ago

613 Killed at Gaza Aid Distribution Sites, Near Humanitarian Covoys, Says UN

Billy Wayne Sinisgalli, a 54-year-old transient known locally as Wayne, was found dead along a rural Fresno road Wednesday in what authorities are investigating as a suspicious death. (Fresno County SO)
20 hours ago

Fresno County Authorities Investigating Suspicious Death of Transient Man

Israel Builds a Fence Around the West Bank
20 hours ago

West Bank Town Becomes ‘Big Prison’ as Israel Fences It In

A view of the site of Thursday's Israeli strike that damaged and destroyed residential buildings, at Shati (Beach) refugee camp, in Gaza City, July 4, 2025. (Reuters/Mahmoud Issa)
20 hours ago

Israeli Military Kills 20 in Gaza as Trump Awaits Hamas Reply to Truce Proposal

Help continue the work that gets you the news that matters most.

Search

Send this to a friend