by Ken Walker 17 Jan 2008

Another pastor has fallen prey to pornography, news made notable because he was a married father of four and leader of a prominent church in Tampa.

Said one church leader: "I feel enormous sadness for him, and especially his family. We do talk about how we’re imperfect, and this certainly shows that."

We shouldn’t be surprised by such sad events. Seven years have passed since a survey by Leadership Journal revealed that 43 percent of pastors had fallen to the temptation to visit on-line porn sites, including 36 percent in the year preceding the poll.

With the Internet’s influence growing exponentially in the intervening time period, one can assume the problem is worse today.

Before the Church rounds up a legalistic posse to run all the sexual reprobates out of the pulpit, though, stop and consider that porn use is often rooted in deeper emotional issues.

Colorado Springs counselor Douglass Weiss says 80 percent of sexual addicts report being sexually abused earlier in life. Ninety percent come from emotionally abusive backgrounds.

"Many have abandonment issues, either with a father or mother or other significant person in their life," says Weiss, author of numerous books and a columnist for the New Man on-line site.

Weiss has had personal exposure to pastoral failure. Not only does he attend the church once pastored by Ted Haggard, half the people who have served as his pastor have succumbed to sexual immorality.

Weiss recognizes that pastors can’t blindly subscribe to James 5:16, since confessing their faults to someone at church can cost them their job. That’s why his counseling center offers telephone support groups, where participants can check in weekly or as needed.

If that isn’t enough, the center has three-day intensive sessions that have drawn pastors from across the nation. In some cases, they administer polygraph tests to assure spouses the problem is related to pornography and not some other form of sexual misconduct.

Pastors such as Steve Johnson, who have been through such wars, know there aren’t easy answers. Johnson was caught viewing porn on his church’s computer several years ago.

Fortunately, instead of showing him the door the church granted him a leave of absence so he could enter counseling.

Now serving as an interim pastor in Georgia and running a ministry that focuses on the doctrine of grace, Johnson had struggled for years to deal with the lust in his heart that had reigned since childhood.

Among the spiritual solutions he tried were fasting, prayer, confessing his sin to several traveling evangelists and exorcism. He even attended a service where people were being slain in the Spirit (although he doesn’t consider that biblical.)

Johnson says therapists helped him realize the roots of his problem went back to childhood poverty and feelings of loneliness.

"Emotional problems are not going to be resolved with spiritual solutions," Johnson says. "They weren’t with me for 40 years."

During his periodic travels, Johnson encounters pastors he knows are dealing with the same issue. He says many speak in such code phrases as, "You’re not alone in that struggle."

For pastors who want to break free of addiction but are terrified of being discovered (and possibly fired), he has a two-pronged solution: find a competent therapist and a trusted confidante with whom they can be gut-level honest.

Larry Crabb wrote, ‘I know of little else so powerful as confessing wretched failure and having a friend look on you with great delight,’" Johnson says. "The last thing a pastor dealing with destructive sin that could destroy everything is to tell him he’s wrong. He already knows that. He needs encouragement."

None of this is to excuse the problem or fail to maintain convictions against it. As Weiss wrote in a recent column, "It’s time to rebel against the sexual tide of our culture! It begins as we completely surrender to Him."

Still, this is a situation where Galatians 6:1-2 is the best prescription the Church can offer to those who are trapped in wrongdoing.