Pick up the football, put down the porn

It’s Super Bowl Sunday. Everyone knows that. But you may not know that it is also Porn Sunday.

Porn Sunday is an initiative of Las Vegas pastor Craig Gross, of XXXCHURCH.COM (also known as “X3").

X3 is a faith-based crusade to help men (and women) get over addiction to pornography, which is a personal mission for Gross. He calls it “The #1 most destructive force in our culture”, and following Christian tradition he ministers to the fallen. He is known for attending adult industry conventions and distributing Bibles to the performers with his message that ”Jesus Loves Porn Stars”. CNN reports that he also ministers to convicted child pornographers in prison.

The purpose of National Porn Sunday, according to X3, is to raise awareness about the issue and challenge men to quit consuming pornography on game day. Gross recruited some NFL players to produce an infomercial-length PSA:

National Porn Sunday Talk from XXXchurch on Vimeo.

X3 also offers several products to help porn addicts quit, including internet browser monitoring software, online seminars, and branded merchandise.

Yes, it’s weird. And perhaps uniquely American in its love-hate relationship with sexuality, and the the commercial style of its religion. But the man has a genuine fire in his belly:

“Any Christian man or woman who is engaging in sexual immorality of any kind is a person in conflict. Often it starts by viewing pseudo-pornography-things like modeling sites, chat sites, personal homepages, and other sites that often contain seductive images, but may not be classified as pornography.

Very quickly this kind of online behavior can spiral down to a place where these images don’t cut it anymore. At this point the viewer begins to “need” more intense images to be stimulated. Often you will hear someone who has gotten addicted say, ‘I have no idea how I got here; it started so innocently.’ Pornography is both very alluring and very addictive. Sexual addiction along with pornography addiction are issues that face many people these days. The websites that are distributing the material are designed to draw in the viewer, dangle free content and easy sign-ups-in an attempt to capture a new user.

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If your life is being controlled by your sexual desires and activities, instead of YOU being in control of them, then you have a sexual addiction. Studies have shown that ninety-nine percent of all masturbation involves lust and mental fantasy, which disconnects you from real relationships with real people.

If you sent a bottle of vodka to every home in America every week for a year, you would no doubt have a whole wave of alcoholics. The Internet has created a wave of pornography addicts with its pervasive porn delivery mechanism.”

More videos after the break.

Jon Kitna Extended Cut from XXXchurch on Vimeo.

Miles McPherson Extended Cut from XXXchurch on Vimeo.

Matt Hasselbeck Extended Cut from XXXchurch on Vimeo.

Eric Boles Extended Cut from XXXchurch on Vimeo.

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