Freedom Begins Here! An Interview with Bryson Moore

With the rise of the Internet, porn addiction has become a modern-day scourge in the church. According to recent polls 50 percent of Christian men and 20 percent of Christian women are addicted to pornography. A few years ago a small group of Christian filmmakers decided to do something about the problem. They teamed up with top Christian counselors and created a program called Freedom Begins Here!, a resource to help churches and individuals combat the addiction. Recently New Man talked with the group’s vice president, Bryson Moore, about the project.

New Man: How did this project get started? And what was the motivation behind it?

Bryson Moore: We’ve been working on this project for four years now. We started out as a video production group and we worked with Christian counselors. One of the people we got involved with was Dr. Mark Laser. He’s a Christian expert on sexuality and addiction. He came to us about four years ago and said “I really see a need to train pastors and counselors on how to deal with sex addicts and people addicted to pornography.” He asked to make something for counselors. We put together a distance-learning program for counselors.

We got great feedback from the counseling world. But we also received feedback from people who were struggling with sexual issues. Most we heard from were struggling with Internet pornography. We looked into this a little more and found some mind-boggling statistics. A survey by Christiannet.com found that 50 percent of Christian men and 20 percent of Christian women feel that they are addicted to pornography. That’s huge. That means that one third of every church in America is addicted to pornography. Christianity Today reported that seven out of 10 lay leaders in the church were looking at pornography once a week and four out of 10 pastors were.

Internet pornography has changed the game so much. You used to have to go and search out pornography, maybe find it in your uncle’s closet or stumble upon it in a trash can. Well, now it comes to us. You can’t even go to the homepage of youtube.com without seeing provocative images. The experts are saying that Internet pornography is the crack cocaine of pornography. And it’s being delivered to us at our desks.

We started to see a need and to hear these cries for help, so about a year ago we started to produce a pastor’s and personal toolkit of the Freedom Begins Here! toolkit to equip the church and just start the conversation. One of the problems is that we’re not talking about the issue. We’re challenging the church with this toolkit to start talking about the issue and offering them some solid resources to deal with it. On the program we have Gary Smalley and pastor Ted Cunningham. We have to do something collectively about the problem of pornography in the church because it affects us all, whether or not we struggle personally.

New Man: There’s a lot of shame surrounding this issue. How difficult do you think it is for churches to address this problem collectively?

Moore: In churches today if someone stands up and says, “I’m an alcoholic” or, “I’m a drug addict” we stand by them. We put our arms around them and promise help. But if someone stands up and says, “I’m addicted to pornography” we kind of back off—even when half of the guys in the pews are dealing with the same issue. With our program we want to help people overcome that barrier. We highlight real people, many of who have been leaders in their churches. So one of the ways we’re trying to overcome the taboo is convey the message that you can be a normal person and struggle with this problem. It’s not always the pervert or pedophile. It’s all of us who struggle with this when we sit down at our computers and open our e-mail and there’s pornography in our face. It’s so accessible and easy to fall into. We want to tell people this is our struggle. You’re not alone.

New Man: What would you say to guys who aren’t addicts, but have fallen from time to time—yet feel like they have it under control?

Moore: Everyone needs accountability. It doesn’t matter whether you fall once a year or every day, we need to be accountable to each other. If I’m sitting here at my computer and know that wherever I go on the Internet that my accountability partner is going to see where I’m going it changes my behavior.

New Man: How does that work?

Moore: We formed a partnership with Covenant Eyes, which has accountability software. The software doesn’t block Web sites, but you sign up with someone who will be an accountability partner. We included a free 30-day trial with our program. We found that what has started the journey toward freedom for many has been as simple as installing some accountability software.

New Man: So this software sends the URLs you’ve visited to your accountability partner?

Moore: It’s really cool. It has changed my life in the way I spend my time on the Internet. Every Web site you visit, Covenant Eyes ranks that Web site based on the content that it finds on the page. It compiles all the URL scores and then every week your accountability partner gets a list and a report about all the places you’ve been online. It’s basically like someone sitting there looking over your shoulder.

New Man: How did the band Rush of Fools become involved with this program?

Moore: When we were putting this program together we thought, “Wouldn’t it be great to have a really inspiring music video to go along with the material. Rush of Fools was at No. 1, burning up the radio, but we thought we’d give it a shot. We felt like there could be something more than just using their video. They responded and were totally into the mission of what we were doing and we met with them as they toured. Something just sparked when we met with them. They really felt that this cause was what they wanted to do. They felt that this was where God was calling them. Now we have a great partnership with them.

New Man: What’s your ultimate vision for these programs?

Moore: The big picture goal is that a movement would begin all across churches, all across the country. We want people to say, “We need to do something about this crisis.” We also want to encourage people to feel OK to talk about this issue. We’re all struggling with this in some way. We need the church to be a place of safety that people can run to and admit this is there struggle and we can embrace them and help them through. Let’s replace all of this junk out there with the Word of God. We want to see a transformation, a revival in the church. This is something that’s pulling us down. We need freedom. We must change the lives of people.

To check out these resources please visit the Web site at freedombeginshere.org