Disordered Desire and the Challenge of Forming Mature Disciples

A Disordered Desire

Pornography exploits God’s good gifts of beauty and sexual desire to reinforce a hyper-sexualized view of oneself. It subverts Christian identity by denying our responsibility towards God, replacing it with responsibility only to gratify ourselves, and thereby hardens people against Christ’s forgiving love in the gospel.

Our sexual urges are not sinful in themselves. They are a good gift from our loving God, meant to be used according to his pattern to express love for him and each other. Scripture consistently presents sexual intimacy within the covenant of marriage as good, joyful, relational, and life-giving (Gen 1:28; 2:23–25; Prov 5:15–23; 1 Cor 7:2–5).

Sin disorders this good desire by refusing to permit sex to be governed by God’s pattern of committed heterosexual marriage,¹ and demanding it be gratified immediately, according to personal preference. Pornography, enhanced by the internet and AI generative technology, reinforces this kind of immediate, limitless sexual self-gratification.

• A variety of sexually explicit material is constantly available on the internet, permitting consumers to gratify their sexual desires at any time as much as they want. 
• AI-generated pornography allows the user to customize their experiences and even make it interactive. 
• It is mostly free, therefore accessible by everyone. 
• It is anonymous since all it requires is an internet-enabled device. 

Pornography thereby reinforces a self-focused, antirelational, antisocial view of sex. It teaches that sex is primarily about intense, self-defined experiences of pleasure detached from covenant, relationship, sacrifice, and responsibility. This stands opposed to the Christian vision of sexuality, where sex unites husband and wife in mutual delight, intimacy, and the possibility of new life.

God created the male and female aspects of our bodies and brains in complementary ways that support intimacy, pleasure, and long-term bonding. Research increasingly shows how sexual intimacy strengthens emotional connection through complex neurological and hormonal processes involving dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and other brain systems.

Pornography warps these processes by bombarding the brain with hyper-sexualized stimuli it was not designed to handle. The repeated dopamine surges associated with pornography begin to train desire toward artificial stimulation rather than real relational intimacy. ² Over time, pornography use can erode self-control, distort expectations, weaken relational attachment, and intensify cravings for more extreme forms of stimulation.

As pornography consumption increases, users often become desensitized to normal intimacy. Artificial and increasingly AI-enhanced sexual imagery trains the brain toward unrealistic expectations of beauty and performance. Single people may withdraw from pursuing real relationships, while married people may lose desire for intimacy with their spouse or expect real relationships to imitate pornographic fantasy.

Continued pornography use can eventually become compulsive. The brain’s capacity for impulse control weakens, while the desire for stimulation intensifies. People increasingly feel powerless against habits they know are harmful. Sadly, within the church, pornography use is often only recognized once significant spiritual, relational, or emotional damage has already occurred.

Subversion of the Gospel

Pornography subverts the gospel in at least two ways. It demoralizes converted Christians and others who have a sensitive conscience. They know they have sinned against God, feel guilty and ashamed about it, and may therefore, like Adam and Eve, hide their sin and hide from God instead of bringing themselves and their sin to the cross of Christ for forgiveness and restoration. 

Pornography also hardens unconverted people against the gospel, again in at least two ways.

• It makes people resent biblical sexual ethics and therefore resent God instead of loving him. People see God as a killjoy who prevents them from enjoying life, instead of the savior who liberates them from misery in this life and the next. 
• Even worse, the kind of hyper-sexualized identity which pornography encourages can make people feel entitled to sin, therefore not feel the need to be forgiven for sexual or any other sin. Non-Christians may even feel a responsibility to de-convert Christians away from their outdated, self-repressive Christian beliefs and join them in limitless sexual self-satisfaction. 

The Church’s Response

Pornography is not only an issue for non-Christians. A 2024 study reported that over half of practicing Christians admitted to using pornography. The difference was not necessarily behavior, but that Christians were more likely to recognize it as wrong and experience guilt and shame because of it. ³

The world teaches us to live by our desires. Christian discipleship calls us to deny ourselves and follow Jesus (Matt 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23). This does not mean repressing all sexual desire, because sexual desire is not itself wrong. It does mean developing self-control so that we offer our sexuality to God as an aspect of our whole body worship of him (Rom 6; 12:1–2). 

Only a high view of Jesus and the grace of his gospel can motivate that kind of devotion. Sexual purity therefore begins with evangelism. People need to enjoy Jesus more than sex. They need to find him more beautiful, more desirable, than the ultimate AI-generated porn star.

The next step is age-appropriate, sex-positive Christian discipleship. Precisely because sex is good, powerful, and fragile, people at every stage of life need to be taught God’s perspectives on how to manage their desires in ways which honor his intentions for sex and are therefore good for ourselves and others. ⁴

• • Children need to hear about God’s good plan for their body and life.
• • Adolescents need to be taught that sexual desires are good but should not be indulged indiscriminately through pornography or other sexual activity, and encouraged to develop sexual restraint.
• • Engaged and married couples need to know that desire discrepancy is normal and not a problem to be fixed with porn, but an opportunity to care for one another and practice 1 Cor 7:2–5.
• • Parents need to be empowered to address these issues with their children.
• • Midlife and older couples need help navigating the fatigue and limitations that accompany busyness, children, and aging. Reduced sexual activity is not a void to be filled with pornography, but an opportunity to experience deeper intimacy and satisfaction together.

None of the above, even if done in Christ’s name, is at core uniquely Christian. Because of general revelation, sexual health is a matter of natural law.⁵ Religions and secular science can recognize the damage pornography causes through observation of the human body and soul. Only Christianity, through the grace of forgiveness and restoration in Christ, can offer true repentance, renewal, and rehabilitation for those damaged by pornography.

Churches and Christian ministries therefore need to be places where pornography users can confess their struggles and seek help to repent and recover. External filters and accountability software are useful, but retraining the heart through new habits and desires is essential.

Even here, God’s grace extends to the natural operations of our brain. The same pathways which reinforce pornography use can be redirected toward healthy sexuality by starving pornography pathways and replacing them with healthy desires and habits. Over time, compulsive behavior can diminish, relationships can be repaired, and consciences renewed.

The final solution to the seductions of pornography is not merely to desire one’s spouse, good as that is. It is not merely to desire wholesome sexuality, although that too is very good. It is to desire God in Christ, who will one day come leaping over the hills (Song of Songs 2:8) to take us to himself.

Endnotes

1. Jesus affirms both binary sexuality and heterosexuality by harmonising Gen 1:27 with 2:24, thus placing same-sex sexual activity, same-sex ‘marriage’ and transgender self-identification outside the bounds of the Christian faith. 
2.  Love, Todd, Christian Laier, Matthias Brand, Linda Hatch, and Raju Hajela, ‘Neuroscience of Internet Pornography Addiction: A Review and Update,’ Behavioral Sciences, 5(3) (2015), 388-433. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs5030388. 
3.  Barna Group, ‘Over Half of Practicing Christians Admit They Use Pornography,’ 17 October 2024, https://www.barna.com/trends/over-half-of-practicing-christians-admit-they-use-pornography/. 
4. Patricia has written a series of books for everyone from toddlers to the elderly, including one to help parents teach their children. They are listed at https://youthworksmedia.net/collections/patricia-weerakoon. 
5. Christ is the unique incarnation of God. The Bible is uniquely God’s out-breathed word, 2 Tim 3:16. But God reveals himself to all people through creation and conscience: Ps 19:1–6; Rom 1:18–21; 2:14–16. This general revelation does not save, it only condemns, because sin makes us respond to it by rejecting and ignoring God. One way we reject God is by ignoring the patterns, the ‘laws,’ which he has woven into the natural operations of this world. Healthy sexuality is one of those ‘laws’ which pornography breaks.