Living Out Loud

1. Porn degrades women. The vast majority of porn videos contain physical and/or verbal abuse toward women. Porn tends to be centered around male orgasm and the male gaze, and it trains men to take pleasure in the maltreatment of women. 2. Porn enables human trafficking. Porn consumption increases the demand for "sex workers," a.k.a. prostituted people, 89 percent of whom wish to exit the sex trade immediately. Victims of this exploitative industry are frequently exposed to STDs and illicit drugs and are expected to endure painful, humiliating acts on camera. 3. Porn is a cheap imitation of true intimacy.  Porn  reduces human sexuality to a mere exchange of bodily fluids, rather than an authentic expression of love and commitment. Sex is an integral part of the human spirit, yet it gets treated as a commodity that can be bought and sold. In our modern culture, porn is often depicted as progressive, liberating, and empowering. But that image couldn't be further from th...

Last night, you asked me a really great question: Do you believe the Bible is true? While it might look straightforward on the surface, the answer is a lot more complex than meets the eye. A simple yes or no could never do justice to all the questions behind the question, so instead, I've decided to address each one individually. Is the Bible historically accurate? Yes and no. Many parts of the Bible deal with historical events, but others seem more allegorical. Given what we now know about evolution, it's highly unlikely that Adam literally sprang up fully-formed out of the dust, or that Noah literally crammed thousands of animals onto the ark. Our scientific understanding evolves over time, and we'd be fools not to evolve with it. But, at the same time, these stories are more than just fairytales—they help us explore what it truly means to be human. Was the Bible written by God?  Not exactly. To me, the very essence of the Gospel is the union of complementary opposites...