Porn quietly infiltrates church feet all over the world, leaving deep scars on individuals, marriages and ministries. In the first part of this series, Sam Black, director of Life Change Education at Covenant Eyes, shared that his own graceful journey to freedom was the basis for his calling to help others. In this second article, Black reflects the mental, relational and neurological effects of porn, why secrets thrive, and how accountability can change your life.
Edited more than 12 books and wrote Healing Churches, Black: What the church is wrong about pornography and how to fix it says that conversations must move from shame and silence to one of disciples, hope.
Hidden trends
For decades, porn has been treated as the most avoided and unpleasant subject of polite church conversations. However, Black says that this silence allowed the issue to be unchecked and spread.
“I think most people are shocked to learn how widespread this is in the church,” he said. “Pastors are struggling. Leaders are struggling. Young people are exposed at earlier and earlier ages. But many feel that there is no place to turn.”
An ever-growing number of research has confirmed that the use of porn is common not only among broader cultures, but among Christians. The statistics are different, but the patterns are unmistakable. Exposure begins young, obsessive use affects both men and women, while secrets allow issues to increase power.
“The lack of conversation in the church creates an environment that deepens isolation,” Black said. “The secret is the needs of oxygen porn. The struggle intensifies when people believe they can’t talk about it.”
In the case of black, these are more than just abstract numbers. They represent broken families, ministers are disqualified and followers who tackle guilt and despair. “Every time I talk to a pastor or parent who says I thought I was alone in this fight, I reinforce the need to break the stigma,” he said.
More than a moral problem
The church often frames pornography primarily as a moral failure, but Black emphasizes that its impact is much deeper and reshaping both the brain and mind.
“Looking at the research, pornography is not just a mental or moral issue. It literally changes the brain. It carries neural pathways that reinforce obsessive-compulsive patterns. It hijacks the same system designed for bonding and intimacy,” he explained.
The grip of porn is partially rooted in how the brain processes joy and rewards. Each exposure floods the brain with dopamine, the same chemical involved in learning and motivation. Over time, the brain becomes desensitized and users start to seek more extreme or new content to achieve the same effect.
“This is why I tell people to just stop,” Black said. “Their brains are rewired to long for something that they were never intended to process. Healing needs to be temporarily, relational and neurologically updated, not just willpower.”
In the Healing Church, Black bridges the gap between science and faith, showing how disciple and accountability can help restore broken neural patterns. “God designs our brains to be plastic and can be changed. When we replace destructive habits with healthy rhythms, our brains are rewired again. That’s where hope comes in,” he said.
The cycle of shame
One of the most harmful dynamics is the cycle of shame that catches people struggling.
“Shaming tells you that you are the only person, if people really know you, they’ll reject you. It brings people back to isolation. That’s exactly where porn thrives,” he said.
The cycle usually unfolds at a predictable stage: seduction, use, guilt, shame, secret, and then again return to seduction. Each repetition deepens unworthy feelings and reinforces impulses.
In contrast, confession and accountability dismantle this cycle. “The Gospels tell us that even if we are broken, we are known and loved by God. When we encounter a safe community where people can be honest, they begin to experience freedom,” Black said.
Accountability as a disciple
Accountability is central to the approach of contract eye. Not as surveillance or punishment, but as a form of disciple.
“Accountability is walking together in the light,” Black explained. “I don’t do this alone. I want someone in my life to come along with me to celebrate victory and ask someone who will remind me of the gospel when I stumble.”
In reality, accountability means combining an individual with a trusted alliance: a friend, mentor, or spouse. This can receive regular reports, ask honest questions and encourage consistent progress. Covenant Eyes technology facilitates this by sending activity updates, but at the heart of the process is relationships.
“Technology alone won’t change your mind,” emphasized Black. “It creates opportunities for conversation. Real transformation occurs when people engage those conversations with grace and truth.”
He has seen this model change his life. Once felt trapped, men and women discovered that over time the secret powers had been broken. “Take it into the light and the secret power breaks down. And when new habits form and the brain is renewed, people start to live differently,” he said.
Frontline Family
Black is equally passionate about equipping parents, noting that today’s children are exposed to explicit content at a younger age than ever before.
“The average age for the first exposure is surprisingly low,” he said. “Parents can’t assume that their children somehow avoid it. We need to get early on in conversation, not just on troublesome ‘talks’ but also ongoing dialogue. ”
He encourages parents to be proactive rather than reactive through open discussions about technology, identity and relationships. “If a child feels embarrassed or punished for being honest, they hide. But if they know that they are safe people their parents should talk about, they are more likely to share,” he said.
Practical procedures include using filtering tools, setting device boundaries, and modeling healthy digital habits as adults. “What parents say is more important than what they say. The kids are watching. We need to see integrity alive,” Black added.
Church responsibility
Responsibility is not only on the family, but also on the church. “The church needs to talk about this from the pulpit. They need to create space for confession and healing. Too often, people think that when the church should be the first, it’s the last place where they can bring their struggle,” Black said.
Why aren’t any more pastors addressing this issue directly? Black believes that fear plays a major role. “Some pastors are worried that when they talk about it, they’ll be accused of struggling themselves of. Others don’t know how to deal with it without shame on people. But silence only perpetuates the problem.”
He points to the growth of the movement in which the church is deliberately breaking silence. Some people have partnered with ministries that have established support groups or specialise in sexual integrity. Others have built accountability in their disciple programs, ensuring that new followers are ready to navigate digital seduction from the start.
“We’ve seen a recovery programme built around accountability and openly acknowledge the pastor’s journey. These are powerful signs of hope,” Black said.
Global challenge
While porn has often been treated as a Western issue, Black now emphasizes that it is a global challenge. Internet access has made explicit materials available everywhere, from huge villages to rural villages.
“We’re hearing from churches all over the world in the face of the same fight. Wherever our smartphones go, porn continues,” he said. “This is not just an American issue, it’s a human issue. And the world’s churches have to deal with it.”
The eye of contracts sees resources used in multiple languages and contexts. “The gospel speaks beyond cultures. There is also the need for accountability. Every culture needs a safe place for confessions, prayers and disciples,” Black added.
A story of hope
Despite the broad nature of the issue, Black is unwavering in his hopes. He witnessed marriages recovering, leaders being renewed, and youths being based on new trajectories.
“We’ve seen countless people experiencing freedom. We’ve seen pastors return to ministry after walking through healing. The couples have seen that their marriage is stronger than ever since they faced this together,” he said.
The general denominator of these stories is not human resolve, but grace. “Our identity is not defined by our failures. It is defined by those we are in Christ. When people start to grasp the truth, it changes everything,” he said.
In this second part of the series, Black outlined the scale of the problem and the pathway to healing through accountability, disciples and community. In the final article, he shares practical strategies for churches, leaders and families that seek to respond faithfully, and explores how churches around the world can turn the tide into one of the most pressing discipleship challenges of our time.
