By Alicia Cruz
New Jersey Newsroom
June 7, 2011
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/style/faith-helped-nj-pastor-with-porn-addiction
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In an effort to achieve absolution, the part-time pastor of a Swedesboro church last Sunday announced to his congregation that he once suffered from an addiction to pornography.
Before 200 members of the Crossbridge Community Church, Brent McNamara wept as he stood behind the pulpit explaining his addiction and the temptations he continues to struggle with.
The assistant pastor, who said his pornographic preoccupation began during his youth, divulged sexual abuse he endured as a child, and how the combination wracked him with shame and guilt, leading to the demise of his marriage, job and decline in his health, the Courier Post reported.
His faith in God helped him get clean, and in order to keep himself from returning to his former life of porn addiction, McNamara continues to resist even the smallest temptation such as looking at a Victoria's Secret catalog or other women's magazines. His second wife, Tricia, keeps the computer and television password-protected so he is unable to access porn.
The Mullica Hill father of three said his addiction began during his Bible-Pastoral studies at Philadelphia Biblical University during the 1970s where he frequented porn shops near the campus, and used porn as a pain reliever. His obsession led to his exile from the ministry and the church. His journey through recovery began in 2000 with counseling and a 12-step program after his wife of 22 years left him. He later returned to the church.
Citing a University of Pennsylvania researcher, McNamara said Pornography addiction is the single most difficult addiction to recover from because unlike alcoholics and drug addicts, who can eventually rid their systems of narcotics and alcohol, a porn addict can never excise his memory of the pornographic images his eyes have seen.
"The filthy images are saved in the memory banks of the mind and they can surface at any time, he told the CourierPost.
Despite the risk of negative press and condemnation, McNamara, compelled by God to hold himself accountable and confess his addiction, wrote a self-published book with the help of his mother titled, No More Hiding No More Shame: Freedom of Pornography Addiction, detailing the darkest of his 52-yars on this earth.
The book highlights alarming 2007 statistics that indicates 50 percent of Christian men and 20 percent of Christian women polled admitted to suffering from porn addiction. A 2001 survey performed by Christianity Today wrote that fifty-one percent of pastors surveyed said cyber porn was a possible temptation and 37 percent said it was a current struggle.
With his secret in the open, McNamara is moving his ministry beyond Crossbridge Community Church under the supervision of Dr. Steven Silverstein, a licensed clinical addictions counselor in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and author of the book, "Help for the Hurting Heart."
Silverstein is supervising McNamara as he attempts to become a licensed addictions counselor, and has invited him to speak at the Men Restoring Integrity conference in Cherry Hill in August, where he will share his story with other men. Silverstein served as a pastor for nine years and marveled at McNamara's strength and honesty. He lauded McNamara's courage and humility to expose his addiction for the sake of others struggling with the same addiction.
In 2005, Gospel singer Kirk Franklin revealed to Oprah Winfrey his own 20-year struggle with Internet porn addiction that began when the 41-year-old was only 8-years-old. Today, the Fort Worth, Texas native claims to have been clean for several years.
With offers of free access to pornography of all kind available to you on television to your e-mail inbox, pornography has become a $10 billion industry in the United States alone.
A 2011 survey conducted in the United Kingdom revealed that men ages 18- to 24-year-old on average, view porn approximately two hours each week.
According to statistics complied by Internet Filter Review in 2004 and 2006, there are approximately 4.2 million pornographic sites on the Internet, approximately 12 percent of all websites.
On a daily basis, there are almost 68 million Internet searches using pornographic terms. Every month, 72 million people visit pornographic web sites and there are 1.5 billion downloads of pornographic images utilizing "peer-to-peer" file sharing websites.
The United States annual profit from the purchase of pornographic products and services stands at a whopping $2.84 billion. Worldwide, the sale of both items nets a $4.9 billion profit, the study revealed.
The study further revealed that the average number of pornography related e-mails sent every day totals 2.5 billion with an average number of 4.5 of those emails actually being received by users each day.
According to the U.S. Customs Service, there are approximately 100,000 Websites featuring child pornography. A 2002 Websense/Harris interactive poll showed that almost 5 billion work hours are lost every year to cyber porn with 70 percent of the porn related traffic hours occurring between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays.
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