‘Jesus loves porn stars’

Got porn? Then get Jesus. That’s the ambitious premise of XXXchurch.com, a Web site founded by two pastors who’re hoping to bring porn addicts a place where they can overcome what they’ve dubbed “America’s dirty little secret.”

Pastors Craig Gross and Mike Foster are hoping to bring America out of the porn closet on October 9 with “National Porn Sunday.” It’s the zenith of their four-year journey into the effects of pornography on those who consume it, and it’s the opening of a bridge to give those seeking salvation from porn’s grip a helping hand.

Scoff if you want, and serve up your double entendres. They’ve heard it all.

Foster, 34, says it was June 2001 when he was hit with the skin-and-sin epiphany.

“I was in the shower praying, and I said, ‘God, I want to do something huge for you,’” Foster recalls. “He said one word to me: ‘Porn.’”

Foster pitched the idea to Gross, whom he’d met in 1997 while he was playing in a rock band at a church youth conference, and the two started XXXchurch.com, which bills itself as the “#1 Christian porn site.” It offers free software for porn users hoping to kick the habit, which e-mails a log of usage to a designated friend’s e-mail address. A “prayer wall” offers a place where people can post requests for prayer for themselves, or others, or just discuss porn-related problems and how to resolve them through faith.

After several fits and starts—including a hacking that erased content and left a Turkish Flag posted on the site by someone named “Enigmatrix”—the duo’s efforts have come to fruition, with 70 churches participating in National Porn Sunday worldwide.

Gross and Foster were at Arcade Church on Marconi Avenue on September 25, prepping the flock for the event. Gross, a Sacramento native, is a longtime friend of Arcade pastor Jake Larson, who will carry the anti-porn message on National Porn Sunday; Foster and Gross will speak at Chicago’s Willow Creek Community Church, which seats a flock of 17,500 in its main auditorium. Outside the spacious Arcade Church complex sat the National Porn Sunday billboard, adorned in retro-’70s lettering and cacophonous pink background. It was housed on a truck that the two took to Los Angeles and Phoenix in ensuing days. Ironically, Porn Sunday organizers said that their anti-porn billboards and advertisements have been rejected by Clear Channel and Rolling Stone because of the sexy motif and the prominence of the word “porn.”

Larson said at least one member of the flock was concerned about the billboard as well. “Somebody came up to me and said, ‘Pastor Jake, is that supposed to be here?’” he said. It surely is, he says, because porn is exacting a cost on people’s lives, compounded by the binding shame of those unable to break the silence and admit they have a problem.

“We’re going to hit it head on with biblical truth,” Larson explained. “Nine of out 10 9- to 16-year-olds have seen pornography. I believe porn is preventing people from giving their lives to Jesus Christ. [National Porn Sunday] is freedom from the bondage of porn.”

Estimates for how much the domestic porn industry grosses annually vary widely; they range from $1 billion to $10 billion. A Google search of “porn” racks up 37 million hits, while “Jesus Christ” nabs a mere 17 million.

Novelist Salman Rushdie once called porn a litmus test for defining the bounds of free and open society. And neither Gross nor Foster are suggesting it be banned. But it is increasingly becoming a concern for parents, said Foster, when they find out what all the young dudes are downloading. It’s not Mott the Hoople.

“Parents are clueless. Kids are much smarter,” he said. “They’re finding out how to meet people and how to download this stuff on their cell phone. The true victims are kids. It’s incredibly confusing to them. Is this the way sex is supposed to be? Am I supposed to have breasts that are double-Ds? Is a guy is supposed to want me for my sexuality?”

In June, the pair operated two booths at a Los Angeles erotica convention and distributed T-shirts, including ones that proclaimed “Jesus loves porn stars.” They signed up 213 people for a seven-day porn-free challenge. Along with the annual Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas, they’ve hit both for three years running with a booth and a gentle yet firm message that porn addicts can get help, too, by accepting God’s help.

The pair made a film called Missionary Positions, detailing the ups and downs of their four-year struggle to spread the message of XXXchurch.com. It shows them being harangued and dismissed by both sides of the ideological fence, from customers at porn conventions to a hellfire-and-brimstone clergyman equipped with a bullhorn outside, who refuses to take a brochure Gross offers and angrily shouts him down. The duo also travels to Amsterdam in a cruise of the city’s unabashedly bacchanalian red-light district. They interview a prostitute and a customer and seem queasy-bemused in the process.

They do television and radio shows, often clowned by wised-up interviewers who don’t take them seriously and have brought them in as obvious fodder for a quick few minutes’ repartee replete with a smarmy dismissal. Foster gets so down on the seeming lack of efficacy of the porn-cum-salvation crusade that, at one point, he hands the operation over to Gross, who keeps pushing. Gross eventually convinces him to return after prodding and increased media exposure, which raises Foster’s spirits. Both are married and have two children, and the gravitas of carrying the message weighs visibly on them.

Gross, 29, said that XXXchurch.com has helped couples become more open about how a porn habit affects their relationships—whether it’s perusing soft-core pics or running up credit-card bills with memberships on hard-core sites. You don’t need to be a member of HerFirstGangBang.com to qualify as an addict. The slippery slope, he added, can be deceptively slick.

“There’s people that kept getting sucked down,” he explains in Missionary Positions. “They need harder and harder material to get off.”

It was an improbable mission, based on the audience they’d pitch to and the delicate subject matter to be broached. But the Lord, indeed, works in mysterious ways—and with the first-ever National Porn Sunday October 9, Gross and Foster have come a long way in four years.

“The church has been silent on porn,” Gross told SN&R. “Agree with us or not, but we’ve earned the right to be heard. Now it’s National Porn Sunday, the biggest [thing] we’ve done. We’re going directly to the church. It’s been a matter of silence for so long.”