Stephen Kuhn

“Old-time miners used to keep canaries down in the mines where they dug. Before there were sophisticated instruments, the best way to detect the slow leak of poisonous gas was to have a canary—with tiny lungs—serve as an organic ‘meter.’ If the canary died, poisonous gas was likely leaking out and the miners got above ground as soon as possible. So, what are the ‘canaries’ for marriage? What are some of the signs that a marriage is really in trouble?”

“As a pastor, you get to hear a lot of secrets; but how often do you get to tell your own? I don’t know if you have ever told somebody a secret, but it feels really good. Whether it’s a secret about some new direction your life is taking, or about the surprise party you’re throwing for your best friend’s birthday, or the news about a baby on the way, getting it off your chest and into the air, into someone else’s brain, is a freeing sensation.”

“Recently, I was talking with an older, single man who keeps drifting back into sexual sin. It’s as if the tide of sexuality is going to win in the end—like he is destined to postpone sexual sin—but not to beat it. That way of thinking is scary enough, but there is more.”

“At the 2003 meeting of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, a gathering of the nation’s divorce lawyers, attendees documented a startling trend. Nearly two-thirds of the attorneys present had witnessed a sudden rise in divorces related to the Internet; 58% of those were the result of a spouse looking at excessive amounts of pornography online.”

“I can clearly remember the crushing weight of carrying my secret porn addiction onto the church stage each week. It felt like a million pounds on my chest. At times I wondered whether or not a person could die from stress. If so, I certainly felt like a candidate.”

“As you look on your singleness you can feel dissatisfied and even begin thinking of yourself as a second-class citizen because you lack your true soulmate. In an attempt to fill the void you spend months, and sometimes years, searching for the mythical “one” who will supposedly meet your needs and give meaning to your life.”

“As a Christian, why not sin? We could give a myriad of answers to that question. However, the best answer is supplied by Paul in Romans 6. Paul could have talked about the misery that sin brings, the pain that it inflicts upon others, the consequences which flow from it, or the penalty that Christ had to pay for it. But that is not where he first turns.”

“A group called Proven Men Ministries commissioned the Barna Group to examine current pornography use. You might want to sit down for this—Barna found that 64 percent of American men and 20 percent of women view pornography at least monthly. And for Christian men, that number is 55 percent.”

“He had already tried, many times, to stop looking at porn on his own. He had prayed and asked God to take the desires away. He struggled for years. He got so frustrated that he finally gave up and quit trying to quit—all while working every day with Scripture as a Bible translator. Ironic.”

“Earlier this year, Arcade Fire released their highly anticipated double album Reflektor to considerable fanfare. While much of the subsequent attention has been focused on songs like the title track, ‘Here Comes The Night Time,’ and ‘Afterlife’—and understandably so—there’s one song on Reflektor that has stuck with me since my earliest listening sessions, but that seems to have flown under most critics’ radars: the bluntly titled ‘Porno.’”

“I have been asked this same question by many of your ilk. To be more honest than I’d be if I were posting this answer on a blog, I confess I have made that same enquiry myself. The conventional wisdom I received was that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. That is true, but some beholders are idiots. I was one of them.”

“If you want to see your church ravaged by a sex or porn scandal, then follow this plan and you are well on your way.”