Free Webinar Links Pornography and Sex Trafficking

The Religious Alliance Against Pornography (RAAP) and guest presenter, Dr. Sandie Morgan, will host a free webinar at 9 p.m. (EDT) Thursday, Sept. 22, 2016, to present the link between pornography and sex trafficking. Designed to empower faith communities to integrate strategic action plans to educate and protect children and families, Morgan will take an in-depth look at the fantasies of pornography that drive purchasers and lure victims into sex trafficking.

The Fantasy or Reality: The Pornography-Sex Trafficking Link webinar will cover subjects such as who is driving the demand and what the consequences are, the role of fantasy vs. reality in playing into victimization, and teaching faith communities how to prevent and protect by teaching the truth. It will also feature a sex-trafficked survivor’s personal story.

"The link between pornography and sex trafficking occurs in the person’s mind,” states Morgan, the director of Vanguard University’s Global Center for Women and Justice. “An ancient proverb says, ‘as a man thinks, so is he.’ When a man entertains the fantasy portrayed in pornography, it begins to reconstruct his reality. When a woman mentally accepts pornography, it normalizes being purchased. When a culture is saturated with pornography, reality is distorted, fantasy becomes the norm, and anything — anyone — can be purchased and sold for sex."

Beth Grant, an Assemblies of God missionary and co-founder of Project Rescue, is a strong proponent of parents and churches providing children and young people with a healthy, “follower-of-Jesus” perspective on sexuality, pornography, prostitution, and trafficking. “If we don’t,” Grant counters, “should we be surprised when our children, by default, have the secular culture’s perspective on these issues?”

Grant, an AG executive presbyter who has ministered with her husband, David, in Eurasia for the last 39 years, believes too many people don’t understand how addictive pornography is, how destructive it is, or its direct connection to the sex trafficking trade. 

"This webinar is being offered to provide needed talking points to parents, leaders and members of our churches on the realities of pornography,” Grant says. “In order to have these critically needed conversations with a younger generation, we ourselves must know the realities of how destructive pornography is not only to those who view it, but also to the women and children in front of the camera — many who are there as trafficking victims." 

In a 2015 PE News Conversation on the porn plague featuring responses to key questions by Grant, Thomas E. Trask, and Todd Bowman concerning pornography, Grant states, “Church should be the best place that those addicted to pornography and in sexual bondage can find help and healing. If our churches aren't those kinds of places, where can struggling people go?

To take part in the free webinar, register online prior to the scheduled time.  

Dan Van Veen

Dan Van Veen is news editor of AG News. Prior to transitioning to AG News in 2001, Van Veen served as managing editor of AG U.S. Missions American Horizon magazine for five years. He attends Central Assembly of God in Springfield, Missouri, where he and his wife, Lori, teach preschool Sunday School and 4- and 5-year-old Rainbows boys and girls on Wednesdays.