A speaking tour sponsored by Campus Crusade for Christ, which features a former porn addict, is warning college students across the U.S. about the devastating effects of pornography.
Michael's Leahy's addiction to porn cost him a 15-year marriage, a career, his friendship relationships, and his family life with his two boys. On the brink of suicide, he turned his life over to Christ and then began to recover. Now he is sharing his story with thousands of college students across America in his "Porn Nation" tour.
Leahy says pornography is a massive problem on university campuses. "I call this 'ground zero' in the culture wars," he says. "And the culture wars are being won right now not by just pornographers and the traditional 'adult' entertainment business, but also by mainstream media that is turning to sex and sexual imagery and messages more and more to attract us to their product, to their service."
Leahy's group "Bravehearts" has taken a message of hope to 75 schools over the last two years. This year's tour will encompass 50 schools in four countries. He says that his speaking appearances provide an incredible opportunity for evangelism.
"We've had hundreds of students come to Christ as a result of this -- maybe close to a thousand by now, after doing this for two years," he shares. In addition, he says perhaps "tens of thousands" of have been exposed to the gospel of Jesus Christ as he has gone through what he describes as a "kind of seed-planting process" as he shares the idea that pornography may not be as harmless as those in his audiences might have thought originally. He notes that the average teen is exposed to more than 14,000 sexual images and messages every year just through the mainstream media.
According to Leahy, research shows that about 87 percent of all 15- to 17-year-olds have multiple exposure to hardcore pornography -- which means, he says, that long before students every step foot on a college campus, they are already invested in the material and attitude that comes with sexualizing relationships and people.
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