Have you ever wondered if pornography or sexual addiction is a problem in Alabama Baptist churches? Just ask Tal Prince, director of external relations for Samford University’s Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, and he will tell you with confidence, “yes.”
Last summer, Prince received “overwhelmingly positive responses” after writing a series of articles on pornography and sexual addiction for The Alabama Baptist (TAB).
Many respondents admitted long-term struggles with pornography and expressed appreciation for his willingness to address such a taboo subject. Others shared reluctance to reveal their addiction to pornography to pastors and fellow church members, fearing rejection or exclusion.
But after reading about Prince’s personal struggles with sexual addiction and those of many people he meets in seminars nationwide, some readers began to believe they could receive healing after many years of feeling helpless.
Along with positive feedback, however, Prince has come to expect negative and sometimes threatening responses, and unfortunately he said his TAB articles netted some of those as well.
“It took a great deal of courage for TAB to run those articles, because it’s an explosive topic,” said Prince, who also leads Tapestry of Hope, a Birmingham church he founded specifically for people struggling with addictions. “It’s a topic that people don’t want to talk about. It’s enemy-held territory. Pornography has a stranglehold on people in churches from the leadership down. So it’s not ground the enemy wants to give back, (and) there will be push back.”
Bob Terry, president and publisher of TAB, said he appreciates Prince’s praise of the state Baptist paper’s courage. However, TAB was only doing what it was founded to do, he said.
“The state Baptist paper is supposed to provide resources to help Alabama Baptists in their personal lives. Pornography is a problem in American society, and that means it is a problem for Christians. I am glad we could help readers with information about this addiction and offer places of help.
“The Alabama Baptist made a difference in the lives of those readers just like it makes a difference in the lives of readers every week,” Terry said. “This is just another example of how the state Baptist paper is a resource for Christian living.”
After the first couple of articles, Prince said he received good responses from readers. But when an article was published about churches giving grace and being gracious to homosexuals, he said some of the feedback became threatening.
Prince received between 20 and 30 threatening e-mails. Some stated, “If I were you, I wouldn’t leave the house without a Kevlar vest. We know where you live. We know your family. We know where your children are.”
He said some of the responses referred to 1 Corinthians 6:9 and said that God hates homosexuals.
“The problem with that is that we quote part of that verse, but we are all in the rest of that verse, (and) we are so quick to say it’s just them,” Prince said, noting verse 10 includes “thieves … the greedy … drunkards … slanderers … swindlers.”
Usually he deletes threatening e-mails. But when the messages became so numerous, Prince consulted a friend who is an associate district attorney in Alabama. The friend discovered, however, the e-mails could not be traced because they were coming from libraries and public computers.
“We had to unlist our phone number and erase address information from various places to protect my family,” Prince said. “It’s part of the battle of this type of ministry that there will be resistance to it.”
“But the gospel has always been offensive,” he said. “Grace is a conspiracy. It is countercultural. We don’t understand it and at the end of the day, we want to believe that God saved us because He’s got really good taste. But grace says there is nothing worthy about you.”
Similar to Prince’s message, Bob Stith, a Selma native who now serves as the Southern Baptist Convention’s national strategist for gender issues, said that Christians often don’t realize how “we” may sound to someone who is already wounded.
“We need to grow awareness — a need to be redemptive,” he said, noting that churches should be aware of those struggling in their midst while still not compromising the truth.
Despite the threats, Prince said he has not been deterred from his task.
“I can’t allow that,” Prince said. “We can never allow resistance to the conspiracy of grace to keep us from our task. … You can’t preach the gospel without getting in trouble. Do I get scared and worry for my family? Sure I do. But I know at the end of the day that this is where God has called me into ministry and my time is in His hands as is the time of my family.”
Beginning March 2, he will host “Tal Prince Live,” a Sunday night radio program on SIRIUS Satellite Radio Channel 161, to further spread his message of redemption and grace.
As for those who sent the e-mail threats, Prince said, “We continue to pray for the Church to understand the grace of the gospel and to continue the process of being made more and more like Christ every day. I bear no anger or malice toward them.
“They have issues, too. We are all broken and we all need the sustaining presence of the Holy Spirit and grace in our lives.”
He believes the e-mails prove how much work the Church has to do to transform the nature of its community.
“Churches have got to be the place where shame meets grace. Churches have got to get back to being more like Christ,” Prince said. “We say we are imitators of Christ. Are we really? Or have we put the Pharisee robes back on?”
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