c. 2005 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) If the statistics are right, the pornography industry brings in more money than the combined revenues of all professional football, baseball, and basketball franchises. Money from U.S. porn also exceeds the combined revenues of ABC, CBS and NBC. Child pornography alone generates an estimated $3 billion annually.

Someone is sending money to the pornographers, and it’s not just the dirty old men who live on the wrong side of town. A 2003 poll by California-based Barna Research asked questions about 10 moral behaviors. Sixty percent of those polled said sexual fantasies were “morally acceptable” and 38 percent gave the stamp of approval to pornography.

Christian recording artist Clay Crosse fell into that 38 percent before he fell so hard that his addiction to pornography nearly cost him his family and career.

It took an act of God to yank him from the mire of lukewarm faith. He walked out on stage to perform a concert in Savannah, Ga., and his voice broke. At first, he blamed the circumstance on a sinus infection. But months passed, and concert after concert had him bungling through his music. Doctors were consulted and voice coaches sought out, yet no diagnosable problem surfaced.

Clay gave the worst performance of his life in front of a group of esteemed colleagues in the music industry. He flew home from Seattle devastated and, for the first time, connected the sin in his life to his professional failure.

“No wonder the doctors can’t find anything wrong with me,” he recalls thinking. “It’s not my voice, it’s me.”

Clay didn’t just wake up one day and say, “Gee, I wonder if I could get my hands on some pornography.” He traveled down a slippery slope one compromise at a time.

His first exposure to porn came when he was 8 years old and discovered a stash of Playboy magazines at a friend’s house. Later, as a teen, he began visiting an adult theater and justified his actions as mere entertainment options. Even after his engagement to his wife Renee, he continued his viewing habits. He didn’t see any contradiction between the publicly Christian life he espoused and the pornography he consumed on an almost daily basis. Instead, he convinced himself that the porn was a safe way for him to deal with sexual feelings out of wedlock _ he would stop after he married.

But pornography is like a cancer that burns its image into a person’s mind. One doesn’t walk away so easily. Clay had fallen into a bona fide addiction. He began hiding pornographic videos from Renee in their home, and watching them with increasing regularity. He lusted continuously and eventually decided to act out his desires with another woman if given the chance.

He was spared total ruin by an insightful voice therapist named Chris Beatty, who asked him pointedly, “Chris, are you a man of God?” An acknowledgement of pain and obsession spilled out as Clay took the first steps on a long road to recovery. He destroyed the pornography, confessed his sins to Renee, and found an accountability partner.

Ultimately, Clay credits consistent Bible reading and prayer for his recovery _ a long, hard process that changed more than his addictions. If you see him perform today, you’ll hear a candid admission of weakness and a call to surrender completely to God. Clay’s concerts are no longer an opportunity for him to demonstrate his musical skill, they serve as a platform to share the power and love of God _ for it is in our weakness that he is made strong.

Clay chronicles his struggle with pornography and his journey through recovery in “I Surrender All,” a recently published book by NavPress.

His voice has never returned fully. But Clay considers this a small price to pay for the gift of knowing God genuinely.

“God didn’t want me to become a well-known recording artist so I could make lots of money and win awards,” he says. “He wanted me to become a recording artist so I could share this message of hope with broken people.”

MO/RB END RNS

(Tonya Stoneman is editor of In Touch magazine, an Atlanta-based publication affiliated with the ministry of the Rev. Charles Stanley, a Southern Baptist pastor)

Editors: To obtain a photo of the jacket cover of “I Surrender All” by Clay Crosse, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.