The co-founder of a controversial website named XXXChurch.com will speak in West Michigan from November 5-7, including a talk at Calvin College on November 6 that is free and open to the public.
Craig Gross will speak to students at area high schools and will do one public talk at Calvin. His message is simple, but powerful: pornography is a pervasive and corrupting force in North American society.
But while his message is plain, Gross' methods are less conventional.
He and XXXChurch.com co-founder Mike Foster bill their website as "the number-one Christian porn site." Why? "Our site," they say, "is dedicated to porn and how it is affecting people. It's a porn site because that's what we are talking about. Nude pictures are so predictable and passé don't you think? The truth is so much more interesting and satisfying. And by the way, we are number one because we are the only one."
They launched the site in January 2002 by renting a booth at the Adult Video News trade show in Las vegas - the nation's largest annual convention of the triple-X industry. This despite the fact that XXXChurch.com contains, Gross told New Man Magazine, "nothing more dangerous than Bible studies, resources, helps and referrals."
But, he added, at the Adult Video News trade show he and Foster shared with almost 1,000 people that there is "something even better than porno and big boobs." Foster noted that even the porn stars were interested in what two pastors had to say about God's design for sex.
Gross believes West Michigan young people also will want to hear about God's design for sex, as well as what he calls the perversion of pornography. He cites studies of porn that show 70% of all porn magazines end up in the hands of minors, 60% of all website visits are sexual in nature and 30% of all unsolicited e-mail contains pornographic information.
"Our mission," says Gross, "is to make people aware of all the issues about porn and for Christians to be accountable and to get their crap cleaned up. We also want to help and give hope to those who feel like there is no way out and are drowning in porn."