Into the Light: Why Two Christian Men Made a Documentary About Pornography

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Editor’s Note: Our friends at Crossway have generously allowed our readers this month to download a free copy of D.A. Carson’s important work The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God. We hope this resource will help you understand the manifold love of God.

Editor’s Note: We caught up with two filmmakers to find out more about a documentary they created on pornography, and also to explore how pornography relates to the love of neighbor. Below is a written interview of their responses, along with a trailer of their work. 

Tell us who you are and why you decided to create a documentary on pornography.

We (Jacob Valk and John-Michael Bout) are M.Div. students at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS) in Louisville, KY. Before coming to Southern, we grew up in Ontario, Canada, and worked on several film projects together.

Despite having incredible Christian parents who warned us about pornography, both of us fell deeply into patterns of sexual sin during our teenage years. Because of our sin, we were apathetic toward the church, devoid of love for people, and had strained relationships with family. However, through the influence of good friends and the help of excellent biblical resources, the Holy Spirit convicted us of our sin, and we now walk in freedom from pornography. The Lord used this experience to up-end our lives and to lead us to change careers and pursue Christian ministry. This brought us to SBTS.

In late 2021, Jacob had a conversation with Tim Challies about his book Sexual Detox, and Tim made a fascinating comment: “It’s interesting that we have this video problem of pornography, and in answer, we typically write books. There could be room for a counseling-oriented video resource to tackle pornography.”

As documentary filmmakers, we wondered if we could create this resource. Over the next several months, we began the writing process and reached out to the authors whose books on pornography impacted us the most.

In the summer of 2022, we traveled across the United States to film with our speakers. We crowd-funded $85,000 so that we could offer this resource free for churches, families, and individuals. We do not want the cost to inhibit anyone from getting gospel-centered resources.

In January 2023, we premiered the documentary in Ontario, Canada, and it is now available to stream on our website for free.

Walk us through the flow of the documentary.

Into The Light is a teaching documentary on freedom from pornography that walks through the fundamentals of change from bondage in sin to freedom in Christ. In this 81 minute film, we hear from Heath Lambert, Jeremy Pierre, Garrett Kell, Jenny Solomon, Deepak Reju, and Ellen Dykas.

The documentary is broken up into six teaching sections we call chapters. Each chapter progressively walks through the key elements that someone enslaved to porn needs to understand to tackle pornography, including the consequences of pornography, God’s design for sex, confession, accountability, cutting off access, heart desires, and fighting sin in the church. The film ends with a direct call to bring sin into the light and to walk alongside one another in the local church.

In between each chapter, we progressively tell the story of a couple who were enslaved to pornography but found freedom in Christ. This story ties the whole documentary together.

How do you hope to see Into The Light used?

There are two main ways we hope to see Into The Light used in the local church. The full-length documentary can be watched with a church or youth group to get everyone on the same page about the issue and to equip them with practical skills to tackle porn. Alternatively, you can watch the documentary in the form of a six-part video series over several weeks in a small group or discipleship relationship to deepen discussion and offer time for vulnerability and confession. We will soon offer a free leader’s guide with discussion questions on our website.

Our prayer is that churches and individuals would take Into The Light and use it for the specific needs and opportunities they have.

Some people indulge in pornography because they do not think it’s hurting anybody. How does pornography actually relate to the love of neighbor?

What you do shapes who you are. This is one of the most important truths to understand when thinking about pornography. So the question is: What kind of person are you becoming when you watch porn? Though porn may produce different bitter fruits, porn will ultimately shape you into a person incapable of loving your neighbor. Here are just a few of the ways:

  • Porn shapes you into an objectifying person. An objectifying person only sees people sexually. When you spend time reducing people to merely the fuel of your sexual desires, you become incapable of seeing the vibrancy and beauty of how God designed people. You train yourself to only see men and women as objects who are useful for your desires or not, rather than people created in God’s image.
  • Porn shapes you into an angry person. An angry person lashes out at their neighbor. By watching porn, you feel anger and disgust with yourself as your conscience afflicts you, and this anger spills out at the people around you. You become short-tempered with family, defensive with co-workers, and cross with your spouse. Anger cannot lie dormant; it always reacts and attacks.
  • Porn shapes you into a shameful person. A shameful person hides from their neighbor. When you give in to pornography, shame will drive you away from your God-given responsibilities. You will present a fake Christian exterior because you are afraid that one day people will find out who you really are. You will be less likely to reach out to your fellow church member or to share the gospel over coffee. If unadressed, your shame will drive you to despair, which will, in turn, lead to more porn.
  • Porn shapes you into a selfish person. A selfish person is blind to the interests and injustices of their neighbor. Porn is all about your interests, your desires, and your appetite. The dopamine rush of giving in, over and over again, feeds a myopic mindset of selfishness. What is the cost? You become indifferent to the fact that there is a multi-billion dollar human trafficking industry behind every click you make. You are dulled to the horror of the sex industry in which you are an active participant.

The reality is you can not enjoy God’s good gift of your sexuality without also accepting God’s good context for those gifts, which is biblical marriage. At the same time, porn disallows the single man or woman to offer their unfulfilled sexual desires as a holy sacrifice to the Lord. Truly, married or single, God is honored, and our neighbor is loved, when we choose to live within God’s boundaries.

What are some of the lies that pornography puts forward?

The first lie the devil often tells us is that since many Christians struggle with porn, it’s not really a big deal. While it may be true that many Christians are enslaved to pornography, there is never an excuse to continue in sin. Paul warns us in Romans 6:12-14, “Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.” True Christians will not habitually indulge in sin (1 Jn. 3:9); they will instead live a life mortifying the flesh by the power of the Spirit (Rom. 8:13). Pornography is a cancer that must be cut out.

Another lie the devil tells us is that porn can deepen intimacy with your spouse or will prepare you for marriage. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Pornography trains you to experience sexual fulfillment outside the needs of others. Instead of offering insight, pornography will evoke false and distorted expectations that sexuality is all about you. Instead of a biblical ethic of finding joy in your spouse’s joy, your spouse becomes your personal porn star for you to abuse. This self-centered experience of your sexuality is entirely outside of God’s design (Eph. 5:25–33; 1 Cor. 7:1–5; Song 6:3).

The final lie is that you can never get free from porn. Praise God, this isn’t true. Galatians 5:1 says, “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” If you are in Christ, you have the Spirit of God in you and a new power to obey. While we still live in a fallen world, freedom from pornography is possible. The devil wants to persuade you that there is no hope of recovery. You can remind yourself daily that there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:1) while you walk forward in repentance and faith.

Where can people watch this documentary, and how much does it cost?

From the very beginning, we have been committed to offering Into The Light for free so that churches and families would not need to pay to use this resource. In order to make that happen, we crowdfunded the film over the summer of 2022. Hundreds of Christians across North America generously donated $85,000 so that this film would be free.

You can stream Into The Light on our website, intothelightdocumentary.com.

What’s next? How can people support your work?

As we produced Into The Light, we had the same conversation over and over again. Parents would come up to us and ask, “How do I keep my kids away from pornography?” This is a challenging issue, all the more, as technology advances quickly. This is why we are beginning production on a video series that directly addresses parents on how to handle pornography in the home. If this is something that you would like to see as a free resource, please consider making a donation on our website.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Authors

  • Jacob Valk

    Jacob Valk has worked various roles in advertising/film in Toronto for five years. He has a degree in Advertising from Mohawk College and a B.A. in Humanities from Brock University. He co-produced the documentaries Ordinary Commission and Into The Light and runs the podcast Chats Under The Sun. He is working on an M.Div. at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, where he lives and works at the ReCenter homeless shelter. Jacob is a member of Immanuel Baptist Church, Louisville, KY.

  • John-Michael Bout

    John-Michael Bout studied at Brock University with a B.A. in Classics and is working on an M.Div. at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. He has worked on several film sets, co-produced Ordinary Commission and Into The Light. He is married to his lovely wife Jessica and has two sons. John-Michael is a member of Hunsinger Lane Baptist Church.

Jacob Valk

Jacob Valk

Jacob Valk has worked various roles in advertising/film in Toronto for five years. He has a degree in Advertising from Mohawk College and a B.A. in Humanities from Brock University. He co-produced the documentaries Ordinary Commission and Into The Light and runs the podcast Chats Under The Sun. He is working on an M.Div. at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, where he lives and works at the ReCenter homeless shelter. Jacob is a member of Immanuel Baptist Church, Louisville, KY.