by: Amy Chanan
5/1/2007

In 1995, my husband, John, visited a Christian Internet chat room for the first time. By all accounts it was a harmless—some might even say blessed—event, for in that chat room he met someone who attended the same Bible study as I, which led to our meeting and eventually marrying. He intermittently returned to chat rooms, both finding encouragement and supporting other fellow believers. Harmless.

Since we are called to live out the Great Commission, John began frequenting secular chat rooms and shared the good news with others. Harmless. Inspiring. Firmly convinced about the fallacies of Mormon doctrine, John learned more about this false religion and ways to refute it, then shared this information with people in Mormon chat rooms. Harmless. Noble. A godly man fulfilling a godly purpose.

Harmless No More

John became attached to a young woman in this particular chat room, fearing she would soon marry her Mormon fiancé and forever be trapped by the teachings of this heresy. Harmless? They began making plans to meet in person despite geographical obstacles, but John’s devotion to me, his wife, kept any potential sexual encounter from coming to fruition. However, the chat-room talks continued.

Ephesians 4:19 says, “Having lost all sensitivity, they [Gentiles] have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more.” This lust for more was evidenced in John’s life as he began viewing pornography online. Perhaps like many individuals he viewed this, too, as harmless. In his mind, looking at graphic images wasn’t the same as committing adultery. He was just admiring part of what God created. Harmless? Hardly.

I knew of none of these events until 2002, yet their effects had been apparent years earlier. Our level of physical intimacy was profoundly impacted. John compared himself to the men on the videos he watched daily, feeling inferior in his performance. I, too, was compared without being aware of it. My body didn’t resemble theirs, nor did I exhibit the heightened intensity they apparently did. At the end of our lovemaking, John was always disappointed—a disappointment that now makes sense in light of his “harmless” dual life.

Ephesians 4:19 continued to play itself out more and more in John’s life, although I still knew nothing of it. He spent hours online each day, visiting porn sites, having illicit conversations with multiple women, and utilizing a web cam in ways it was never intended. But before you write John off as a weak-willed nonbeliever, let me fill you in to the contrary.

John and I were serving as missionaries. We had committed our entire lives to the service of the Lord. John shared the truth of God’s love with many individuals, counseling, mentoring, and discipling them in their Christian faith. John loved the Lord. Yet, John had an addiction. Harmless? Not in the least.

As is the case with most addicts, John thought he had control over his addiction. He could stop whenever he wanted. “Tonight was the last night,” his heart would say. He would confess his sins to God, repent, and ask for forgiveness. But “tonight” never came and the downward spiral continued.

In 2002, I entered a world no one should be forced to inhabit. The double standard John had worked so hard to hide from me was exposed. John had been struggling for reasons I couldn’t fully understand, part of which he claimed was due to the stress of our position. He asked to leave the country to regain clarity and left on a Monday to meet with our regional director in Houston. However, two days later, I received an e-mail from our director confirming John’s flight for that evening.

I had many suspicions about John’s going to Houston, and that e-mail confirmed them all. I tried calling our director, but John had transposed some of the numbers in our phone book to keep me from doing so. In a defeated state, I contacted our director the