Reading Mark Mendiola's Article, The Scourge of Pornography (2001)

The tenth issue of LCG's recruitment magazine, Tomorrow's World (January-February 2001), featured an article by Mark Mendiola of Pocatello, Idaho entitled "The Scourge of Pornography." (pp. 24-28.) This was the ninth of several articles Mendiola would write for this recruitment magazine. Here Mendiola condemns pornography and insists that it is a sign that LCG's God will soon unleash the Great Tribulation upon the United States.

Let's see what he has to say.

Pornography is one of the fastest growing sectors of the global economy as people from throughout the world buy staggering volumes of sexually explicit materials. Americans alone spend an estimated $8 billion a year on it, making pornography one of the most profitable industries in the United States. How can nations with Judeo-Christian underpinnings justify their massive production and consumption of such objectionable material? Historically, cultures that have repudiated morality have rotted from the inside only to collapse. (p. 24.)

Mendiola implies that pornography will cause the United States to collapse.

Mendiola exploits the Northridge earthquake of 1994 to insist that LCG's God is filled with wrath at the United States for its pornography industry.

At 4:31 a.m. on January 17, 1994, Southern California’s densely populated San Fernando Valley was jolted by the most devastating earthquake in the United States since the 1906 San Francisco temblor [sic]. Nearly 60 people were killed, 1,500 others seriously injured and 12,500 structures damaged, including major Los Angeles freeways.  

The earthquake measured 6.7 on the Richter scale. Its total damage estimate of $15 billion made it financially one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history.... Was it merely coincidence that the quake’s epicenter was at Northridge, Calif., considered the nation’s pornography capital? More than 80 percent of all video pornography made in the U.S. is filmed at Northridge studios within five miles of the epicenter.  

The destruction that occurred in the Los Angeles area is a forerunner of the national punishment coming on the U.S. and other nations in the western world for their blatant disregard of moral standards prescribed by God’s living spiritual laws, including guidelines on marriage and sexual relations. The proliferation of pornography in western society today is a disturbing cultural phenomenon, symptomatic of a hedonistic age that rejects traditional values. (p. 24.)

Earthquakes are a natural fact of life. They are caused by friction between plates in the Earth's crust. It is terrible that a natural disaster which killed so many people had been exploited in a superstitious manner.

Whether displayed behind convenience store counters or posted on the Internet, pornography is a corrosive element eating away at the vitals of civilized society. Raunchy pornographic material in various forms—including magazines, videotapes, cable television and Web sites—is easily accessible to people of all ages. (pp. 24-25.)

How knowledgeable.

He then cites a statement from Beverley LaHaye.

Calling Internet pornography the “red light district of cyberspace,” Concerned Women for America, a public policy organization founded by Beverly LaHaye in 1979, stated, “There has never been a time in history when such massive distribution of pornographic material has been paralleled. And, sadly, because of the nebulous quality of the Internet, currently very few safeguards or age-check procedures are in place to monitor its distribution.” (p. 25.)

Concerned Women for America is a prominent organization of the religious right. So often LCG and the other Armstrongite COGs vilify the mainstream churches as false Christians and even as bearing the mark of the beast by worshiping on Sunday. But here Mendiola finds it useful to cite an organization of these supposed false Christians who bear the mark of the beast to prop up his condemnation of pornography. How selective he is.

Mendiola moans that his views are not popular.

It is not popular or politically correct today to call deviant sexual behavior “perverse,” yet God shows that indulging in widespread sexual promiscuity defiles nations. History strongly attests that such nations bring punishment on themselves. The licentious ancient Greek and Roman empires and many other nations have written that lesson for all of us to consider. (p. 25.)

But what happened to the Greeks? They were conquered by the Romans and became a part of the Roman Empire. Later the Roman Empire was split into two and the Eastern Roman Empire did not fall to any foreign power until 1204 when Constantinople was sacked during the Fourth Crusade.

In 1998, 8,948 new hard-core videos hit the U.S. retail market, up from 1,275 in 1990. Many of those were produced in the Northridge, Calif. area. (p. 26.)

Once again the earthquake is exploited to make his point even though earthquakes are a natural phenomenon.

Mendiola then insists that those who enforce the law insist that "repeated exposure to pornography" lead to dangerous and illegal sexual behavior. But instead of citing any of these law enforcement officers he claims have this view he immediately cites an infamous serial killer.

Law enforcement officials who have investigated sexual abuse, rape and murder cases confirm that repeated exposure to pornography has turned many men into sexual addicts, predators and abusers. Hours before his execution in 1989, notorious serial killer Ted Bundy stated: “I have lived in prison a long time now, and I’ve met a lot of men who were motivated to violence just like me. And without exception, every one of them was deeply involved in pornography, without a question, deeply influenced and consumed by an addiction to pornography.” (p. 26.)

It is strange to see Mendiola citing a serial killer to support his argument against pornography. It is dangerous to trust people like that. They tend to be dreadfully manipulative. They cannot be trusted.

It also needs to be asked why it is that none of the editors of this recruitment magazine removed this passage? Didn't anyone above Mendiola think this passage was a bad idea? The editors of this issue were Roderick C. Meredith, Richard Ames, William Bowmer and Gary Ehman.

Yet throughout the western world, pornography is promoted and defended by those who argue it is a form of freedom and enlightenment. (p. 27.)

Who has ever called pornography "a form of ... enlightenment"?

The COGs tend to be right wing in regards to politics and Mendiola shows this by complaining about the Supreme Court legalizing pornography. I do not condemn the COGs for being right wing but it is important to note that they are right wing because it explains so much of the political stances they choose to make.

The turning point in the United States for the commercialization of pornography came in 1973 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Miller v. California that “pornography,” but not “obscenity,” was protected by the First Amendment, muddying the issue. (p. 27.)

He then mentions that President Reagan was strict about enforcing the law against obscenity. But he complains that Clinton then was elected and that it is implied that his administration has let pornography flourish.

However, the Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography was established shortly after President Ronald Reagan gave his second inaugural speech in 1985. It included an enforcement unit that aggressively prosecuted pornographers. 

“During the Reagan and Bush administrations, the Justice Department successfully prosecuted child pornographers and large-scale purveyors of obscenity; and, in the process of effectively enforcing the obscenity laws, collected millions of dollars in fines and forfeitures to offset the costs of enforcement,” Morality in Media president Robert Peters wrote in a July 28, 2000 article. 

President Bill Clinton assured voters in 1992 that “aggressive enforcement of federal obscenity laws by the Justice Department... will be a priority in the Clinton-Gore administration.” 

However, the pornography industry has exploded with unfettered success in recent years. “During the first six years of the Clinton administration, federal obscenity law enforcement declined by over 80 percent. ...” (p. 27.)

Mendiola cites this article to cast suspicion upon various organizations blaming them for the pornography industry instead of our sex hormones.

He [Russell Peters] speculated that Clinton was pressured by elitist supporters in Hollywood, the Playboy empire, the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force and People for the American Way to ease off enforcing obscenity laws. Scandals in his administration also made it difficult for him to urge U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno to prosecute porn cases. ... Pornographers have flourished from the benevolent neglect the porn industry has enjoyed under Attorney General Reno. (p. 27.)

Strangely in all this article there is no discussion of sex hormones. The reason there is pornography is because we have natural urges that encourage reproduction partly caused by hormones such as testosterone and estrogen. Mendiola fulminates about pornography and yet he seems to think that our sex hormones are a matter unworthy of mention. Think about it. That is a very strange omission. It is no use to fume against supposedly liberal elites instead of addressing our own hormones.

Another concerning thing about this article is how he seems to make little distinction between what is legal and what is illegal. He emotively mentions illegal sexual behavior and assumes that illegal behavior is caused by watching pornography but it is hard to prove something like that. That line of thought also fails to address the fact that there is legal pornography. How can one expect the government to stop that which is legal?

In the last part of this article Mendiola links his condemnation of pornography with LCG's proclamation that at some point in the near future a German led European entity of some sort will launch a war of conquest and seize control of the United States with much violence and take Americans as slaves back to Europe. This is taught to be divine punishment for behavior contrary to LCG's teachings.

Rather than being a shining beacon on a hill as President Reagan fondly envisioned, the United States exports prodigious volumes of some of the vilest material imaginable in the form of pornography. A nation that prides itself in its Judeo-Christian roots is accountable to the Living God for promulgating such filth throughout the world. (p. 28.)

Mendiola proclaims that the German led Europeans are coming.

What happened in the past to ancient Israel and Judah will recur in the future. The Bible shows a modern Babylonian Empire, spearheaded by modern Assyrians or Germans, will arise on the European continent.... Inspired by a charismatic religious leader who will denounce American and British cultures for their steep slide into immorality, including the export of pornography, the Europeans will justify unleashing horrific punishment on the U.S. and British Commonwealth peoples. (p. 28.)

This "charismatic religious leader" refers to the final Pope. It is taught within LCG that the final Pope will be granted power by Satan to perform miracles such as summoning fire from the sky to prop up a future political union between some of the nations of Europe in a union led by Germany. However such things are not made clear in this article. The COGs have been making similar dire proclamations since the 1930s and yet this dire news has always failed. It will never happen.

Mendiola insists that this supposedly coming conquest by Europe will lead to a catastrophe even worse than the Holocaust thus crudely invoking the memory of the approximately six million Jews who were so dreadfully murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators for being Jews. What dreadful behavior Mendiola shows here.

As unbelievable as it is to contemplate, American, British, Jewish and other modern Israelitish people will be plunged into national punishment even worse than the Holocaust unless they repent of their widespread immorality and sexual sins. Although they now are considered allies, the remilitarized Europeans primarily will be used by the Living Creator God to chastise modern Israel and Judah. ... [Ezekiel describes] a scenario frighteningly reminiscent of the Nazi death camps of World War II.... (p. 28.)

Mendiola's insistence that the United States will soon endure such terrible things is because he assumes that Americans are descended from the Biblical Israelites. This idea, which is known as British Israelism, is complete nonsense. British and Americans are not related to Jews in that way. Once British Israelism is exposed as incorrect much of LCG's other dire proclamations of doom awaiting the United States fall apart as well.

This claim seems unbelievable because it is unbelievable. It will never happen. LCG's 1% cannot see the future.

Mendiola then calls for repentance by embracing behavior taught by LCG's leaders. He implies that it is possible for the United States to repent and stop the conquest by the Europeans from occurring but within the COGs it is generally assumed that such a military conquest is inevitable.

It is not too late for nations in the western world to repent of their plunge into the cesspool of pornography and immorality, defiling themselves, but time is running out. 

The Bible shows when Jesus Christ returns to establish the Kingdom of God on earth, He will cleanse these nations and restore their former greatness after they bitterly repent of their widespread lewdness. (p. 28.)

He then ends the article with a quote from Jeremiah.

It does not matter how many times LCG's 1% insist that the Great Tribulation is near since they cannot perceive the future. From 1953 onward their predecessors in the Radio Church of God taught that this Great Tribulation would begin in 1972 and culminate with the return of Christ in 1975 to begin the Millennium. Clearly the COGs do not know the future.

In September 2006 Mendiola left LCG and joined Dave Pack's Restored Church of God. Around 2008 he left RCG and joined Don Billingsley's Church of God-Faithful Flock.