Brian Montgomery: A Candid Conversation about Porn

Brian Montgomery returns to the nextTalk podcast to talk candidly about pornography. We discuss the desensitization of our kids and how that affects so many of their choices. Brian reminds us why education, and creating a culture of conversation in our homes, is critical.

Transcript

Mandy Majors: 0:02

Welcome to the nextTalk podcast. We are passionate about keeping kids safe in an overexposed world.

Kim Elerick: 0:09

It's Mandy and Kim and we're navigating tech, culture and faith with our kids.

Mandy Majors: 0:14

We have a very special guest back on our show today. Brian Montgomery is here, brian, welcome.

Brian Montgomery: 0:22

Thanks for having us. Yeah, we really. We're excited to have a conversation and good to see you guys again.

Mandy Majors: 0:28

If you guys are tuning in for the first time and you're like who's Brian Montgomery? Because a lot of our crowd favorites are like, yay, brian, we get to hear from Brian today. If you don't know who that is, we encourage you to go to our website, search Walker. Walker is Brian's son and that show will pop up and you can listen to that entire story of why we met Brian. But we're so glad to have you back, brian. Since you've been on the show, you've encountered some health conditions and I get literally stopped at events with people saying to me I'm praying for Brian, how is he? How is he? So before we get going into our content for today we're going to tackle pornography and how it played into Walker's extortion scheme. But before we get into that, can you give us a health update, because I know a lot of our community they're praying for you.

Brian Montgomery: 1:20

Yeah, absolutely so. To kind of go back, I was diagnosed in January of 22 with a stage one colon cancer. We lost Walker in December of 22. So it went in for a colonoscopy. They found that it was a tumor and they removed it. Come to find out it had cancer in it, went and had surgery, had a portion of my colon removed. The good news was at the time that it had not spread, it was just in my colon, which is categorized as a stage one. And really they just said look, you're cured, you don't have to worry about it. It's a 96% cure rate when you find it at this stage. So go, live life, don't worry about it. Well, they want to do six-month checkups. So we started coming and doing checkups and we went back. So of course we lost Walker in December, went back that February into February 1st of March, which would have been our year checkup had no problems at all. So everything was clear. Again, reassured us that that's something that is extremely rare to come back under those circumstances, and so we were just thought it was over Went back in September of this year and again went for the doctor's visit and he was like look, you're good, don't expect anything different than we've had in the past.

Brian Montgomery: 2:45

Well, they called three days later and said that we had some elevated blood levels which are an indication of cancer and I want to do a PET scan. And so of course we knew that wasn't good, went in for a PET scan and determined that it had metastasized to my liver Extremely rare case, of course, with kind of the ride we've been on the last couple of years. We see, I don't know, just God reveals himself in difficult times. So we're definitely having those and so we're. I guess the update on that is that was in September. The treatment regimen was to do two months of chemo for treatments, take a break, have surgery in January and then that surgery would be to remove those tumors from my liver and then start back up with chemo as soon as I recover. So another eight treatments of chemo spring and summer. So now, right now in the mid-January, we're five or six weeks out from my last chemo treatment. I feel great, I feel normal, I mean you wouldn't know any different just walking around right now About to go in for surgery. We're optimistic, that'll go well. Like I said, I'm in good health. I mean, I feel fine. I don't have any residual effects from the chemo. So we're optimistic that that'll go well and then recover from that and then start back with chemo spring and summer.

Brian Montgomery: 4:21

So definitely ask the listeners to continue to remember our family and our prayers.

Brian Montgomery: 4:27

And you know, I think the temptation and I certainly don't want to discourage people from praying that I'm healed of this cancer, I mean because I want to be here another 50 years if God wants to leave me here. But at the same time, you know, I think about, you know, the apostle Paul. When he was writing to the churches in prison, you know he didn't say, hey, pray that they get me, they let me out of prison. And he said I'm going to ask you to pray that doors will be open for the gospel and that we'll, when presented those opportunities, we'll be able to speak clearly and in persuasion of the gospel. And that's the, you know, the end goal, with an eternal perspective. That's where we want to be and that's how we want to live. At the same time, it should be nice to be able to tell that story for another 40 years. So, yeah, that's that's kind of the. That's where we're at today and you know we're optimistic. God's going to figure a way, work through this with us.

Mandy Majors: 5:28

Well, I think you know, just like when you shared Walker's story, as heartbreaking as it is but but you having faith in that faith and God changes everything when you're faced with especially horrific situations in your life and you're just a beacon of light that shines in tragic situations. And I don't know why God is using you in this space, because I know it probably is really sucky for you, but know that the outside world sees your faith and is inspired by it once again. So I want to say thank you for your break in between chemo and your upcoming surgery to take time to talk to our listeners and dig in and help us kind of dissect Walker's story even a little bit more, to understand what, how we can keep our kids safer, like what can we learn from this?

Brian Montgomery: 6:24

Yeah, we're. You know. I think that especially your audience and your staff and you all personally have have vested yourselves in our lives, you know, in a real short amount of time, and I see it's interesting. You know, always question whether or not I would have been as as personally connected to somebody else's situation as you guys have been to us, and it's, it's refreshing and it's and it's and it's so appreciated that other people care and they really do. I mean, the world that we live in is easy to find a lot of bad things going on and people that are really just looking out for themselves, but we sure have a lot of good people still left in this world that want to do the right thing and want to be there for their, for their fellow man. Because, apart from us telling our story, you guys didn't know us from Adam and there's no personal connection there prior to that, and you know you didn't have to do that and your listeners didn't have to do that, but they absolutely have and we're eternally grateful.

Kim Elerick: 7:21

I think I can speak for Mandy and our listeners that we see in you ourselves you know, the desire to be good moms and dads and a hope of heaven and wanting to minister to our kids and our community, and sometimes we don't know how to do that, and so when we see people like you, brian and Courtney, who are willing to be transparent and honest and real in sharing your struggles but also you know here's what works and here's what's helped we're just drawn to that. And so we are a community, we are brothers and sisters, and I think that's you know where we're at is like we want to walk alongside you and we're thankful you want to walk alongside us.

Brian Montgomery: 8:01

Yeah, it's just like I said. It's just I can't. I didn't expect it. I guess I'll say that I didn't expect it from, and obviously we're talking about you guys and your listeners, but it's been a response from around the world. To be honest, and you know I think about.

Brian Montgomery: 8:19

You know I listened to a lot of podcasts. Courtney kind of makes fun of me, but she's not really. She's not really a podcaster, but you know I listened to a lot. I want to know from all sorts of opinions. You know, and it's really hard for me to understand how, how we can navigate these, the world we live in, whether we're going through a good time or a good or a bad time, you know, without an internal perspective and and those you know that. But there's a lot, there are a lot of people that that we can listen to that don't really have that perspective, and you know, how do we go through these situations without that? If not, we make I mean, the decisions we make are completely different, and so I'm just thankful that we have a good community to surround ourselves with.

Mandy Majors: 9:07

Well, this is the church. You know this is the good thing about the church and you know we beat the church up. The church has done a lot of bad things. You know we've taken wrong turns, whatever, but this is what to me God envisioned the church to be, you know, holding each other, carrying each other's burdens, and so we're just grateful to you.

Mandy Majors: 9:27

It's been a Holy Spirit moment and you guys have become friends and you know we're I mean, we are just we're in it together. We're in it together. We all have this main goal of making sure these kids are safe on their devices, making sure they have strong parents guiding them and then pointing them to Jesus, like that's. We're all aligned on that and so I think that's why we're all invested with one another. So we're, we're thankful for you. I've I've loved behind the scenes, getting to know you and your family, and you're just genuine, you're real. So I want to move into the direction of of why we wanted to have you on again. Because and for those of you who don't know Walker's story it was Brian. Why don't you give us like a? Just a abbreviated version? Because they can go listen to the, to the long version on the podcast. But I just want to give an abbreviated version before we dive into the pornography aspect that we really want to talk about today.

Brian Montgomery: 10:25

Yeah, so December the 1st of 22, walker, my 16 year old son, committed suicide and at the time we had no idea. I mean, walker was a well adjusted kid, great social life, and, like we talk, we go into the, go in depth in that podcast about the exact circumstances, but we didn't have any idea what had happened. I mean, it just did not so far out of character for who we knew Walker was. Fast forward five or six weeks, we find out that Walker was a victim of sex distortion, which is, I mean, the, in the most simplest form, is where someone gets content, usually sexual content, whether it's just nudity or behaving in some sexual act on video or pictures. They convinced the person to send those pictures or videos to them and, thinking that that's a sexual encounter with a, you know, a counterpart or female or male, and so that's what they did. They convinced Walker that he was interacting on Instagram with a teenage girl and once that was over, once they had the content, the media, they then immediately come back to Walker of trying to bribe him for money.

Brian Montgomery: 11:38

Of course, that night, over the course of that night, walker committed suicide and it just it turned our world upside down. Our lives will never be the same, just different. Everything's different, nothing's the same. And so we, from that point we started, started trying to understand how we could sound the alarm for other parents and I think that did a lot of different things for our family. It showed our family that God is faithful even in the midst of those difficult, extremely difficult situations. He created opportunities for us to tell the story. You know, it was a gift for him to at least give us the information, to know what happened to Walker, that it didn't just randomly commit suicide. We never knew what.

Brian Montgomery: 12:24

You know there's parents that commit their kids or not, here anymore. They don't have any idea why. We know why. We know that Walker was the person we thought he was. You know he got caught in a trap and he couldn't figure out a way, figure a way out. So that was the initial podcast and that really put us into a conversation about these topics, and I think we were talking just a minute ago. All fair, just, you know I'm not qualified to give anybody advice. I can just tell you what our experiences have been and speak honestly and truthfully to some of these topics, and obviously we've been exposed to a lot more of this kind of information in the past year. But we just want to help, that's all. We're not here to make a dollar, we're not here to get a name, we're not here for any of that. We just want to make sure other parents and other kids don't experience the same type of life change we had to endure.

Mandy Majors: 13:21

So when you, you lost Walker and you had no idea why. So the FBI got involved, they dug into his phone and that's when you started uncovering this Instagram scheme. That the reason we had you on originally one of them. One of the main alarming things in Walker's story for me was it was over a two hour time span. We had, I mean, we've worked a lot of sex torsion cases at Next Talk where we've been involved with that, but it's been normally over a month or weeks. We've never seen anything start to finish in two hours. We're a kid. We've lost a kid with that. That was new to us and we were immediately alarmed, like we got to get this story out because any of our kids I mean we have online predators making advantage of our young boys who have hormones and are, you know, like all this stuff like it's unfathomable to me. So they traced, the FBI traced the predator right Out of the country and then that case, I guess, is still open, correct, okay, and ongoing.

Brian Montgomery: 14:28

So you had to kind of fill in those blanks. They traced it to Nigeria and that's where a lot of this is originating from. Apparently there's a network of these guys over there that have figured out they can make money. You know you talk about that. The fact that Walker was was happening one night, you know Walker week.

Brian Montgomery: 14:50

So when the FBI uncovered Walker's telephone, you know the things that we learned were. You know Walker's communication was normal. It was about football, it was about hunting, it was about his friends. It was literally the earlier that night he had been communicating back and forth with some friends, just sending Bible verses back and forth. I mean Walker was a part of our youth group. I mean he was, he was a regular kid and so we thought that. But obviously we knew something had went horribly wrong and had no idea what. But once we got Walker's phone back we see that we've confirmed all that. I mean it was literally Walker did go to bed normal that night. He went to bed just like he did every other night and he wasn't depressed and he wasn't suicidal and he wasn't dealing with any deep seated issues. Walker was attacked in his room through his telephone.

Brian Montgomery: 15:40

And the other thing the point to make about that, I think, is that in that situation the suspect, they kind of changed their, their, the way they were operating, into more of a smash and grab type operation. You know a lot of these kids you talk about, a lot of the ones that you've encountered in the past, previous. You know suspects were grooming kids over time. They would, they would spread it out over multiple days, multiple weeks. Great gain confidence, and it was. It was there was time there for a parent to intercept something right. Well, I guess they figured out that that if they applied maximum pressure in a real short amount of time, they were making more money. You know they were getting more kids to respond and pay because that was that extreme pressure in a real short amount of time. Because a kid, especially a 16 year old, that and Walker was well adjusted and smart and had a lot of common sense, hard worker, all those things you want your kid to be. But when you find yourself in extreme pressure in a real short amount of time, that becomes really intense.

Brian Montgomery: 16:40

That, that, that that huge pressure which creates something, makes some kids pay, cause Walker to panic, and that's what we're finding. It's typically what's happening now is these suspects have seen that, you know, they've seen that that this is these predators. They've seen that that this is the best way to get paid the most. And so the unfortunate part where we learned was, most of the time what'll happen is that the kid will block them and just walk away. The these predators, they'll just go to the next kid.

Brian Montgomery: 17:09

It's just a list of people that they're, that they're trying to get to, and they figure out they're not going to get paid. Well, they just quit. Once they know that they've been blocked and they're not communicating anymore, they just stop. And because it's really not in their best interest to share the content, because it just brings more law enforcement pressure that they didn't expect, that they don't want. They want to get paid is what they want. Well, walker didn't know that Walker. Walker thought his life was over and the guy was continually just pressuring Walker as hard as he could over a real short amount of time, and that pressure just built to the point that Walker couldn't. He couldn't see a way out.

Kim Elerick: 17:44

You know that that term smash and grab that really hit me hard because you're right, we have seen this grooming over time and, just like everything else, people adapt and even bad people adapt, and you're right to be able to see oh, I can get the same result in a short amount of time. That's really scary to think about, um, and it takes me back to the first time we talked with you, and that was one of the things that we came away with. Two things really. Yes, the short amount of time, but that um Walker was in, this great, well adjusted kid, wasn't struggling from depression or any of that, and that a lot of parents came to us after and said you know, we see what you're saying, that they're targeting these. You know good kids quote unquote kids that aren't struggling necessarily, that are doing well in school, that are involved in the church, and so that was eyeopening for us as as listeners and as Christians and as parents, and so it's it's interesting to put those two together that you know, when we walked away from your last podcast, one of the messages that rang true was wake me up. That's something that you said and that is something that we have heard.

Kim Elerick: 18:55

A lot of parents.

Kim Elerick: 18:56

You know Walker's life has truly affected so many families because they've been able to tell their kids, wake me up and tell his story.

Kim Elerick: 19:05

And now, with the, with the thought of the smashing grab, it's even more important to say that and to explain that to our kids. They have shifted the way they're doing business and you must wake me up and so that that just brings a whole new light to the, to the story that you shared with us before. Thank you for sharing that. So, brian, at this point I think where we want to go with this show is difficult but important, because as parents, we're always kind of dissecting and pulling apart moments when things don't go the way that we imagine they're going to go, and you have been very reflective and very transparent about some of the things you think are important, about conversations with our kids, and so we really wanted to tackle the idea of pornography, which is something that you have talked about now across the country, and how that played into Walker's story and may have been a part of the reason he was open to this extortion scheme a little more than maybe he would have if he had not engaged in pornography.

Brian Montgomery: 20:06

Right, yeah, I think you know I've thought a lot about this, you know, and obviously we want to go back and we want to look at, look at activity. I mean, of course, we did that right away, just before we even knew what happened. Just what did we miss? What do we not do as parents? Where did we miss the boat, you know, and we can look at some of the reasons once we retrieved Walker's data from his phone and understood what was there. There was pornography on his phone. You know the, the way the FBI explained it, Walker wasn't, you know, a porn addict, he wasn't looking at pornography every day, you know, he wasn't. But he's a 16 year old boy, he had access to it and and I think I said that on our first, you know, our first podcast is just that.

Brian Montgomery: 20:52

I know that if, if I would have had access to that kind of information Untethered, I would have been doing the same thing, because I know, you know, coming from a generation of, you know, boys looking at magazines and the occasional VHS video kind of stuff. You know, satellite TV, that would be the friend that had that, that would have been the extent of of that, but To to where we are today, where it's instant access at any point in time. Things have changed and, you know, I don't think I think there's so many factors here that contribute. One factor is that we are constantly desensitized to sexual relationships and how those are most healthy. You know, if I were to open my Instagram, tiktok or Facebook page, it would not take very long at all before something. It wouldn't be pornography, but it would be something that would easily lead a 16 year old male's mind, and even a 47 year old's mind, to what can I access if I could see that which is not really pornography? I don't all I have to do is go to Safari and I can look at pornography. I can look at the most graphic nudity and sexual content that I, that I want to, and so what's prohibiting that? And I think that you know what's prohibiting that as a, as a, as a man, and what's prohibiting that as a father? What's prohibiting that from a 16 year old? What's? What are we going to say that says, okay, you shouldn't do that, right, and that's. And as a dad, that's that's where I feel like I really I Didn't understand, because, if you'd have asked me before. Is Walker Looking at those that kind of content? I'd have said, yeah, I'm sure he is, I mean, 16 years old, he has access to it.

Brian Montgomery: 22:35

And I really didn't give it, I didn't give it the credibility of damage that it, that it deserved to really use that terminology. Because, you know, I thought about it in the same context of my generation, my generation. It was a pretty routine activity. It wasn't. Obviously, it wasn't talked about and it's not talked about now to any extent. But it was kind of that innocent type sin that you know you could, you could, you could do, and it it wasn't.

Brian Montgomery: 23:05

You know, because when we were coming up, the big message was, you know, against teen pregnancy. We all knew the 16 year old, 15 year old girl that got pregnant and it ruined her life and if the boy was any count, it ruined his life too, and so, and to be honest, I was a product of that. I mean, my mom was was young when she got pregnant with me. It worked out really well for me because I'm here. She took care of me, my mom and dad got married and it worked out. But there's a lot of kids it didn't, so that fear of that it was almost like pornography was the answer to that.

Brian Montgomery: 23:39

Well, here we are today in a world where pornography is contributing to kids not getting married, kids not entering into healthy relationships, boys are not pursuing girls and for Walker specifically, I think that he this was a trap, and and it was a trap that was set. We can look at this in just a practical sense of there's a lot of bad traps on the internet and Walker just happened into one. Oh, we can look at it from a spiritual perspective, which is what I choose to do, and see where Satan was setting this trap long in advance from that that night. You know he was, he was, he took, he took his time to trap Walker and and so I Think that we don't understand how deep this trap can go and the things that may seem innocent they may be innocent in and of themselves, but whenever you see them play out all the way to the end of the road, you see, oh, that's what was happening and it may be too late For us, it's too late to fix that with Walker. I've still got a 14 year old son, so it's not too late for him and it's not too late for me, it's not too late for the listener. The dad is listening.

Brian Montgomery: 24:53

It says you know, I think the statistics I've got some statistics on pornography. I mean it's I was in a church not long ago speaking and it's I mean 35% Of all internet downloads or pornography. Think about the volume that would have to represent. 64% of Christian men and 15% of Christian women say they watch pornography at least once a week. 50% of pastors do pornography on a regular, on a regular basis. So when we talk about those statistics, obviously a huge chunk of our population doesn't see anything wrong with it.

Brian Montgomery: 25:32

And if, if you, even if you don't believe in a God, even if you don't believe in eternity, even if you don't believe in In honor and the God we serve, you've got to see that at least some really bad things, and I don't think anything. God doesn't tell us not to do anything For the purpose of just not doing it. He tells us not to do things that are not healthy. And so, bringing that back around to some of the some of the issues that we know can happen, and Walker is the extreme example of that, I believe Walker have never. I believe I'd have been a stronger leader with Walker, had better conversations with him about that. It would have been more prohibition and help. Potentially you may have still fell for that, but it would have helped limit that as a mechanism to trapping.

Mandy Majors: 26:20

Brian, I'm so glad as a dad that you're saying this, and and I say that because I get stopped at events where dads, who dads, attend and and, and I try to paint this picture for them that pornography has changed so much and it's not just, oh, curiosity of seeing breast or you know, a naked female anymore. That's not what this is. That's not our generation. This is not what we're talking about with porn today. It is Infiltrated into our children. It is education for them.

Mandy Majors: 26:53

It is like watching a documentary. They think it is a real relationship, that they think that's what to expect in a relationship, or or even, like I Mean, I think it affects rape culture. I think it increases how we objectify people, how we look at people, how we value people, and Sometimes there are dads that look at me in the face and be like I just don't think it's a big deal. And I'm like I'm not just talking about seeing naked bodies, I'm talking about the Desensitization that is happening in your brain. It is a Satan is one by one, taking our minds off of Him, off of the Lord, and putting it on to this fleshly Objectification. Unhealthy thing. That is not of Jesus. It is not of Jesus, and so I am so thankful that we have a dad who's willing to say it.

Brian Montgomery: 27:49

Well, I want to say, because I want to say, I want to talk about a little bit about just the aspect of, of how we, how we view you know this. So there's so many questions. Okay, one, what percentage of these, of these women, are trafficked? What percentage of them are in a situation They've been, they've been placed in this sex trade and they have no way out? I mean, what percentage? A lot we know it is and we're setting their contributing to that activity. Okay, the second thing I kind of want to talk through, and I won't.

Brian Montgomery: 28:20

I think this is a point of conversation that we avoid. It's so much. And because, let's be honest, a Woman and a man are different. We're different sexually, we're different in how our bodies work and we talk about the sex drive of a male. This is a, this is a hormonal issue. I mean, this is, and you can see it, a guy that's got a whole lot of testosterone is Probably gonna be more promiscuous. He's gonna chase a lot of different women, he's gonna try to find more, is more likely to cheat on his spouse, he's more likely to do all those things to a guy that has really low testosterone is not as likely as not as nothing. I was drawn to that. Well, that's a real physics, that's not. That's not just how you were raised. That is a physical issue. Is physical for me as a male to want to pursue a woman, to have sex, more so than it is for female? We know there's all kinds of, there's all kind of variants along that spectrum. Right, there's some women that have really high hormonal issues and they, they're gonna be more, more promiscuous than some others. And so Take us, what I'm trying to do is is separate the morality of this and put it more into a basic physical Conversation. And the reason that's important is because, if we start to look at it from that perspective, we're gonna be less judgmental, okay, and, and Number one, women need to understand what they're dealing with with men, and men need to understand what they're dealing with women.

Brian Montgomery: 29:42

I'm not an expert of that, this is just observations Brian has made, okay, but I do know this is reality, I see it. And so when, when a male sees pornography and he, he can view that and he can take, take advantage of that, that removes some of those incentives that he has to to be a good husband, to be a good boyfriend, to even look for a girlfriend. And so those physical realities, they're real and there's. If you are a Christian especially, you got a. You got to understand that in this, in the spiritual world, that is being leveraged against us on a daily basis. But there's still got to be an answer to it. There's still got to be an answer. If you're a male, how do I, how do I deal with this physical reality that my body's telling me a 16 year old Walker Montgomery, how do I deal with that? So another question that I've posed is Our bodies are not, are not, instruments of change overnight.

Brian Montgomery: 30:42

In other words, have grown to this place over a long period time. You go like a hundred years. Male men and women got married before they were 18 years old, typically 15, 16, 17 years old. Our bodies are sexually mature, starting 13, 14 years old. Well, now, what we've done is we put such a high priority on education I'm not proposing we don't continue to do that, but these are still issues we got to figure out with our kids. We put a high, very high value on education and career. So we're and what do we? What are we doing? We tell them that we're saying, okay, I Don't want you to get married until you're out of college, until you can support yourself financially.

Brian Montgomery: 31:19

All of a sudden, you've taken a sexually mature male that a hundred years ago He'd have been married by the time shortly after being sexually mature. Now You're telling you're you're you're, you're sending against God if you have sex before you're 25. How do we deal with that? I don't have an answer. I'm just telling you this is real, this is reality. And so we're putting these kids in situations.

Brian Montgomery: 31:42

And now they've got access to pornography.

Brian Montgomery: 31:44

They say, okay, I know how to do it, I'll take advantage of pornography and that'll satisfy this physical need I have until I meet a spouse. And then you're creating a whole new problem. The new problem is now well, we get to 25, 26, 27 years old and I've gotten used to living alone. I've got used to doing everything I want to do and I can make it all about me and I don't really need a wife because I've got a better substitute from a sexual perspective than any woman could be. And that's real, that's true. I don't have a complete answer to that. I'm just telling you. We've got a lot of complex issues with our team, with our teams up till mid-20s, that are very difficult to navigate and Pornography, and Satan has plugged a hole in that said, okay, what we're gonna do, we're gonna figure out a way to leverage the traps for the Walker Montgomery's of the world and his parents. We've got to have those conversations and stop acting like this urge that our 16 year old has is some dirty little secret, because it's not.

Kim Elerick: 32:46

We're all dealing with it the way you just laid that out, I Think, is the conversation that most parents miss or are not willing to have with their kids. We want to say you know, don't have sex, wait till marriage. You know, get an education, like you said, push those urges down, don't have nasty thoughts and, hey, go to church. And and a lot of people. That is the extent of the conversation. Or here's how sex works. It's a one and done. Let's move on and talk about your future or let's talk about something else. That's not difficult, whereas the types of topics that you're bringing up and the way you're laying it out over time this is why we say it's an ongoing conversation. It's addressing the reality of Sitting with your kid or in the car or when you're walking.

Kim Elerick: 33:29

Hey, I know that this is what's going on with you, this urges, these feelings, and you know I was there once and these are real. And here, here's the way that Satan is attacking and getting deep into the nitty-gritty of the reality of what our kids are facing, and Parents are afraid to do it. And then, like you said, we're coming up against these situations like Walker, where, not that you were afraid to do it, but that you know all of us get into these situations where we're like I didn't know I needed to have that conversation, I didn't know what Satan was doing, I didn't know how far these schemes had gone, and it's really scary because Satan is on the attack and we see it now every day. We see these stories every day and You're right, we don't have the answer necessarily, but it's happening and it's real.

Brian Montgomery: 34:16

Yeah, I think the only the only thing that we can do today is is to educate and make these realities more Transparent, because, I mean, I think about it and what I just that that you know the situation I just out and just laid out. Yeah, I just look at it from my own perspective and I know, okay, so I'm a 47 year old man with a healthy sex drive. Okay, compared to a 16 year old With a healthy sex drive, I mean, we're two different, two different animals, right, because I know what I was when I was 16 years old. Okay, but if you told Brian at 47, brian, you got to go 10 years With no sex I'm gonna figure something out and it's probably gonna be pornography, because that's where that's. That's, that is a. You know, I can't the best way I can describe it to someone else as a man. It's like telling me I can't eat, and I don't think most men want to acknowledge that, and there's a lot of I guess I'll go back to this, I'll say it again that there's some men that don't see it that way. They don't, they don't have that same drive, and there's some men that have got a driver's off the chart, but that is. That is not just he's a bad guy, he's a good guy. Those are physical issues. And To wrap that back into this conversation, how do I, how do I help my 14 year old navigate that? And the only way that I know today is to tell him okay, look, my son's name has been it. Look, bennett, I want you to honor God with your life. I want you to honor God, and when you honor God, he's gonna bring opportunities to you that you didn't that. It's gonna be worth it for you to avoid these filthy traps that Satan is setting for you, because that's what it is and Understand that these are realities that are out there in the world that are trying to trying to garner your attention and all those things are positioned to hurt you, not help you, and Hope that he makes better decisions Because he's got that information.

Brian Montgomery: 36:12

I believe that Walker had I had some of those really strong conversations with Walker relative, if I'd already gone through this in another way or another Place in another life and could have this firsthand conversation with Walker, I believe you could have seen through what he was about to step into, and Not only that, but I think that taking some of that Shame off the table. Am I saying that it's okay to look at pornography? Absolutely not. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that when I give you those statistics that I just gave you, there's a huge chunk of our population that are engaging in that activity.

Brian Montgomery: 36:46

So why would it be something that my son would think he needs to commit suicide over? Because he didn't know, he didn't understand that every man on the street corners did them with that same issue. He didn't know, he didn't, I didn't tell him, and so that's what I would encourage parents to do, especially dads. This is, this is for keeps y'all. This is not I've been bad listening to me. This is not something that the enemy is gonna give you back. When he takes it, he takes it. He don't give it back. I.

Mandy Majors: 37:14

Think you're. You're spot on, brian, when you say educate. You know we don't have all the answers, but we can educate and raise awareness and I think that is just key here educate our kids on the impact of pornography, on the impact of extortion in these claims impact. Educate our kids on. You know, we even did a show recently with with a psychologist where we talked about masturbation and he talked a lot about the shame that some kids feel about that and how our bodies are designed to enjoy touch. That's how God designed us.

Mandy Majors: 37:53

Now that doesn't mean we can watch Pornography of somebody being sex trafficked and get off on that like that's not okay, that's sinful. But the fact that touching your body May not be sinful, if you can do that without a sinful thought and that's a whole conversation too Can you actually do that? You know, I thought there's no way anybody could, could have that kind of experience without a thought. But he challenged us and he said, okay, but what about the five-year-old at preschool that's humping the teddy bear and it just feels good to her. Do you think that she's seen porn? And so that kind of challenged me on that a bit like all these things that I thought forever about you couldn't ever masturbate without a sinful thought. I mean, mate, I don't know, I don't have the expert, the answers, but but here's the thing, these conversations just saying to our children we know this, I don't know that, I don't have the answer to that, but we do know this. We do know what happened to Walker. We do know, you know pornography desensitizes you. We do know a lot of pornography is made under the influence of drugs and people being trafficked. These are the things we do know and so we need to focus on what we do know and In in having these tough conversations with our kids, having them.

Mandy Majors: 39:14

I also loved what you said and I think this is a key conversation with our kids when we're talking about sex and pornography and, you know, telling them to wait, like you said, we are telling them to wait until 25, 26 now to have sex and Typically, I mean, I was 21 when I got married and that just sounds like so young, right, but but you bring up a good point when you talk about that. You know, one of the things that I think is just so important is and you touched on it was you know God created sex for equal pleasure man and woman in a safe marriage. That's what he created sex for. We see that in first Corinthians, right we? I mean we see it throughout scripture. But one of my favorite verses in first Corinthians and One of the things that pornography does is it rops us of that, because then sex becomes about us.

Mandy Majors: 40:08

It doesn't become about pleasing our marital partner once we're married, and that's a whole conversation that I think we can have. As far as this is what you're waiting for, you know, to mean like, this is what you're waiting for, instead of just you're awful if you do this. You're awful if you enjoy masturbating, you're awful if you are, you know, are having these thoughts like we have to move out of the shame and bring it into the light so we can actually talk about it.

Brian Montgomery: 40:37

Yeah, I think that.

Mandy Majors: 40:39

I'm getting fired up over here. You're getting me fired up, right.

Brian Montgomery: 40:42

Well, I mean, it's, it's a. It seems obvious, right, but the most Unobvious things in life are the things that you know. You think that, well, sex is just natural in it and the activity is, but there's so many other aspects of it that are not, that are Conversations that we avoid so heavily, and it's and it's just, I guess it's natural to avoid those. And maybe we've, maybe we've come to a place in our culture, like I said. I mean, you go back a hundred, two hundred years, which is no time from us, from the standpoint of our, of the way our bodies function and and you know the physical realities of our bodies. It's no time.

Brian Montgomery: 41:20

But you look at, you know the things, that, that what we're doing today, that that idea of career, and you know technology and all the things that are different from those times prior. Maybe maybe our culture didn't have to deal with it as aggressively then as we do today. Maybe that's a, maybe that's an evolution in our culture that we're experiencing that things are changing and we do need to have. You know, maybe that's why we automatically and naturally don't want to talk about it, because it wasn't a topic that needed to be talked about, maybe before. I don't know the answer to that, but I do know that things have changed and that you know, if we expect, if we expect our kids to be healthy in this, in this space, we've got to come up with some better answers than we have today. And if we don't ask the questions and pose the problems.

Brian Montgomery: 42:07

Because I think, if you look at most of society and most of culture in America especially, we're sitting here thinking that you know most people, that most people, most secular people, are gonna view this conversation as you know Something that is not necessary. Or are they kidding? You know, the expectation of sex, you know, of waiting until you're married, 26, 25, 26 years old to have sex, is such a foreign idea. They would think we're the weirdest thing on the planet, even having this conversation. Right, and I'm not saying we're not speaking to those people, I mean because I'm challenging there, I want to challenge them just like I would somebody with a family.

Brian Montgomery: 42:50

But you take that segment of population and let's look at, let's look at the outcomes of their lives. Let's just look at the outcomes of what those experience and what those activities resulting on whether it's disease, whether it's Poor relationships their expectations of their fellow man, how they see one another in those societies. There's nothing good about it I Nothing and so let's do our best to call one another to a higher level, rather than just have the expectation of well, this is just the way it is, and you're weird if you think you shouldn't do that, and that's not what I think is the most healthy use of our time.

Mandy Majors: 43:30

I think one of the things too, as I'm listening to you talk, you know and we're talking about educate your kids and all the things.

Mandy Majors: 43:36

I think some parents like me, we get overwhelmed that we don't have all the answers and there's sometimes not a black and white answer, Sometimes there's not right as far as you have these urges, but this is what the Bible says and this is what we know is healthy for you. And I just have found, as a parent, like it's okay to say that, but just the conversation in itself is education, even if I don't have the answer, even if I don't know, it's getting your kid to think about it rather than just be desensitized by it. And I think that is just critical that we because I do think a lot of parents are like, well, I don't, I don't know exactly what I'm going to say to my kids, I'm just going to avoid it. And that's what we don't want to do, because I think, as we've seen with Walker, Satan, like you said, Satan was setting the trap for Walker and what we're trying to do is prevent that from future kids.

Brian Montgomery: 44:35

Well, I think that you know that statistic I gave about pastors. You know 50% of pastors looking at pornography. That ought to tell us something. So they know better, right? They know it's not right, they know it's simple and they're in a profession, so to speak, that would obviously, that would be a that would be means for, you know, direct termination if a church discovered their pastor was routinely looking at pornography. Well, half of them are. So let's ask the question why would that be the case?

Brian Montgomery: 45:04

And you know, I go back to this, this physical reality that men face, and I think that the first thing we've got to ask is, as parents, as husbands and wives let's set aside the rest of the population that may not be engaged in good, healthy marital relationships, but let's just take husbands and wives. Are they engaging in a sexual relationship from a healthy perspective? Are they taking care of one another? Is that pastor receiving and giving sex and receiving sex from his wife in a healthy way? Is it happening at all? And that's the and so when I'm. Why is that even important? Because I'm going to have a hard time educating my 15 year old son about a healthy way to engage in sex when I don't know how? How would I know what am I going to call? Call my. If I'm a pastor, I'm going to call my assistant pastor and say, hey, man, tell me how to do this Right. No, that's not happening. None of that's happening.

Brian Montgomery: 45:58

So what I want to encourage my point in that is just to encourage adults to stop living in this world of you're. Either you're either you know scum of the earth or you're on the other side. You're doing everything right because none of us haven't figured out, none of us are in a position to throw rocks. We've all been I've said this time and time again with Walker. You know, I look at teenage boys, I look at the churches I go into and I say there's not anything Walker did that night that every single man in this building hasn't done.

Brian Montgomery: 46:33

Walker got in a situation that he didn't realize that every other man that he was going to be judged by had done the same thing. Just he got caught doing it. And that perspective you were talking about, the embarrassment of masturbation, I mean that's. That's that's where Walker found himself that night and the threat of that being seen by everybody that he knew. He didn't understand that, even if they, even if they would have had that video. They really. He really could have easily just said look, what are you talking about? I got caught, you didn't. I mean, that's the difference, and I don't think we I don't, I think we put so much emphasis on on hurting one another and embarrassing one another and pretending like we're something we're not, that it creates these pressures that are unequivocally unnecessary, completely unnecessary.

Kim Elerick: 47:23

Yeah, absolutely. And the word that keeps coming to my mind that we've brought up a few times today is shame. Like shame has infiltrated our culture. Satan has used that so deeply in every area of our life and every profession, like you said. I mean you're, you're bringing up these statistics. Those are just the people that were honest. Usually in statistics the numbers are much higher than what's reported because of shame. Even on paper, even on, you know, doing an anonymous poll, people will lie just because they're so worried about being caught. So we know that those numbers are even worse than you're saying.

Kim Elerick: 48:02

And we're so afraid and shameful to talk about real things in our marriages with our kids that we're missing the point, that it is literally killing us physically and spiritually. We're living these lives that are empty because we're just afraid to talk about the real stuff. And the weird thing is we're all dealing with it. You know, if we just accepted that reality we are all struggling with the same things it would change everything. It would take the shame away, and so that starts with education and creating that safe place for our kids, like being able to say to your kid like we're all struggling with this. Here's the reality, this is what it is. You can talk to me about it, like taking out the weird feeling so that they know they can come to you. And that's hard, but it's. It's our only tool. It really is our only tool to combat this.

Brian Montgomery: 48:50

You know we, you know I think I said this the last time we were on the podcast you know the power of the sin is in the secret and that that is. That is so true. You know and I know of. You know it's. It's odd, you know, since I've been willing to talk about these types of issues, I should say it's odd. I think it's indicative of what we're talking about here, of honesty. Just people find a safe place. Everybody wants to talk about their problems. If you got a problem, you really do want to talk about it. You want to. You want to talk to somebody that can help you walk through it, that can respond to whether it's really a problem or not.

Brian Montgomery: 49:22

There's all kind of innate characteristics in our makeup that make us want to be able to communicate what our problems are. And so, from a pornography perspective, I mean men that I wouldn't have thought that would confide in me, but have come to me with that that they're dealing with a point addiction. A grown man you would think that can reason that can. That goes to work every day. They're scared to death that this secret's going to get out. They're scared they're going to lose their clients. Scared they're going to lose their friends. They're scared, they're going to watch, going to leave them, all those things that are true fears. So imagine all those fears compounded from a man that can think clearly that, as a professional in his job, that is a good husband, that's, that's, that's maybe a coach, that's you name it. It's normal man, but they're, but they're mature, right. Compare that to how a 16 year old responds whenever he thinks that this is, and that's our, that's our own fault. I mean, that's that's our own fault that we let society push us into this corner of you're either in or you're out. And I mean I challenge you know, especially when I go into schools, I challenge the kids there. I say you know, walker responded the way he responded because of what he thought you would think, because of what he thought I would think, because of what he thought, how he thought we would respond. And I don't think he was right, I think he was wrong. I think there would have been some people that would have made fun of Walker and ostracized him, but I also think there would have been some people that have come alongside Walker. I said, look, man, it's okay, I still love you.

Brian Montgomery: 50:55

And the more that we challenge our teams to forgive and to recognize that. You know, just because you've got a good show going, don't mean that's the truth. And with social media, now it can. You know, a person can make themselves look like anything they want to look like, but it's not true, it's not reality. And so that challenge of truth is is something that we've got to continue to promote and try to remove some of the stigma of some of these activities and work through them and come up with good solutions, and not some of them don't have easy solutions. I mean this issue we're talking about with kids and and their, you know, sex drive and all those things. Those don't. We don't have easy solutions to that, but I do think we're on the right track with with communication and acknowledgement.

Brian Montgomery: 51:41

You know, as a 16 year old boy, 15 year old boy, the feelings you have and the desires you have and that physical need for sex that you're encountering. That's, that's not. There's nothing wrong with that. That's how God made you. He made you that for a lot of reasons. You know that the idea anymore that a competitive male is is some kind of a monster is insane. It's insane.

Brian Montgomery: 52:01

If we want to lose our culture, let's lose our competitive males, you'll see it go down the drain quicker and you can imagine. And that's just the reality. That's what's built this world we live in, and God built it that way for on purpose. And so all the things that and that's what we were built for. We were built to be able to create resources for our families and for our really, if you go back far enough for our tribe, for the people that loved us, the people that we were around, and to procreate and to compete for a mate, those things, all of a sudden you look up and they've gone away. Their culture's around the world that haven't gone away and they're still competitive. And so I just want to challenge our men out there to be men and don't let anybody tell you something wrong with being a man. It's not. I mean, god made us this way.

Mandy Majors: 52:49

Strong, protective leaders. I mean, we need more men and leaders in our world today. I just it's something in these. Young boys are often told that it's not okay to be that and we got to fix it. We have got to fix it. I do want to say one other thing, because you brought up just so many great points today. One of the things you said was you know, in the beginning we talked about, this is the church and this is the beautiful part of the church.

Mandy Majors: 53:19

But sometimes the church doesn't get it right, and I think this is one of the areas you talked about pastors and their usage of pornography. You know, one of the things that I think we've gotten terribly wrong in the church is that we haven't talked about the like. Sex is beautiful. It's always, even in a marriage, like, not really talked about because, oh my gosh, does our pastor really have sex Like? I hope my pastor's having sex. I hope he's having good sex, Like, like.

Mandy Majors: 53:53

Why are we not talking about the fruitful, amazing marriage, Like Adam and Eve running naked in the garden and it was no problem whatsoever, Right? Why are we not talking about how beautiful and amazing that is in the church and instead it's like, even if you're married. Oh, that's just something we don't talk about. What? And I think that's kind of got us here. Because then anything around sexual, even if it's within a marriage, the way God intended it almost feels shameful and that's not biblical. That is not biblical. God created sex for equal pleasure man, woman in a marriage and it is a beautiful, wonderful, amazing thing and it's something we should be celebrating. But because we don't, and our picture of marriage and sex is not good in the church, the fake aspect of pornography has filled our kids' minds and that's what they think it is. It is a cheap substitute and it is destroying our kids In more ways than one. It is destroying our children and our culture.

Brian Montgomery: 55:00

Well, I think you know, I think that everything that we're talking about when you talk about the church, everything that we talk about everything in life, requires balance. I mean, the balance is the terminology that I want to use in terms of, you know, what are we getting right and what are we getting wrong? Because you can describe this when we're talking about how you know in the church and how sex is, if we just say it's a prohibition on sex, sex is bad, don't do it. Well, guess what Satan's going to figure out, how to use that and what he's going to do? He's going to plug, he's going to plug into that physical need, pornography. He's done that right. Let's take another end of the spectrum. Let's say that we go into the church and the church says let's all have sex. Well, if one's good, two's good, one watch good is have five. You know, we can go all the way to that end of the spectrum. Guess what? Satan can use that and run us off on a situation where he uses that physical need to drive selfishness, to devise lust, to do all those other things that are bad for us in another extreme. So that balance is where we've got to live, to bring ourselves under the Lordship of God, and we see your description of you.

Brian Montgomery: 56:09

Know where did the shame come from? Well, it came from sin. It came from the garden. Adam and Eve were perfect content in one another's nakedness, and it wasn't just physical nakedness, it was emotional nakedness, it was connection nakedness. It was this connection between a man and a woman that didn't have secrets. They were completely transparent. One another, pre-sin, inner sin, what happens? They have to start covering it up, they have to start protecting against that because of judgment, because of all the other things that come into play whenever we entered into the sin relationship with Satan, really. And so he used that and he's using it today and he's not going to stop using it. He's going to continue to use it.

Brian Montgomery: 56:45

And so where does the church fit into that? It's balance, it's conversations. The pastor should be having good sex. His wife should be engaged in good sex with her husband. He should be engaged in a relationship where he is looking to please his wife and vice versa, and their kids should have no other expectation. They were produced through sex and that desire to do it is good, it's not anything wrong with it. But it's got to be struck in balance and I think that's where we always miss it. You know whether we're talking about food, we're talking about sex, we're talking about work. You talk about all those things. All those things require balance for us to have a good, healthy relationship with Christ.

Mandy Majors: 57:27

Well, we take stuff out, we take Christ out of it, and then the context goes crazy.

Mandy Majors: 57:33

There's no clear vision then, because then anything goes, and all the different perspectives that you just painted for us, that's what happens. It's the slippery slope, without Christ guiding us, and doing it within the confines of what he says is correct and not correct. Brian, I feel like you say you don't have the answers, but I do feel like you gave so many good talking points today that could create some new conversations in homes, and that's what we were going for today, because you know there is some evil person in Nigeria that attacked Walker in his bedroom that night. For sure, there's no way, and I hope that that person will be brought to justice on earth and in heaven and everything. But there's also bigger things at play here, and I think you did a good job of showing how Satan is using pornography to kind of, step by step, take our kids away from what God has for them. And lots of great talking points I know I came up with some more that I'm like oh, I got to go have this conversation.

Brian Montgomery: 58:44

I got to get back.

Mandy Majors: 58:45

So thank you for that, thank you, thank you for your transparency, again, just being willing to talk to us, that the dad voice is really important and and you, you say it so well and so we appreciate you. We appreciate you.

Brian Montgomery: 59:02

Well, like I said, I don't know that it's my opinion right or wrong, but you guys have again just been so supportive and your listeners have been so supportive. I just we're so thankful, thank you.

Kim Elerick: 59:14

Please know we will be praying for you and Courtney and the kids and staying connected and with you on your health journey and also as a family. We were so thankful for you and we look forward to having you on the show again.

Brian Montgomery: 59:25

Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. I can't, can't wait to get all this behind us and we'll see what what the Lord does with us, and we know that he's faithful and he's going to continue to just open doors. Yeah, that's what we're looking for.

Mandy Majors: 59:37

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Brian Montgomery: 59:46

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