Porn was the subject of the service over the weekend at Daybreak Church, a West Michigan congregation that Sunday played host to an unusual guest: porn star Ron Jeremy.
The adult-film icon famous for his eye-catching anatomy was in church to remind the nearly 2,000 worshippers that porn stars can believe in God, too.
“A lot of porn stars believe in God,” Jeremy told the audience in Hudsonville. “The majority do. I don’t think it’s a problem having my kind of lifestyle as long as you’re honest.”
A Queens native and self-described "nice Jewish boy," Jeremy has acted in about 2,000 pornos, but that doesn't mean he's a crazy hedonist, he told WZZM.
"We're not robots," he told the station. "We don't just play 'hide the bacon' and then go home and believe in atheism."
Over the course of two services, Jeremy appeared onstage at Daybreak with pastor Wes Dupin and guest pastor Craig Gross, an unconventional anti-pornography advocate who founded the online fellowship XXXchurch.com.
Gross, a seminary-trained evangelist, founded the group as a way to help Christians struggling with pornography, according to ABC. The church garnered a lot of attention, both good an bad, for stunts like its appearance at the Las Vegas Adult Expo a few years ago, where Gross and his partner, fellow "porn pastor" JR Mahon, set up shop among the sex toy displays and film stars, handing out Bibles that said "Jesus Loves Porn Stars."
"The adverse reactions came quick and came heavy, and to this day my inbox is filled with people that can't stand us, that hate us, that wish us to go to hell," Mahon told ABC's Martin Bashir at the time. "Our biggest critics are Christians."
Since then, Gross and Jeremy have collaborated on a hilarious, if somewhat bizarre, ad campaign that warns parents about the dangers of online porn using porn actors, Pete the Porno Puppet and Jeremy, who appears with a pair of sheep.
"Attention parents," the video proclaims. "The Internet makes a lousy babysitter. Because porno is just a typo away."
Although Jeremy, who is now retired from adult films, did not speak much about the porn industry or porn addiction, he did tell the Michigan audience that he understands the harm that porn can cause families, and only wants healthy, happy people to indulge, according to WZZM.
Jeremy did relate some personal anecdotes, including the story of a near-death experience that occurred as he was debating religion and death with comedian Sam Kinison, MLive.com reports. The car the two were traveling in rolled over, but the two walked away unscathed. Kinison then asked Jeremy, “Do you believe in God now?” To which Jeremy replied, “You really go out of your way to prove a point.”
Ultimately, Jeremy said the main difference between himself and many evangelical Christians is the issue of pre-marital sex.
“The Lord is fine with marriage. We all agree on that," Jeremy said. "But where we differ is that I believe in recreational sex, and the religious folks don’t.”
Joking with the two Christian pastors onstage, Jeremy asked the audience if what he did was really all that different from what the average couple does in the bedroom.
"I've had sex with 2,000 women, he's [been with] his wife 2,000 times, same thing," he said, gesturing to Gross as the crowd laughed.