That's a pretty risky question to be asking, particularly for a COG minister, given the peccadillo's of various ministers throughout the years in the COG. Who can forget the horror stories of the PCG minister who likes to hang out with PCG youth at summer camp in his bike shorts.
Sadly though, this is another swipe at PCG youth. Apparently none of the youth in the PCG can be trusted. Sexting naked pictures back and forth and looking at porn seems to be common place with a lot of youth today, so Lord Six Pack and the PCG assumes their youth are too.
Usually when these kind of issues come up in church publications or in articles it is because some minister has been having problems in this area (I am not implying that the author of this article has these problems.) Is a PCG minister sending pictures of his privates to others, like several Senators have done in the last couple of weeks, or are they incessantly looking at porn on their phones?
The author of this article claims that Smartphones are now tools of Satan to destroy young peoples minds.
Facebook. Twitter. Tumblr. Snapchat. Instagram. Does anything stand out to you? Doesn’t it seem that everyone
is using these apps to put their social life on the Internet?! The way
people access these programs has developed over the last few years from
desktop computers to the pocket cell phone. Most cell phones today are literally miniaturized computers in your pocket. It is also a window to a very evil world.
The smart phone has not only become a status symbol, but many teens,
and perhaps even you, view it as an absolute requirement to be accepted
among your friends. Do you feel this pressure? To not own a smart phone
is a virtual social disaster. Some teens want one so badly that they
will even steal or commit murder to get their hands on one.
If you own one of these phones, or even if you wish you had one, I have a question for you to think about: Do you have the kind of character to use it properly? Many adults don’t. Many adults use their smart phones in a very wrong way. This problem can affect anyone.
Apparently no parent in the PCG has been able to raise their child to have values and not do these kind of things. Armstrongism has never trusted it's kids. Perhaps if they did there would not have been as many issues as there have been in the COG youth over the years.
Like everything in Armstrongism it has to be tied to sex. Sex permeates the church, the ministry and its articles and videos.
The most evil fruit borne from the misuse of these phones is sexual
in nature. Whole dating patterns of teenagers are being formed and
shaped around smart phones. Teenagers use their cell phones to send one
another photographs and videos so they can “hook-up” with a teen of the
opposite sex. And most parents in the world just go along with it.
Lewd teenage videos and photos have gone viral in schools and
communities, to the great embarrassment and harm of those involved. If
those photos or videos are uploaded to the Internet, the content is
pretty much impossible to remove. God covers sin, but the Internet puts it out there for everyone to see and revel in.
For any youth in the PCG that is doing this they are now expected to immediately run to their parents and minister to confess. Going to their parents is the best and only step they should take. Going to the ministry is not! There have been countless horror stories of Imperial High students and Ambassador students counseling with ministers. They ended up asking the kids deeply personal questions about their sex life. All the juicy details would be dragged out of the kids. A couple of ministers even masturbated under their desks during these counseling sessions. Given the low quality of the ministerial peoples that defected to PCG over the years, I would be very leery about counseling with any of them!
The other thing the youth need to consider that every single thing they tell the ministry is written down and placed in a file. There are no secrets when you really get down to it.
Parents, you work with your children and don't allow the ministry to stick their sweaty big noses into your children's business!