Kirk says of his addiction to pornography, "there is always that boy who has a big brother who has got the magazines up under his bed, that is how usually it starts. The first time I ever saw one, I was about eight or nine, and from there I was addicted."
Kirk brought the addiction into his marriage. He kept it a secret from his wife in the first year, but by the second year of the marriage, it was no longer so. Kirk’s wife Tammy says, "within our second year of marriage, he tried to implement his addiction within our marriage. "Watch this with me, honey." It made me feel dirty. It didn’t make our intimacy sacred to me. I would get angry and refuse to do so."
Kirk’s secret life ran amuck while he traveled to promote his latest releases. At home, Tammy had no idea of the extent of Kirk’s problem. She says, "I didn’t see any evidence that he was doing it at home. He knew how I felt about it, so I would think that he was hiding it from me." Unknown to his wife, Kirk would sneak upstairs while she is sleeping to watch the pornographic movies.
How did Kirk finally get to the point where he had to deal with his addiction? He says, "We were in Los Angeles, and we were in the bed that morning in the hotel, and I said, Baby, I need to tell you something, I’m struggling with pornography, I have a problem with pornography, a real problem." Tammy’s response was sympathetic, "My response immediately was just to be sensitive to it. What blessed me is that he did look at it as a problem, a lot of guys can have an attitude of, "It’s normal for a man, it’s a man thing." The fact that he wasn’t coming to me like that blessed me and I just began to pray for him consistently. I knew that I wanted him to know more than anything that this is something we were going to work through together."
Kirk says that pornography can give an illusion of harmlessness to some individuals, "There are some Christian men I know that would say, "I’d rather do that than cheat on my wife." Truth is, we are cheating on our wife because whatever a man thinks, he is. So we are cheating." While the church is a place to turn for help and answers, the church itself is suffocating under the weight of this destructive addiction. Kirk says, "I was the minister of music at a church when I was 11. I get evangelically ticked off about the fact that I wished somebody would have taught me a long time ago about the repercussions of sex, flesh,lust,vanity,pride,ego, and all these other things. I wished somebody would have been holding my little behind accountable years ago."
Unfortunately, what happens to the gifted in the church is that they slip right through. Because the gifted are able to naturally and emotionally control the atmosphere of the service, we relate to them based on the gift rather than as human beings. Nobody asks the minister of music, if he’s sitting up there killing and everybody is crying and speaking in tongues, nobody asks him, ‘Are you going home this night? How is your marriage?What is going on with you and your wife?’ Nobody holds the gifted accountable in the Body of Christ."
Even though Kirk’s wife knew about his problem and prayed for him, no one held him accountable, that is, until he met Pastor Tony Evans, a man who wasn’t dazzled by Kirk’s celebrity.
"When I first went to his church in 1998, I had an album out called, ‘Stomp’. I was traveling to Dublin, Ireland, to do songs with Bono, I was getting flowers from Arsenio Hall, I was getting letters and cards from Mike Tyson, I was hanging out with Denzel and all these other big-time celebrities. I was working on a TV pilot for ABC and I was bathing in all of the attention, and a lot of my Christian community was bathing in it with me."
When Kirk and his family started attending Pastor Evans’ church, Kirk didn’t receive the same treatment he was accustomed to. "With Tony Evans, he could care less who I was. And if I didn’t get there in enough time, I had to sit where everybody else sat. I got mad at it, but then there was something that was pulling me to it, I was crying out to be discipled." Pastor Tony Evans says of his church "You come here the same way everyone comes here, through the Cross and at the Cross, the ground is very level, so you are treated like everybody else. We recognize your gifts, we honor people, the Bible says to give honor where honor is due. But there’s only one celebrity, and that is Jesus Christ."
Kirk Franklin says he called Pastor Tony Evans one night and said, "Pastor, I need help. I have a problem." Pastor Tony Evans was not shocked by the confessions. He says, "Since the sexual area so defines men and is so accessible to men, it is so easily reached after as a defining point. It has to do with who you are, whether you are really a man. Once we can clarify a person’s identity in Christ, once we can help him to understand how to walk in the Spirit, then they can discover that the law of the spirit is indeed greater than the law of the flesh."
Kirk told Pastor Evans everything about his addiction, and started the journey to his deliverance and healing and today, Tammy has seen the tremendous change in her husband. Kirk believes that contrary to the lies that people are taught, anybody can be set free from pornographic addictions, "for years I questioned if I could get free? I was doing albums that God was speaking to people with and I was struggling with pornography. "Why We Sing" came out in ‘93, and I was struggling with pornography, "Stomp" came out in ‘97, and I was struggling with pornography. Through these albums, everybody else was getting their victory and walking in it, except for me. I used to question and wonder what was going on and what was happening? Thank God, my victory did not come by my emotional experience. My victory came through truth. When I was taught truth that was when I got my freedom."
