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I Surrender All: Rebuilding a Marriage Broken by Pornography

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When Clay Crosse married his high school sweetheart in 1990 he wore a white tuxedo symbolizing the fact that he and Renee (in her white gown) had remained virgins until marriage. "We saw this as a way of glorifying God in our wedding ceremony and telling other young couples that it is possible to wait for sex until marriage. As I watched my bride coming down the aisle toward me, I realized God had given me a great blessing in her. In that moment I knew more than ever before that I wanted our lives to be different. I wanted us to stand out from the world and shine for God. Unfortunately, eight years would pass before I would begin to do the work to make this desire a reality."

In those eight years Clay Crosse became Clay Crosse: Christian Star. His first single, "I Surrender All," climbed to the top of the charts and the Gospel Music Association named him New Artist of the Year in 1995. His first four albums went on to produce eight #1 singles. But the white suit came back to haunt Clay.

Even though he and Renee had remained virgins, Clay hadn't remained pure. He'd become dependant on pornography to sate his sexual desires until he was married. As his career took off, with accolades and money flowing freely, he become increasingly self-centered and his shallow faith couldn't support the weight of his success. He and Renee gradually loosened their standards --- using coarse language, laughing at crude jokes, and viewing movies regardless of sexually explicit content. He was able to justify crossing back into porn use because it didn't feel like that much of a stretch from what he viewed in mainstream media on a regular basis.

"When I watched a mainstream movie that contained graphic sexual content and nudity, something stirred inside of me. The old feelings I experienced when I watched pornography before I was married came back. I like them, and I wanted more. As I said a moment ago, the focus of my life increasingly was me and what would make me happy. Pornography fed this hunger, and I knew when I could find it," he writes.

That seemingly benign move started a spiral into lust that, two years later, left Clay perched on the edge of an affair. Thankfully, the Lord got Clay's attention and he started to do the difficult work of reorienting his life on God and others rather than himself.

It's that difficult work that fills the chapters of I SURRENDER ALL, the book Clay and Renee Crosse have written together about his struggles with pornography and lust, and her struggles to forgive and trust him again. The fact that this issue came to a head for them several years ago, in 1998, gives their advice weight. They've been in the marital trenches and have just enough distance from the dark days to offer light, but are close enough to still have compassion and a sense of urgency about the issue.

The couple offers a lot of practical tips for avoiding temptation and supporting a weak spouse. The Crosses also advocate male headship in the household, which some will have theological qualms with. But they and readers can agree that their most important move was to reaffirm their commitment to Christ and to rely on his strength to keep the marriage together when neither of them was able or willing to based on their own power.

Even though Clay and Renee's marriage faced unique opportunities to slide into danger because of his ego-driven profession, it's clear that the temptations Clay faced and the emotions Renee felt are universal. Anyone --- male or female, married or single --- who is struggling through issues stemming from pornography will find valuable information, understanding, and exhortation in I SURRENDER ALL.

--- Reviewed by Lisa Ann Cockrel

This book has a lot of value to offer, but it's not about sex addiction. There's a difference between desensitization and sex addiction, and this book addresses desensitization. True addiction involves a cycle that includes elements of compulsion, detachment, acting out, and shame. That is not remotely what Crosse describes. Instead, he writes about desensitization: how the use of pornography can desensitize a person to sex in such a way that all of the emphasis is placed on lust/the physical while the emotional experience is increasingly overshadowed, and how that use desensitizes a person to the objectification of women as well. When a person uses pornography on a regular basis, they can become focused on the selfish nature of the gratification and lose sight of sex as a way to bond emotionally. The objectification in porn can bleed over to other areas of life until the person looks around and just sees potential objects for their own enjoyment. Sex stops being a give-and-take act of love and becomes all about physical pleasure and self-gratification, which then leads to considering sexual acts involving less and less emotional connection.

This is one of the dangerous consequences of porn, particularly in a Christian marriage, and it's good to have a book addressing these dangers, particularly in a society that says, "it's just porn," and doesn't see the dangers of that desensitization. If you're looking for a book that addresses these aspects of porn use, particularly if you're in a Christian marriage, you'll find this book useful.

However, this is not the same thing as sex addiction. Crosse doesn't describe any feelings of compulsion. He wasn't acting out to escape the painful feelings of life. He wasn't consumed with shame each time he acted out. He used porn because he didn't think it was a big deal and it "felt good," and experienced a desensitization. He did feel shame once he "confessed his sin" and "repented," and he does struggle with temptation, but that's NOT the same thing as addiction. In true addiction, he would've tried to stop when he realized it was wrong and found himself completely unable to do so. He would've fought urges he couldn't control. He would've experienced the detachment of using. He would've needed to completely restructure his coping mechanisms and beliefs, work through a process such as a 12-step program, figure out and work through what was driving him to use, etc. Porn wasn't his coping mechanism: it was just a self-indulgence that took him down a bad and selfish path.

With true addiction, repenting and handing your life over to God is not enough to correct the problem. That's certainly helpful, but the above steps are still necessary. I think any sex addict who reads this book is going to feel angry with the author for calling himself an addict and frustrated by the lack of material to which they can relate.

If you are suffering from ACTUAL sex addiction, particularly if you're in a 12-step program and identify strongly with the feelings and experiences expressed by other members in your group, I don't think you'll find much value in this book. However, if you've tried a 12-step meeting or two and didn't identify with the experiences of those there, you may well be suffering from desensitization rather than an addiction, and it might be worth reading this book to see if it resonates more with your experience. Desensitization is still damaging to individuals and relationships; it's just handled in a different way than addiction.

I think desensitization is a pervasive issue in this age of porn that is so readily available and easy to hide, but it's just not the same as addiction, and referring to it as addiction is part of why it suddenly seems like everyone has a "sex addiction," and why so many are skeptical of the existence of sex addiction. I hope that as more research is done, a better distinction will be made between these two issues so that both can be better understood. It's a shame that this book is classified as being about sex addiction, because that undermines its value in combating desensitization, and it also confuses the issue of true addiction.

i appreciated this book so much for being so humble, open and honest and i'm grateful for the fact that a christian recording artist and his wife would open up about this topic which has shamed so many into silence. the enemy has run rampant in this area and men and women need to see examples of how the Lord is able to work and redeem someone out of the bondage of sexual sin, that He is so willing and able to restore all that has been stolen from a christian marriage that's been torn apart...it reinforces the hope i have in the Lord for my marriage and was very encouraging...

Singer Clay Crosse first saw pornography in the fourth grade. He was at a friend's house when they found a collection of magazines. A few years later, another friend showed him a movie. By the time he was in high school, he had a small stash of magazines hidden in his room. Clay knew that looking at this material was wrong, but he never thought about how dangerous it might be.

Even after he and his future wife made a commitment to purity, he was able to rationalize his involvement with pornography. As long as he and Renee were not having sex, he thought he was okay.

Once he married, he assumed that his battle was over. Being a fan of movies, Clay though little about the content of the films that he watched. It made it easier to once again watch pornographic videos at the height of his music success in 1996. This began a two-year descent that would affect him physically, jeopardizing his marriage and career.

This couple's journey to restoration is told clearly and concisely in their own words. It's honest without any lurid details. Through Renee's account we see the heartbreak and turmoil that family members can experience.

This story serves as a warning to all that will take it to heart. There is a common progression with predictable and devastating results. This book could help others turn their lives around.

How could someone so popular in Christian music justify this kind of behavior? Clay and Renee admit that their relationship with God was shallow. Once Clay made it big, they became enamored with all of the pleasures that they could enjoy. Looking back they realize that they were living for themselves.

The foundation for the rebuilding that took place in their marriage was a new commitment to serve the Lord. Their path to wholeness is practical without being legalistic, providing hope for those who struggle with this in their own lives.

Life is better for them now. Clay continues to perform concerts nationwide, and he and Renee speak at various marriage enrichment conferences. Clay serves as worship pastor and Renee is involved in the leadership of women's ministries at The Love of Christ Church in Memphis, pastored by Dana Key of Degarmo & Key fame.

It's hard not to be challenged about purity when you read this book. It's a reminder that we must continually "Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desire" (Romans 13:14 ESV).

Clay and Renee have established HolyHomes Ministries to challenge Christian families to live godly lives. Their thought is that Christian homes should function in a different way than non-Christian homes. They should function in a better way, with more love and caring, and be less destructive and hurtful.

Unfortunately the use of pronography by both men and women is exploding and draining marriages of the emotional and psychological energy needed for marital bonding. In this book, I Surrender All, both Clay Crosse and his wife describe the devestating effects internet pornography had on their marriage and their slow and painful journey to marital wholeness. A great book for couples to read together. It allows husbands and wives to sometimes reveal their own feelings, through reading Clay and Renee's accounts, that they might never have the courage to say to one another otherwise. This is a wonderful book for all couples, and especially for Christian couples, to use in working this this growing problem.

Clay and Renee Crosse have co-authored this autobiographical account of the journey that they have endured through Clay's early success in the Christian music industry, his descent into pornography and the damage that ensued in his career and his marriage, and the restoration that God has brought into their lives. The most striking and helpful part of this book is its brutal honesty. The Crosses have clearly decided that they can serve others most effectively by being fully transparent about their struggles. That certainly includes Clay's struggles with the sin of lust but also includes places where Renee admitted her own spiritual weaknesses. It never seemed like they were sharing too much detail, but their candor is most helpful and all too rare in a Christian subculture that seems to prefer stories of artificial perfection.

Another strength of this book is its readability. Their writing style is very conversational, and it is an easy book to digest. It could probably be read in one or two sittings, but I enjoyed reading it over the course of a few weeks by reading one chapter each night.

There are a few weaknesses, to be sure. The readabilitay of the book is connected to its informal writing style, which also makes it feel almost amateurish at points. Some of the conclusions that they drew concerning big spiritual issues seemed overly simplistic, as if Christians need only to read the Bible and pray more, in which case God is obliged to fix all of our problems. Again, a bit of literary nuance would have clarified some of those finer points.

Also, the shared authorship of Clay and Renee, while providing us with perspectives from their two very distinctive journeys, seemed a bit jarring at times, as they bounced back and forth from one to the other. And there were times when they seemed to remain a bit smug about the early success that Clay had, making sure to point out just how wildly popular he had been. Maybe that was simply to juxtapose their current situation from where they had been, but it felt a bit pompous.

These critiques aside, I'm glad to have read this book. The Crosses have done the Christian community a favor by telling their story. Though this book has some weaknesses, it is good to hear a story of two lives, filled with severe pain and wrecked by sin, that have been restored, though not perfected. Many Christians would do well to learn from Clay and Renee.

It was like being able to talk to a friend about the situation. I really appreciated how both sides got to talk separately about their own view of this conflict. It really opened up lines of communication between my husband and me with honesty and not playing the blame-game.

This is a really good book for those husbands who struggle with Pornography, and also for the wives to read...it gives you a Godly perspective of the realities and consequences of the destructive nature of pornography. There are too many cases where marriages are destroyed because of the evil nature of pornography, and the fact that it is so accessible on the internet...this is one of those books that gives a true account of their lives from both the perspective of the husband and the wife. Buy it, you will find it is a very good jumpstart to accountability for your husbands struggle. This is a good companion to use but please be aware that counseling is most important in helping your husband "beat the porn" rap....

I read the first 133 pages of this book in 2 evenings. It is a very easy read and I didn't see any distraction or smugness in the bouncing back and forth or discussions of Clay's early popularity. I think part of the power of the book is the fact that this person living a lie looked like a Christian superstar from the outside. It could be any person you see in church on Sunday morning.

I especially appreciated the candor and directness of the book. I would recommend it to anyone who knows someone struggling with a "secret sin", not only pornography.

i d like to thank the crosse family not only for sharing about the sin that is often taking too lightely, but mainly they shared about the difference of the shallow and lukewarm christian life and their deep conversion. i live in the czech republic and there is a very low percentage of christians down here. we need testimonies like clay s and renee s to avoid same mistakes and compromises. i recommend the book. it s easy to read and captivating.