Christian Reflection and Prayer

(from Crosswalk.com "Live It"
Thursday, September 2, 2010)

Strippers Going To War
Dr. James Emery White

Sometimes I think I should start a new file: 
really dumb culture wars that do more harm
to Christianity than good.

Two came up this week.  The first courtesy of
New Beginnings Ministries Church in Warsaw ,
Ohio , that has taken it upon itself to travel
seven miles down the road each weekend in
order to visit the Foxhole strip joint.  Once there,
they block traffic, take photos of the license
plates of customers, and then post them on
their "shaming" site.  Apparently there's a fair
amount of condemnation and verbal insult offered
in the process.

Turnabout is fair play, or so feels the Foxhole
crew.  So the owner of the strip club - along with
a couple of his dancers - set up shop outside the
church on a Sunday morning, wearing bikinis and
eating hamburgers.

The pastor says now the church is really solidified,
and will see it through to the end.

The second had to do with the new pastor of Kingdom
Builders Church of Jesus Christ in Warner Robbins,
Georgia .  Upon enrolling his son in the ninth grade,
the pastor found out the school's mascot was a
"demon."  He's been collecting signatures of protest
ever since, saying that a pitchfork-wielding mascot
sends the wrong message to teens.  "Hundreds of
children gather into one place at one time chanting
'Go Demons.'  It's the equivalent of us gathering into
a church on Sunday morning and shouting 'Go, Jesus'
or 'Hallelujah Jesus,' the pastor maintains.

A Warner Robbins senior says it isn't like that at all. 
She says the fiery mascot doesn't symbolize evil or
Satanism.  It's just tradition.  School principal Steve
Monday says that the origin of the mascot isn't religious
at all.  In fact, it started in World War II from the
7th fighter squadron at Robbins Air Force Base,
which earned its nickname in the South Pacific who
were known as the "Screamin' Demons.'  The school
adopted the name in a show of patriotic honor
to the squadron.

The pastor says he's ready to fight for what he believes in.
The school says it's ready to rumble, too.

I'll say it again.  This is just dumb.  They are dumb
confrontations, and done in dumb ways.  I won't say
they are over dumb things - I am not attempting to
promote strip clubs, and if I was starting a school,
I doubt I would pick the "demons" as the name of our team.

But it's still dumb.

Why?  Because the actions hold little or no hope
for any real or substantive change.  Because it brings
the worst kind of ridicule on to the Christian faith. 
Because it does nothing but alienate the people
we are most needing to reach for Christ.

Think those strippers want to go to that church,
after their livelihood is threatened and they are
called names?

Not hardly.

One of the strippers, a married mother of six,
says she was tired of being called a "homewrecker
and a whore."  She views the members of the church
as hypocrites, and their offers of salvation are not wanted.

So much for effective evangelism.

And do you think those high school teens are going
to fill the youth ministry of the church at war with
their mascot?

One senior said she doesn't get it at all - it just seems
like an attack on her school.  "We're all proud to be
demons," she said.  "You walk through the halls and
see everyone wearing their Warner Robbins High
School shirts.  It's really awesome."

So what could have taken place that wouldn't have
been dumb?

What if the pastor in Ohio had taken the energy and
effort of picketing, name-calling and posting license
plates and developed a series at his church on healthy
male sexuality and invited the community to attend,
or reached out in love to the women serving at the
Foxhole with the message of God's love and the healthy
self-esteem they could find in His embrace?

After a while, there might not be any patrons at the
club, much less dancers to employ.

And what if the pastor in Georgia offered the kind of
youth experience and outreach that earned him the
right to talk about the difference between a demon
as a mascot, and a demon in reality - opening the
eyes of the students to the spiritual realm?  Or what
if he was able to so winsomely and compellingly
engage them and their culture that he was able to
actually turn them from chants of "Go, demons!" to
"Go, Jesus!."

Then he wouldn't have to collect signatures on a petition. 
The students and faculty might just want to make the
change on their own.

So instead of acting in ways that make strippers want to
go to war, perhaps we ought to act in ways that make
strippers want to go to church.

THEN WE'LL REALLY MAKE THE DEMONS SCREAM!