Priceless

I’m reading of a 22 year old woman who is auctioning off her virginity in Nevada, only one of two states in the U.S. where prostitution is legal.  And isn’t that really what this is?  Prostitution. Apparently, the online bidding is up to $3.7 million. 

Let me begin with the obvious.  Who are these people that are eager to corrupt something that should be kept special?  What about the fact that this money could be put to much better use in this economy—charity, church, or a woman’s shelter?  Can I get past my fury at this woman for cheapening something so sacred in order to be even more outraged at what this says about our culture?

Actually, this is no surprise to me.  We have numbed ourselves to sin.  We instinctively want to run from taking responsibility for our choices so we simply call it something else.  With regards to this particular woman, or other prostitutes, we say, “Oh, she is just wounded from her childhood.  Her father must not have been around.“  Or about the men who seek what she offers?  “Well, they have a sex addiction and they need help.”  This is not to throw away compassionate care of those who truly need guidance, but aren’t we also a bit desensitized to what the Bible clearly calls sin?

We have numbed ourselves to what tears apart the human spirit, morality, and the family.  We are overexposed to those things and we are not protecting ourselves from what infiltrates and corrupts our mind.  The fact that our culture is becoming increasingly more accepting of this young woman’s proposition is disheartening.  We laugh it off.  We see it as a joke.  But do we see it as an indication of just how far this world has turned from biblical values and virtues?

“There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death”  (Proverbs 14:12).  Our culture thinks that there is little sacred about intimacy anymore.  God’s design is considered prudish and out-dated.  Immorality is the essential ingredient in all the sitcoms and dramas on television lately.  When was the last time you saw a show that didn’t have sexual immorality, or the suggestion of it, woven throughout?  We believe that we are obligated to feed our feelings what they desire regardless of right or wrong.  (Whatever you do, do not exercise self-control.)  We’ve bought into the world system of belief that only the things that are wrong for you are immoral.  And as we follow that way “that seems right to a man,” we are blinded to the fact (or maybe we see it clearly) that it will lead to death—emotional, spiritual, and sometimes, even physical.  Aren’t we just living for the moment, with no regard for the future?

“They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.  Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more” (Ephesians 4:18-19).  These are the end days.  This Nevada virgin does not realize that what she is auctioning off is a gift from God, to be treasured and not cheapened.  It is priceless, doesn’t she care?

Or maybe she’s just reflecting the world we live in.

Silenced

Over the last few years, we’ve heard a lot about conspiracies.  Usually it’s in connection with the words “vast right-wing” or sproken from Bill Clinton regarding the Lewinsky scandal that America is so proud of.  But something about these recent times makes me feel as if, as a conservative Christian, there is a conspiracy to silence me and my views.  My political and religious creed has, ever increasingly, been what condemns me in the eyes of the world.

Think of what we’ve been threatened with or been forced to accept in the last few years.  The Fairness Doctrine threatens the conservative voice on radio simply because liberal radio keeps failing.  Is there any complaint from the left for the dominant liberal media bias?

What about the violent protests (and media coverage in such a sympathetic way) over the passion of Proposition 8 in California last November?  Yes, it passed, but the sypathy for those who want gay marriage is growing rapidly while the anger and violence towards those who seek to preserve the traditional family is beginning to silence us.

Do we even need outside forces to silence us?  It seems we go undercover into exile rather easily these days.  George Barna has researched this and the number of Christians not voting in elections or abandoning biblical values in their voting is astounding.

The classic quote from Edmund Burke, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,” is maybe never more true than today.