Unless you've had your head in the sand in recent weeks, you know that one of the biggest "news" stories has been the rise and fall of Miss Carrie Prejean, one time Miss USA candidate, whose less-than moral video of herself has apparently been leaked. A fascinating aspect of this story (more fascinating then the story itself in my opinion) is the attacks directed at Miss Prejean, not from the liberal left, but from the religious right. See the post linked below for an example...
http://www.crosstalkblog.com/2009/11/carrie-prejean-sexting-and-a-lost-generation/
Obviously, I feel people are entitled to their own opinion...that's why I blog! However, I take great issue with the following excerpt from the above-linked post...
"As I have repeatedly stated on Crosstalk as late as last week, you cannot profess to be a Christian and demand respect for your supposedly pro-family views when you’ve been cavorting in a naked fashion in front of millions of men. Breast-enhancement surgery for purposes of engendering male lust is no way to represent Jesus Christ."
I'm going to dissect this statement as I see fit...
1) First, the portion of the statement that says, "...you cannot profess to be a Christian and...". We are entering some dangerous territory in our Christian-religious culture in America. That phrase is being ended with a wide variety of criteria today. Many people are stating "you cannot profess to be a Christian and...have a drink, smoke a cigar, be a Democrat, listen to rap music, wear a polo shirt to preach in, love Muslim people, love gay people, use anything but the King James version, etc..." I'm sure you see that statement is endless. The best I can tell, to profess to be a Christian biblically is as follows...I recognize my sinful nature, I recognize Christ to be not only the Savior but also the Lord, I recognize without Him I have no hope of defeating my sinful nature as well as no hope of exemption of the wages of sin which is death, I turn my life over to Him accepting His gift of grace and life, and then I enter into a process called discipleship that reigns over my life until I leave this world. Note the emphasis on process. From Robert Webber's book Ancient Future Evangelism, "The problem we are dealing with is not only the problem of individual Christians who don't grow but the problem of local churches that don't have a process for nurturing and growing new Christians into mature disciples." Professing to be a Christian does not equal to me never making a mistake, a poor judgment, or a bone-headed decision...it only equals to me looking to Jesus, who according to the author of Hebrews is the "founder and perfecter of our faith". Has Miss Prejean's choices to have breast implants, cavort around in a bikini, and video herself intimately for her boyfriend been good choices? Probably not. Do they exempt her from the kingdom? No.
2) The author of the above post also states Miss Prejean has cavorted in front of millions of "men" in this fashion. That may be true. However, and admittedly I don't know a whole lot about beauty pageants, aren't there more women who are the facilitators/organizers/distributors of these events? Shouldn't some of the backlash be directed toward these women who are encouraging the 'cavorting' and encouraging this behavior? Where is that outrage?
3) The author also states that Miss Prejean is "engendering" the male lust of the world. Engendering is defined as, "beget or procreate, to cause to exist or to develop". I'm operating under the assumption the author is pointing to a development of male lust, as I'm fairly certain that sin has not just recently found itself birthed by bikini-clad women in pageants. There are a few stories biblically and historically that would point to male lust existing for a while now. Perhaps Miss Prejean and others are not doing their part to diminish it, but pretty sure they didn't cause it to exist.
4) Finally the point that Miss Prejean's actions are "...no way to represent Jesus Christ." Perhaps...but neither is attacking a supposed sister in Christ. Neither is calling men "fools" which is done in another section of the post. Neither is...well, there are a lot of ways we all live and act which are no way to represent Jesus Christ. Thankfully, He speaks for Himself.
Some of the obvious backlash to opinions like mine will be things like, "But we're not supposed to continue in sin!" and "Don't you know the sexually immoral will not go to heaven?" Yes, I know what scripture says...I also know that it is the shed blood of Jesus Christ that pays my debt, not my good works. At times I, along with every other human being who's ever lived, act/speak/live in such a way that it does not match the righteousness/holiness of God. That is why we have Christ. We live under His righteousness, not our own. We find our rest and peace in His life, not our own. We have no claim to heaven other than His gift of eternal life. He said the world would know we are His by how we loved each other (John 13:34,35), not by our perfect lives. Our moral-majority whipping post, our religious finger-pointing, and our self-righteous endeavors to tear others down may bring more shame to the name of Christ than anything else. May we all be ashamed of such things...and seek to love others more.
RIGHT ON BROTHER!!!! I MEAN SON! lym
Posted by: MOMMA LOU | 11/18/2009 at 11:59 AM