Spacechild’s blog

Posted so that I can link to it from Facebook, because Facebook is lame and doesn't allow you enough room to actually talk about anything.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/01/07/porn-industry-seeks-federal-bailout/

I am posting this because an old friend posted it, and a curious conversation followed on his Facebook. The following thoughts have been bouncing around in my head since then, and I found myself really wanting to say this to my Christian friends, of which many are on Facebook.

I responded to my friend's post with a point that I think none of my christian friends who saw it wanted to agree with, nor even respond to; why shouldn't the porn industry get the same treatment as any other industry? If automakers can get a bailout, then what is the difference?

My christian friends would understandably say that the difference is that the porn industry is filled with immorality. I myself am certainly not arguing that point. But I am wondering what the difference is, really. Are automakers not at all immoral?

When they went before congress to plead for a federal bailout, they were soundly rebuked for taking private jets to Washington for the hearing. Is that not being a poor steward of money? They took those jets despite the fact that they are laying off workers left and right. Is that loving their neighbors like Jesus said to? Is that taking care of the poor? No, its making more people poor.

And since I already brought stewardship up, what about the automakers decades-long fight to avoid making environmentally sound vehicles? More fuel efficient, less pollution-causing? For many years, they were actively working to prevent such progress. Its time to wake up, Church of America; its not the territory of dirty hippies anymore. Its not some liberal propaganda. It is a stewardship issue. It is about a creative God who formed a world of beauty to share with us and whether we are going to continue to desecrate the creation. We just don't get to talk about intelligent design and then crap all over the designs of that divine intelligence. That is immorality in its own right.

"So the automakers aren't spotless on the morality issue", you may be saying, "The porn industry is still a vile blight on our world! They don't deserve our help, they don't deserve our tax money!"

Understand that I am not here trying to defend porn. I am just making a point. There is no sliding scale of morality. To say anything else is simply not biblical.

For that matter, I am not even saying that automakers deserve a bailout. As a friend of mine pointed out recently, where was the government bailout when the dot.com bubble burst and all my friends were out of work?

What I am doing is using this to make a point. Specifically, something I want my fellow Christians to think about.

There is no sliding scale before God.

The CEO of a company who gets rich on the backs of the poor is no better or worse than the person who produces porn, and that producer is no better or worse than the person who stars in that porn, and that porn actor is no better or worse than you or I.

The murderer on death row is no better or worse than you or I in the eyes of God.

As Christians, we often love to have our favorite evils to hate. We rail against porn or abortion or alcohol or the latest controversial rock singer or gays or whatever. Hell, we rail against some things that aren't necessarily even sin. We even have our new pet sins in the church, legalism and religiosity.  We love to hate on those these days.

Still, we ignore the evil in our everyday lives. Our own complacency. Our own lack of love for that murderer or that porn star or even that poor factory worker who just lost their job. Our lack of love for our neighbor; and I assure you that Jesus meant all of those people when He said to love your neighbor.

We have to remember, and I do mean HAVE to (or we cannot call ourselves disciples), that we are no less sinners before God than the murderer or pornographer or tax collector or woman at the well. "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God"; that verse has no rider stating "but some of you REALLY fell short".

I am about to sound like those cheesy "Not a sermon, just a thought" ads that McLean Bible Church is always putting out on the radio around DC, but what I am talking about is not the federal bailout from our government for our failing companies. I am talking about the divine bailout from our God for our failing souls.

We couldn't do it ourselves. We needed God to do it for us.

And it isn't about who deserves it and who doesn't, because none of us deserved it.

Just in case, this is my new journal if LJ goes kerplooey!