Are there jobs Christians should not do?

So, after my posting on dance, I am sure some of you took a look at the costumes and the erotic nature of some of the dances, and thought, hmmmm, I dunno about all that! I have a very good friend who would walk past the TV when some of those dance shows were on, mutter something about skimpy clothing and erotic routines and walk away in disapproval. And although I love the shows, I am not sure that even if I had the talent and the body for it, that I would either dress like that, or dance like that, just because it would make me intensely uncomfortable!

So, while there are activities that we happily watch and are entertained by, are there jobs that are off limits to Christians? And are we hypocrites if we watch, but do not participate?

There are three main jobs that I am particularly wondering about:

a) Models
Do you remember Ms. California and her comment on marriage being between a man and a woman at the Miss America contest? If so, you will recall that she soon found herself in the center of a maelstrom, as less than “sanctified” pictures of her in varied states of undress suddenly surfaced. She was labeled a hypocrite for her topless pictures, to which she responded:

"I am a Christian and I am a model. Models pose for pictures, including lingerie and swimwear photos," Prejean said in a statement. "The photos of me taken as a teenager have been released surreptitiously to a tabloid website that openly mocks me for me for my Christian faith. I am not perfect and I will never claim to be perfect."

Here is video that summarizes the entire saga.



So are Christianity and lingerie modeling mutually exclusive? Can you be a worship leader on Sunday, and a Victoria secret Angel on Monday?


b) actors/actresses
I am a real fan of the African movie phenomenon (that is another topic entirely!), so I have been out of the loop with Hollywood for a while. Therefore, a few months ago, I decided to try to catch up. So, I went and borrowed a whole bunch of movies and had a movie marathon all by myself. One of the movies I started to watch was “Shakespeare in Love” – thus described:

Shakespeare in Love won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actress (for Gwyneth Paltrow) and Best Supporting Actress (for Judi Dench). It was the first comedy to win the Best Picture award since Annie Hall (1977).

Source

I was astonished to find that the movie was basically soft porn – lots of full frontal nudity by Gwyneth Paltrow, and plenty of inappropriate sexual references. As open minded and liberal as I consider myself to be, I could not watch it to the end. It has almost become a job requirement nowadays that if you consider yourself a serious thespian,you must be able to do some kind of love scene, which requires different stages of undress. Many of the recent best actor/actress awards at the academy awards have often involved nudity and/or sex scenes on the part of the actors involved . Most notable are Halle Berry in Monster’s ball (2001) and Kate Winslet in The Reader (2008).

And its not just a Hollywood thing. African movies have stepped up their game with regards to sex scenes as well. The love scenes in the following:

“the Perfect picture”,



and

“30 days”



among several others are pretty wild by African standards. They are some of my very favorite movies, but I was surprised by the intensity of some of the love scenes.

For "The Perfect picture" love scene, I had to hit the ff button. I was like – dannnnnnngggggggg!!

c) Dancers

Then there are dancers: Much as I love the Latin American dances, I am not sure that I want anybody I am not romantically involved with touching me like that. And as for the professionals, no part of their body is sacred. For instance, watch this Mia Micheal’s routine:

Note: the dance starts around the 2:25 mark.



While she is a fabulously talented choreographer, I am not sure that it is appropriate to have someone's hands all over your butt like that. I don't care what the context is - it just feels wrong. But if you are a dancer, you cannot tell your choreographer that you don't like the butt dance. You do as you are told - period!


We could also talk about some types of entertainers and the pressures they face to sell sex (Beyonce, Britney, Christina, etc), some athletes (female beach volleyball anyone?) and so on.

I have given this issue some thought, and I have concluded that there are certain professions where you have to think of your body as the tool of your trade. Writers have words, painters have brushes and canvas, musicians have their instruments, models, actors, dancers and entertainers have their body. They use it in whatever way they feel is needed to pass their message across – whether the message is to sell lingerie, or to communicate desire. You cannot excel in some of these professions if you have inhibitions about your body, or think of some areas as untouchable. I understand that.

Here is the question though: Does this lack of body inhibition requirement contravene the bible? Is inhibition a christian attribute?

And this verse;

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20

Does it imply that we need to be inhibited?


This is how Kirk Cameron interpreted this injunction as an actor in the movie Fireproof. His approach generated a great deal of interest in the secular press:

In Kirk Cameron’s new movie, “Fireproof,” he has to kiss the actress playing his wife. That was a problem. Cameron will not kiss any woman who is not his wife.“I have a commitment not to kiss any other woman,” the former child star of “Growing Pains” told Hoda Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford Monday on TODAY in New York. o get around the conflict, the filmmakers employed a bit of movie magic, Cameron explained. They dressed his wife, actress Chelsea Noble, like the movie’s female lead and shot the scene in silhouette. “So when I’m kissing my wife, we’re actually husband and wife honoring marriage behind the scenes,” Cameron said as Gifford and Kotb melted from the romanticism of the moment.

Source

Video here:

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So, is that the way it is supposed to be? Have we gotten used to sin in the guise of entertainment? And if we say – I would never, ever do that, or I would strongly disapprove if my child wanted to be in any of these professions, are we hypocrites if we watch?

Please weigh in.

Ciao!

Homosexuality IV: The christian POV.

This is my conclusion to this controversial topic. The final issue I plan to tackle in dealing with this topic is - What does the bible say about homosexuality in particular and sex in general?( I am a Christian, so that is the only worldview I can work with)

As prudish and unrealistic as this may sound, this is the Christian standard: No sex before marriage, and no homosexual sex – period!! As we have established earlier, the person who commits adultery or fornication is no better than the person who engages in homosexuality.

There are three main passages in the bible that deal with this issue (of homosexuality):

i)There is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah (found in Genesis 19) where the principal reason for the destruction of the cities was supposed to be homosexuality.

The gay response? “The Genesis 19 account of Sodom and Gomorrah is a story of attempted gang rape of two "outsiders." It says nothing about loving gay relationships, and actually condemns the sort of violence sometimes done to gays and lesbians.” (read the rest here and also this interesting defense.

ii) There is the invocation in Leviticus 18:22
Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.

Gay defense: National Gay Pentecostal Alliance (NGPA) interpretation: The NGPA has produced a word-for-word translation of the original Hebrew. 4 In English, with minimal punctuation added, they rendered it as: "And with a male thou shalt not lie down in beds of a woman; it is an abomination. That is, "... rather than forbidding male homosexuality, it simply restricts where it may occur." This may seem a strange prohibition to us today, but was quite consistent with other laws in Leviticus which involve improper mixing of things that should be kept separate. e.g. ancient Hebrews were not allowed to mix two crops in the same field, or make cloth out of two different raw materials, or plow a field with an ox and a donkey yoked together. A woman's bed was her own. Only her husband was permitted there, and then only under certain circumstances. Any other use of her bed would be a defilement

.

This is just one interpretation that they put forth. There are several more.
Read the whole thing – Veeery fascinating.

iii)Then there is the passage in Romans: Romans 1: 26-28, which reads:
For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. 27 Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. 28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting

Gay interpretation: Some question whether the word "perversion" in Verse 27, and "such things" in Verse 30 are related to only certain types of gay and lesbian behavior. e.g.: Homosexual orgies, or
Group same-gender sexual practices in a religious setting. This was a common practice among Pagans at the time; e.g. in the temples dedicated to the Goddess Aphrodite. Casual homosexual activities outside of a committed, monogamous two person relationship, or Homosexual molestation between a man and a child. In Paul's day, the child victim was often a slave.

These probably were the only forms of same-sex activity that Paul was familiar with. Paul may well have not been thinking of gays and lesbians in committed relationships when he wrote this passage. He never referred to such couples in his writings, and probably never encountered any during his lifetime. He might simply have been condemning homosexual orgies and other sexual activities outside of a monogamous same-sex relationship.
Read the rest

If I had to play devil’s advocate, and anticipate the argument from the other side, I would admit that there is stuff from Leviticus that I ignore – I eat all sorts of seafood for instance, there is stuff from Paul that I don’t really obey – like covering my head in church, and the story of Sodom and Gomorrah – could be subject to interpretation if you so chose, I suppose.
However, there are several other verses, some of them pretty harsh that literally promise fire and brimstone for homosexual activity. All put together, they paint a certain picture – that sexual activity in Christiandom is limited to a man and a woman in a marital relationship – PERIOD!

For those who want objective, scientific answers, here is the truth: There is none. This is a question that can only be answered based on your worldview. If you have a faith-based worldview, then you just have to believe what the bible says. And if you don’t….., well I guess you have the right to live based on how you see life and eternity as well.

How do we handle the disagreement? Don't ask me, I have no idea. There are no easy answers, but I doubt that criminalizing is the way to go. The only way to change behavior is to change people's hearts.



One last interesting titbit before I leave this topic alone:

A couple of weeks ago, this lady pastor was all over the news. Obviously, one of her congregants was gay, and they decided that the solution was to carry out an exorcism. Then they posted the process on youtube, and all hell broke loose. It was interpreted by those outside the church as gay abuse. I found it interesting that nobody in the larger church body had anything to say ( that I am aware of anyway) about this. Everybody kind of kept their head down until the wind blew over.

See for yourself:



It sounds kooky to the CNN interviewer, but she is preaching the christian POV. Actually, any African pentecostal church would do the same thing. I applaud her courage standing up for her beliefs, even as if forces a realization upon the rest of us that the christian worldview is not popular and unlikely to be applauded by the larger society.

This whole series started with a policy question: Should homosexuality be criminalized? Now I ask another one: should Christians be casting out the "evil spirit"?

Well, I could say much more, but I will just leave it at that.
Comments, insights, etc are welcome from both sides. We need to keep having a civil conversation about these things even if we don't agree.


Ciao!

p.s did you notice this interview was done the same day MJ died? That is why I think everybody forgot about it so quickly.