Christian Prostitution

I learned about Christian prostitution in Spain.

Bernice and Annabel told me about it.

They lead one of the seven rescue homes in the province of Cantabria sponsored by the ministry of Nueva Vida.

Bernice is a Mexican pastor’s daughter and seminary graduate.

Annabel is a missionary, first sent by her home church in Malaga to do missionary work in Morocco. She holds a graduate degree in Spanish language acquisition.

They invited Trish and me to their home after church, at the normal Spanish time for dinner, 10:00 PM.

As we drove to their house, Bernice told us about their work in Morocco and what had led her and Annabel to relocate to the city of Santander.

Prostitution.

I am somewhat aware of sex trafficking through Free for Life, a ministry based in our church. Colette Bercu and her husband Dan lead that ministry and have done an incredible amount of work in a short amount of time. They have passionately worked to educate me about the scope and power of the global sex trade. 

But even Colette never told me about Christian prostitutes.

In Santander, most Christian prostitutes are Nigerians. They are teenagers or young adults who have been transported from their native country. They are taught to work the streets and parks of Santander in ways that will not invite police interference. As they work, they often listen to Christian praise music on iPods. Before and after work, they may attend church, where they worship fervently. One prostitute actually leads her small church in worship before heading out for her late night employment: prostitution in the city park. 

Here’s the deal: these women have a loaded gun to their heads. The sex trade operators know their families.  They will kill the parents and siblings of those who quit the trade. If a prostitute doesn’t show up for a couple of days to work, she gets a call from a family member at home, asking if everything is OK. That means that someone in their village has informed mom and dad that she is not working and may need a call to see if she is sick or something. This reminds the sex worker of the dire circumstances that threaten her family if she decides to bolt.

These women, many who are poorly educated and without significant, safe connections in the country where they work, decide that although what they are doing is difficult it is not as wicked as exposing their families to death. Besides, some make enough money to help feed families at home.

So the prostitute walks the parks, advertising her trade through her clothing and mannerisms, that she is available. As she walks, she listens and sings to herself:

“Lord, I lift your name on high;

Lord I love to sing your praises.”

Now that think about it, I had heard about Christian prostitutes, from Susan Ruden, author of Paul Among the People. 

Ruden is one of the world’s greatest experts on the classical world and its literature. She had read Paul’s writings late and reluctantly, after extensive work in classical Latin and Greek literature. What she found was explosive, for her personally and for her career.

St. Paul, you see, is the bad boy of academia, even in religious studies.

However, as she read him, Ruden decided that modern scholars had terribly misjudged and maligned this man, whom she claims invented the Western world as we know it today.

As she describes the horror of the late Roman Empire for the bottom two thirds of its inhabitants, she graphically describes the perpetual erotic atmosphere of the Greco-Roman cities. Few people, she claims, male or female, escaped being raped before reaching adulthood. The slaves especially were used and passed around to friends and were often physically disfigured by sexual abuse.

Women who claimed to have escaped this abuse were from a higher class, which made it possible for her father and husband to afford a bodyguard to accompany her wherever she went. It was obvious who these women were because they walked through the streets wearing beautiful veils.

The apostle Paul insisted that all women wear these veils when gathering for worship. Susan Ruden claims that Paul did not do this in order to put women down but rather to provide an atmosphere of equality for the lower classes. In the church, none would be able to distinguish between those who were privileged and pure and those who were not.

They all would lift holy hands in prayer and worship, their past and present struggle hidden under a symbol of purity.

Ruden says that the slave women, who were many, and in the Roman Empire often educated and cultured, would leave church and participate in all sorts of sexual situations. They had no choice; their owners could kill them without any interference by Roman authorities.

There was one place where they could go to escape, for a while at least, from the plight into which society had placed them and in which it maintained them: the church.

A woman who later would be removing her clothing and doing whatever powerful people demanded her to do, took a beautiful piece of lace and covered her head. She then walked into the house of God and lifted her voice in prayer and song, adding her redeemed voice to those of her brothers and sisters in Christ.

Somewhere today, a young woman from Laos, Nigeria or Nicaragua is preparing to go to work. Later she will do nasty stuff. For now, she slips on her headset and joins her spiritual family in worship. She realizes that her brothers and sister in Christ would not understand what she is doing, but she sighs and quietly sings along:

 You came from heaven to earth, to show the way

From the earth to the cross, my debt to pay

From the cross to the grave, from the grave to the sky

Lord I lift your name on high.


Perhaps today this young woman will meet someone like Colette, Bernice or Annabel. Perhaps she will learn to trust them when they tell her that they have safe contacts who can help keep her family safe if she wants out.

In the meantime, why doesn’t she join them for dinner later, after work?

The table will be ready and, if she wants, she can play video games or just tell jokes.  And, if she likes, perhaps they can have some friends over to sing and play some music.

‘Sure,” she’ll say. “Cool.”

These angels will give the young woman a bottle of cold water and their card with contact information.

Then she will put on her headset and tune one world out as she tunes another world in.

And does what she must do.

The Globe's Grinning Jack-O-Lantern

The world’s economy breathed a bit easier this week after the European governments agreed to shoulder Greece’s debt. 

With the understanding that Greece would adopt a set of reasonable austerity measures, the Europeans promised to make good on all loans the nations and world banking system has made to Greece. This meant that the country would not default, which possibly would have dragged the fragile economies of Portugal and Spain to ruin. The fear was that this might prove too much for Italy, triggering a collapse there. Were that to happen, moderately well-managed economies of several other nations might follow these smaller nations into the abyss. At this point, the growing contagion would probably seriously affect the major economic world powers.

The world’s leaders stared at this approaching train wreck and sighed when they seemed to have averted the disaster.

Their relief was short-lived.

Greece decided to put the matter up for a national referendum. The Greek government evidently lacks confidence that it speaks for its own people, and can assure the world that the country will accept the austerities required for an infusion of European money.

           

What we need to notice is that Greece is only one dramatic example of a growing global reality: governments are finding it difficult to govern. They fear the wrath of their people as much as the looming economic disaster. Governments are paralyzed because they are not sure their people will follow their direction.

That is why in October, the traditional month for economic horrors, the world’s people were terrorized by rumors of a catastrophic global meltdown.

The crisis is far from over. In fact, it appears to be only beginning.

           

For months, people around the world have been protesting in the public squares of their great cities.

Some say they were angry about the growing global inequity between the rich and poor. Others are upset with the international banking systems’ lack of accountability to national governments. Yet others seem hostile against the very notion of government itself.

One thing for sure, the world’s people are frightened. The target of their unrest varies, as do their stated values. However, these global protesters have at least one thing in common: an intense anger toward, and a profound distrust of, authority.

The people seem to fear the potential of tyranny, which leads to a distrust of all authority, even in its most innocent and benevolent forms.

This profound distrust of authority allows a dangerous amount of people to romanticize, or at least to tolerate, a state of anarchy.

Unfortunately, anarchy, not sometimes, but always, leads to tyranny.  

The mobs are driving us toward what they most fear. 

Although most of people are leery of strong government, governments rarely produce tyranny. What produces tyranny is lawlessness.  When a people become weary of societal chaos, they began moving toward the extremes of the political spectrum. At the end of this process, the differences between the left and the right becomes little more than the colors of their respective parties. In such times, the most hated voices, whether in religion, politics or everyday life, become those who seek moderation, compromise and grace. The warriors of the extremes emerge to lead their troops to battle, and each side works to eliminate the middle.

The truth is; it is the boring moderates who create societal stability. Even in a dynamic and creative culture, there must be a time when everyone in that culture knows when to stop yelling, to back down and to compromise. Otherwise, the culture’s center cannot hold. This is true of all social entities of any size, from families to nations.

In healthy times then, moderation is viewed as a virtue. In chaotic times however, the moderate is seen as a coward, a man without conviction.

Healthy government -- whether in a family, church, or nation – is, more than anything else, a process of conflict resolution among individuals based upon principles common to those individuals and the management of the tension between the individual good and the common good of all those who belong to the society being governed. Government thus works within the parameters of what is possible in a given society and aims the energies and vision of its people toward productive common pursuits,as well as protects the rights of the individual to seeks their individual pursuits.

Thus, every society has a right to define itself, including what is required for an individual to belong to the group.  However, every healthy group must also have defined internal boundaries, lines that delineate between individual rights and corporate responsibilities.

Without individual freedom, there is no healthy personhood; without a sense of the common good, there is no healthy community.   

           

When a government consumes the individual, the individual has the right to resist the government. When the individual refuses to acknowledge the legitimacy of government, the government has the responsibility to contain or expel the individual. The balance must therefore be maintained. The individual needs self-determination to flourish.  The state needs the loyalty, respect and responsible cooperation of its citizens to flourish.

           

This balance between individual freedom and societal stability is difficult, not only because of human sin but because we differ on how the balance works.

           

Some tolerate a small loss of personal freedom in exchange for a stronger sense of the common good; others prefer less emphasis on the common good in exchange for greater personal freedom.

           

These differences create political parties and form the political cultures of the world’s nations. 

           

People differ over how they define the society’s common good.

People differ over the extent to which they are willing to accept personal responsibility to maintain the common good. 

In Europe, for example, even political conservatives are usually in favor of a much more complex social infrastructure than Americans. Therefore, European parks, mass transit systems, educational opportunities and basic health care availability allow a broader proportion of the citizenry in European nations to benefit from a common infrastructure than in our country. However, this comes at a cost that most Americans view as too limiting to the individual’s privacy and economic freedom.The difference between these approaches to government is not really about democracy and socialism, as we often hear in our heated political campaigns. It is over our different definitions we offer for the concepts of “common good” and “individuality. “

None of these differences are new.This debate has been going on for a long time and has produced very different ways of thinking about democracy and capitalism.

What is changing in the world is a loss of belief in a “common good,” and in the legitimacy of governments and other kinds of authority to maintain and protect the common good. 

So, the global protest movement is not about whether we will have an American system, a European one or something else. The protest movement is not that sophisticated.

The global protest is about raw fear and a profound distrust of authority.

The world’s people fear the loss of their individual and national souls.  They worry about whether their children will eat, or get an education. Sometimes they fear without even knowing the specific reasons for their fear.

That is why the protesters come from both the right and the left and why they are made up of both nationalists and internationalists.

They are united only by their common fear and distrust that anyone; especially anyone who represents any sort of authority can solve their problems.

As this spirit of anarchy spreads, the policeman, the clergyman, the doctor and the judge seem alike, in that each seeks to define and address society’s issues in ways no longer viewed as legitimate. The training, credentials, and experience of the world’s “experts” are being swept away as utterly irrelevant.

Nor is that the end of the matter. 

The credentialing agencies that maintain the various authorities of society -- the medical establishment, the church, the state and other institutions traditionally viewed as having legitimate power-- have lost much of their right to speak and act.

The apostles warn us of this time and identified the Antichrist as a personification of the spirit of lawlessness.

So this season of chaos is not about Greece. It is not even about Europe. It is about the legitimacy of law itself.

Never has the second Psalm’s opening line been so relevant as today: “Why are the heathen so furiously raging?”

The October terror shouts back its reply: because there is no center. All is sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Without God, law has become a grinning pumpkin, staring blindly at a world that has just now grasped its awful secret:

It has lost its power to hold people together in a healthy state of order.

How can it?

Without its traditional foundation in spiritual reality, it hardly even exists.

For all these reasons, this chaos will persist until despotism -- another kind of corporate admission of the loss of law -- promises to remove it. Then despotism will persist until the world’s legitimate king finally declares that time shall be no more.

Until then, we each must make a choice: to live in peace by following the prince of peace, or to gape in horror at the world's Great Grinning Pumpkin

History, Spaniards and Youth

Santander is in Northern Spain, not terribly far from France. Proud of having never been under Muslim rule, it is a part of old Europe. A city of merchants in the days of the Spanish Empire, the Spaniards, who created the global market, made this city especially wealthy and elegant by sailing to and from the world’s great ports. As I look out from my window down the street toward the Atlantic Ocean, the old mansions and parks of Santander reveal that the modern inhabitants of this city retain much of the elegance and some of the wealth their ancestors created.

Today, I visited Potes, a small mountain town about one hundred and thirty kilometers from Santander. Despite its size, Potes was important when the Muslims occupied much of Spain. On the border that separated Christendom from Islam, it served as a bastion of Western culture. The European powers filled the area surrounding it with monasteries to create a cultural and religious boundary that would separate them from their enemies. Some of those monasteries are now impressive ruins; others are still in use.

We visited one ancient church that monks established in the sixth century. An elderly Franciscan received us at the door, took us on a tour, and pronounced a blessing over us when we left.

As in many places in Europe, monuments and memorials are abundant here. To all who have ears to hear, these houses of history speak of things that have transpired over the last two thousand years and, to those who listen, pass along their wisdom for the present and their warnings for the future.

Augustus Caesar conquered the Celts who originally inhabited Santander. He called it Port Victoria and made it an outpost of the Roman Empire. Not long afterward, Christians settled here. They made a contribution to the city that has survived through the centuries and which remains visible today.

This history is wonderful to experience, all the more because we are in the company of contemporary Christians. As they show us these various sites, they neither defend nor defame their history. They merely tell the story of their homeland as we pass one historical marker after another.

Last night, I met with a group of them in an apartment. Most of them were college students who meet each week to worship and pray. They asked me to share with them something from my pastoral experience. I immediately loved the professional, intelligent young adults sitting in that room. They have made a choice in this post-Christian culture that may seriously affect their careers and their placement in society. Many of them are responsible for small groups around the city and so have already become the present and future leaders of the Lord’s church in Northern Spain.

There are no monuments to announce the greatness of these young leaders. However, they are far more important to the future of God’s work in Spain than all the magnificent memorials I have found so impressive.

When I returned to our apartment, they made me think about Alfred McCroskey, a man once full of vigor and vision who has now become a part of history.

I cried, thinking about how he is no longer with us. I thanked God for his work and read over the eulogy I had written for his funeral. 

I wrote the eulogy to tell the story about a great and good man. I wish I could do more, and perhaps I will, to mark the magnificence of his spiritual accomplishments. For now I have written the eulogy because such things, like the monasteries and monuments in Spain, connect us to our roots.  They must be maintained so we can copy the achievements, and escape the mistakes, of our past. That is why history is important and must be told.

This morning however, I thought about how much easier it is to praise the dead than to honor the living.

Furthermore, how much easier it is to respect elderly leaders than to respect younger ones.  This is probably the reason St. Paul told Timothy not to allow people to despise his youth.  Presumably, some had been doing just that and Paul wanted them to stop. The disrespect toward the young pastor was discouraging Timothy and undermining God’s work.  

           

Paul wrote as one who worshipped a man who had died before he even reached his mid-thirties. The Lord’s disciples, whom he knew, had also been young, as is evident by the fact that they lived for many more decades, spreading the faith and writing the New Testament.

Since its very beginning, young leaders have been important to our faith.

I am trying to keep this in mind as I notice how the young Spanish leaders look at me. They treat me like some sort of patriarch. I appreciate their respect, even though I don’t view myself as old as they seem to see me. Nonetheless, it makes me cautious.

What if I say something to them that influences them to take a wrong path? What if that harms the work of God in this country? What if I discourage them from following their chosen vocation because I know, as they cannot know, that the road ahead will be difficult?

Should I tell them that some of God’s people will treat them poorly? Should I inform these young, idealistic people; eager as they are to take the gospel to the streets of Santander, that there will be those who will take no delight in their enthusiasm, will not acknowledge any success they may have, nor grant them any respect for the sacrifices they will make? Must I tell them that they will receive very little grace from some of their flock as they learn to teach the scripture and to care for the needs of the church? Am I obligated to say that they will be expected to work as many hours as their friends and get as much of an education; and, even though they will be expected to wear presentable clothes and to be socially active, will probably not make enough money to do this as often as many think they should? 

Must I tell them that earning the respect of God’s people is a long and difficult process and that whatever they do, some people will never respect them or their work?

No, I must not say such things.

I rebuked one young Gypsy pastor for saying that while he loved the Lord and loved the Lord’s church, he knew that his Gypsy heritage would always be an obstacle for those who come from polite society.

“NONESENSE!” I replied. “People hungry for God don’t care about such things. Those who do care about such things are not yet ready for the kingdom of God.”

I then walked over to where he was sitting, hugged him and impulsively kissed him on the head.

 “You are the servant of the Lord, “I said.  “I esteem you. Being a Gypsy and being young has nothing to do with anything. Lead the flock.”

After that, I read some selected passages that Paul wrote to Timothy.

When I finished talking, I sent a text to Austin, my son-in-law. I asked him to stop what he was doing and read the passages I had just read to the Spanish leaders:

“Let no one despise your youth. Be a good soldier. Study to show yourself approved.”

And so forth.

So, I have been thinking today about our young leaders at Christ Church. I have been realizing how much I respect them – not just love them, but respect them. They study. They pray. They work hard to meet the needs of a changing world.  And, most importantly, they will outlive those of us who are today’s seasoned leaders. When we are gone, they will carry on. 

And if not them, who?

St. Paul didn’t want to die. He had much more to do. He had much more to say. But time had caught up with him. Great apostle or not, his time was almost over. He was worried about the future of the church.  He knew Timothy wasn’t ready to lead. Perhaps he was concerned that Timothy may not even be up to the task of learning to lead. But he had no choice. The future was arriving. The aging apostle would soon be gone. So, Paul picked up his pen and wrote a letter to Timothy, and through him, to every Christian leader who would ever guide the Lord’s church through changing times.  

I read Paul’s two letters to Timothy again last night. As I read, I did a lot of thinking.

I have watched my son-in-law learn how to be a husband, a father, and a minister of the gospel. I have watched him struggle with debilitating physical illnesses. I have watched him open his heart to spiritual experiences that were new and strange for him, simply because older brothers and sisters in Christ whom he respected, urged him to do so. I have come to respect him as a man of prayer, a student of the Word, and as a man who has a profound concern for the Lord’s church.

He is a good and a godly man.

I have watched Daniel Bell, who is older than Austin but still younger than me, undertake the long and difficult hours of study required for a first-class seminary education. I have observed how his presentation of the gospel has deepened. I have noted his tears as he recounted to me the struggles that people in our flock are facing. I have watched him grow in pastoral abilities. I am glad to work with him.

Colleen Hollis amazes me. She accepted a call from God often especially difficult for a woman: preaching the gospel. I have observed her grace, humility and dedication to study, prayer and Christian service in the face of her own self-doubts.

I could list others, such as Christopher Phillips, already a leader wise beyond his years. Or Michael Alfred, who for two years, walked to church every day because he did not make enough money to both pay for a car and health insurance to protect his family. He learned Greek in order to read the New Testament in the original language. He teaches our youth the Word of God.

Jeremy Carlson and Jay Clark do whatever they are asked to do because they love this congregation.

These are all noteworthy things, which we should acknowledge and respect.

Behind all these young leaders (and some of them not so young) are dedicated spouses, volunteers, staff and employees who work untold hours to serve our community, a board of experienced wise men and women, and a growing group of seasoned deacons and other kinds of spiritual leaders.

We are truly blessed.

But I must end my reflection, which has already grown too long.

I knew Alfred McCroskey before people honored him. In those days, he lived in a tiny apartment that a church member made available. No one asked Alfred to preach in a great church conference. Christian television celebrities never asked him for an interview. He used a tiny office in our church until we needed it for other things. He did whatever he had to do, without bitterness or a sense of entitlement, to follow his call.

All that made it easy for us to honor him at his funeral. His work is finished. The quality of his accomplishments is evident. It is now safe to praise him.

But I am thinking today that Alfred probably needed more encouragement earlier in his journey than he needed it at the end.

When he was new to the stage, he was not always sure how to present himself. A kind word or a bit of praise would have gone a long way to reassure him and give him the energy to continue his work.

Alas, emerging leaders rarely get the praise they need. Instead, they endure their own self-doubts, the attacks of the devil, and the needless wounds inflicted on them by the household of faith.

We must do better.

As Jesus warned, “it is inevitable that offenses should come; but woe to those from whom it comes.”

I will speak for myself: I am sometimes guilty of expecting from youth a level of maturity that I did not have when I was young, and which indeed I do not always demonstrate today. If a young leader is timid, I tend to think he will never become a great leader. If he has confidence, I am tempted to think him arrogant. With such impossibly demanding criteria, we in effect eliminate everyone from Christian leadership, especially the young.

Sitting here in Santander, overlooking two thousand years of history, I am asking myself “does it have to be this way?”

That’s why I will go to the meeting tonight and hug those young leaders. I will tell them that they are our hope and future. I will tell them that I believe in them and that the Lord believes in them. I will confess that we didn’t know what we were doing either and often still don’t. I will tell them that this has been the case for two thousand years, but that the Lord has nonetheless led his church through flawed and stumbling people like us, generation after generation. They need to know that they will not be an exception.

And I will tell them, “Let no one, including me, despise your youth.”

I don’t want to wait for another funeral to esteem those who do God’s work, whether they are young or old.

That is how I will intend to honor Alfred, the old Franciscan monk and all he represents, my spiritual fathers in God, and God Himself: By affirming the Head of the Church’s sovereign choice to call young leaders into the work that has been ongoing ever since Jesus left us and went to heaven, at age 33.