There is right now, a myriad of organisations and charities that are taking steps and actions; sometime big loud, freedom cry,ear shattering actions to end injustice, to end suffering and to end misery.
This is great. There will probably never be a time when there is no injustice. This isn't meant to depress anyone, it's meant to move us. We are called to fight this. I don't think this is a Christian issue, it's a human issue. But if anyone should be at the forefront of tackling this, then surely Christians should be there looking it squarely in the eye.
Which there are. Water, porn, trafficking, poverty. We're looking around at the world and realising it's not enough to just sit back and wait until some unspecified day when we are all going to be whisked off to the sky somewhere. We are meant to act this morning in anticipation for this evening.
To get to a state of injustice requires some sort of mess up. Something that usually was caused by an act of one person on another. With trafficking, it is someone using power over another to control their movements. Where they can go, what they can eat, who has sex with them.
So our natural inclination is to help the trafficked. To free them. To work endlessly for their freedom. To take steps to ensure it never happens again to that person.
But if we achieve this and see that as job done I think we miss something.
We miss the one who carries out the injustice. The one who God saw fit to tell us we were to love. Our enemies.
There has been an amazing petition going around which is striving to ensure that all magazines and products that contain adult material like Zoo, FHM, Nuts etc. be covered up in newsagents, so children will have one less avenue of being exposed to it. Please sign up here to add your name to help out.
I also read a blog which called us to boycott those magazines. To even boycott magazines from the same company that published Zoo and Nuts. Which meant to boycott 'Horse and Hound', 'Anglers Mail' and 'The Field' along side of many other innocent magazines. (Maybe the writer also really dislikes the countryside). The writer even admitted this would cause people to lose their jobs and livelihoods, but he was at 'war'.
Which raises the question.
War against who?
War against the writers of NME, Horse and 25 Beautiful Homes?
War against people who make porn? With everyone else as collaterel damage?
It's easy to see it as so simple. I wish it was. But it's not. Jesus called us to love our enemies. Is that easy? Of course not. But does that matter? Really?
Christians have a lot of enemies it seems today. Homosexuals, Muslims, Pornographers, Mark Driscoll, Rob Bell (ha)... We like to see it as an us V them situation. God is on our side, not theirs. Seeing it like this though just pushes people away from God's love. But really there is no divide. We are all 'them'. We are all 'us'.
Should we be fighting to put an end to the porn industry or should we be doing our best to show the porn industry that Jesus loves them too? To talk to them, to show that we don't hate them. I know what appeals more to me. In fact, I know what would appeal more if I was working in the adult industry?
Justice will never fully be complete until we look to seek freedom for both sides.
Sin will never stop having an impact until we learn to love those who sin against us.
And love will never fully win until we realise we all need it.
...Check out what happened when The Godfather of Porn came to Church
