Strippers Turn Tables on Church

Posted on August 10, 2010
Viewed 4472 times
(100) comments

North of Columbus, OH, there is a battle brewing. It pits a church against a strip club. For the last four years, Pastor Bill Dunfee and several from New Beginnings Ministries have been rallying outside of the local strip club. OK, well... they weren't there to take advantage of the Fox Hole's services, but rather to utilize their bullhorns to talk down the businesses' potential patrons. They've taken pictures of license plates in the parking lot and posted them on their website.

And they've been doing this for the past four years.

After a lawsuit against the church was struck down because of free speech rights, Tom George, the club's owner, had an idea. If the church was going to protest his club, why not have his club protest the church?

And that's what they did.

As people arrived for services at New Beginnings Ministries, they were also greeted with strippers from The Fox Hole.

That's right. The tables were turned.

Score one for the Fox Hole.

Here are my thoughts...

1. Do I think stripping is an admirable profession? No. Owning a strip club? Double no.

2. Do I think the church was right in what they did? No. Not at all. Bullhorns yelling down people? Not cool. Taking pictures of license plates and posting them on your website? Way not cool.

3. Which is more important... that people stop going to strip clubs or that they find Jesus? Which is more important... that these women stop stripping or that they find Jesus? The one thing this church has done with their actions is pretty much guarantee that none of them will have anything to do with any of these people coming to Christ. We can only pray that others will be able to show them the love of Jesus in a more constructive way.

4. I get really upset when people, under the authority of the church, make the death and resurrection of Jesus into a license to be a jerk. Matter of fact, I think it's interesting to compare how Jesus treated 'stripper types' compared to how this pastor and church does. Jesus didn't whip out his bullhorn (hey, it coulda happened) and bully people. He doesn't try to shame them into loving him either. And he doesn't get angry. In fact, he keeps his anger for the Pharisees; the religous people who were always pointing their fingers.

5. We've got to get past the thinking that non-christians are going to act like Christians. They won't. Ever. Truth be told: if we were really all that serious, we'd have plenty of work just making sure that Christians acted like Christians.

6. It's so easy for some people to get so wrapped up in fighting evil that they lose any chance they ever had at stopping the evil they're fighting against. (Read that one twice)

Should Christians stand against evil and sin? Of course. I'm just not sure this is the way to do it.

So... if you're asking me which side I'm taking on this one... I'm more prone to side with the strippers. They simply turned the tables on the church that has been bullying them for the past four years.

What's your take?

I'd love to hear it.

Todd

PS -- I'm resisting all the temptation to say the obvious jokes (that church attendance is up 25% since the strippers showed up, or that the church's offering is now mysteriously missing all the $1 bills). That just wouldn't be cool.

Comments

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CS on Thu, August 19, 2010

Carole:

I also want to thank you for going out and reaching out to those whom many in Christendom would not dare approach. I have a similar ministry myself.

But, I do have to focus on this.

“No, we don’t ever say anything to the strippers in the club about their sin. You can read the details of the outreach on the link I posted. For us, our goal is to go where they are with love only.”

I can think of no greater demonstration of love than telling someone about Christ’s sacrifice for sin. In fact, I would dare call it very unloving to go and offer false hope by giving out flowers and not talking about Him except with the off-chance that someone follows up with you.

unknown:

“Carol, I do have to say that the idea of telling someone of their sin is interesting to me. I deal a lot with those who are in the ‘darker’ places and I have never once HAD to tell someone that heroin (or stripping or sleeping with 29 guys a month) was sin, somehow-they know…”

You must have the exception to the rule, because the Bible says that every way of a man is right in his own eyes (Proverbs 21:2), most men proclaim their own goodness (Proverbs 20:6), and that the human heart is deceitful and wicked (Jeremiah 17:9).

And even if these people to whom you are ministering grasp that their actions are sinful, if they do not understand the penalty and punishment that they will reap because of it, ultimately ending in eternal separation from God in hellfire, then they will never come to Jesus in repentance and faith (2 Corinthians 7:10). Remember, only the people who realize their depravity and its consequences are the ones in need of a Savior.

—
CS
Carole Turner on Thu, August 19, 2010

I never said they don’t get the gospel. Many have come out of the clubs, to church and received Christ. I blogged about some of them. We don’t say anything in the clubs, that is why we have been allowed by the owner to go in for many years, that is why the strippers, when they are hurting and desperate, know they can call us, because we don’t preach to them in the club, we SHOW them Jesus. And yes, most of them have heard the gospel many times, many are preachers kids actually, but now that they are seeing no condemnation, no judgment, just a friendly face that says “you are not forgotten, you are not so far gone that Jesus cant reach you” they now maybe believe this Jesus they have heard about all their life, might actually be real. He might actually love her like she always heard but never saw before. By going into the clubs and not preaching we have connected with victims of human trafficking that use the information on the card to contact us and get free of their captors.
unknown on Thu, August 19, 2010

CS, I think we might be coming from similar places. I didn’t mean to insinuate that I don’t talk to people about what Jesus did for their sin…that’s the corner stone. I was only saying that someone that has dealt with a heroin addiction (or whatever) didn’t necessarly need me telling them that heroin was bad…they cornered the market on a working knowledge that heroin will completely SCREW up your life and the lives of those around you and will separate you from everything. I was simply commenting on that. I may have the exception but I don’t believe I do-if I do then I should write a book or something…

The verses are good verses (of course) but I think they were geared toward something I wasn’t saying…saying ‘every way of a man is right in his own eyes’ doesn’t quite hit the issue. I’m sure there are some strippers that think, “this is right in that I am providing for my family’ but in my experience seeing that it is ‘right’ in one way is different than saying that those same people would say that it is God-honoring and not sin. The strippers I have talked with have all had a shame about what they were doing (I’m not saying every stripper everywhere feels the same shame-I am saying that in my experience they knew there was something wrong about it). We point them to Jesus and help every way we can if they have already come to that understanding-we don’t lead off telling them, “hey-I know YOU know that stripping isn’t ideal (to say the least) but I just want to remind you right away that it’s sin-even though you already painfully ‘get that’ more than most…” if they already have demonstrated that they understand.

Now, if there is someone that is sleeping with 27 people a month and stripping and doing cocaine and wonders why they are depressed-we would TOTALLY-in Love-help them understand the sin they are in…but again, while it may be viewed as the exception-these people I have dealt with fully understand that sleeping with 27 people a month/stripping/cocaine is bad so we start with Jesus and say, “everything you’ve told me, Jesus died for…” and we share the Gospel which is VEEERRRRRYYYY good news indeed.

I may not have made myself clear but suffice it to say it’s like getting approached by someone that is clutching their arm while it gushes blood-they probably don’t need me saying, “hey, your arm is bleeding” they most likely already know so we don’t start there. We start by saying, “let’s get that arm looked at”. Again, if they are CLUELESS (which isn’t my experience) that they are bleeding-then of course we would identify that and start there.

I hope that makes sense and is clearer than my last post…
denelian on Sat, August 21, 2010

i am not sure what you mean by “we need to stop expecting non-Christians to act like Christians”

as a non-Christian, i feel that i *DO* behave in a “Christian” manner. i am polite to everyone; i help those i CAN help, and do my best to NOT JUDGE them; i “Do unto other as i would have done to me”, i love everyone [or, at least, i TRY - i find there are some people where i have to try harder than others] i will do almost anything to avoid hurting someone, unless said avoidance will cause greater harm to them or others… i love God, in all His/Her many shapes and forms.

about the *only* thing i don’t do is go to church [which is ALSO arguably a Christian thing to do - remember how Jesus said it was better to pray alone in a closet than shout your prayers on a street corner? it was anti-being prideful about one’s faith]

then again, i would classify my behavior, my ethics, or my morals as “Christian”, but merely “Trying to be GOOD”.
Christopher Fontenot on Sat, August 21, 2010

So denelian,

What do you think happens to you after you die? What do you believe is on the other side of this life?
denelian on Sat, August 21, 2010

Christopher Fontenot;

well, for me personally, i believe i will be reincarnated, until i have learned all that i need to enter the next-higher cycle. i believe that what a person believes dictates their afterlife - so Christians who try hard to be good Christians go to heaven; Buddhists who try to be good Buddhists attain Nirvana, etc.

why?
Christopher Fontenot on Sat, August 21, 2010

I wanted to understand what you believe about life as well as death because it often dictates how a person lives their life. So what or who do you believe you were in past lives?
denelian on Sun, August 22, 2010

Christopher Fontenot;

ok, i will try to explain in greater detail.

we are human - by definition, imperfect. the entire point to Life is to LIVE - and living is the act of learning.
each life, we are given certain obstacles to learn from. i don’t know, at all, what any of my previous lifes might be, except for a few ideals that i *hope* were true - but how can i know, here inside time? i can’t know what happened to any earlier incarnations of myself, when i am *inside* an incarnation. when i die at the end of this cycle, i will again remember all my lives, and all the lessons learned.

but i have a suspicion that i had, at least one, been less than empathetic with physical disability - so i am now heavily disabled. but i wasn’t *born* this way, i gradually, over 33 years, became sicker and sicker. perhaps i denied someone access to something they needed to have a good life - or maybe, i’m just such a prideful soul i need to be kicked hard [with pain] to get my attention

at some point, after i don’t know how many cycles, i will be “perfected”. i don’t know what the end of the journey is - it’s much too far away for me to even guess. my job, in life, is to live my life to it’s greatest capacity [learn everything i can] and do my best to help others do the same; at the end of each cycle, my job is to judge myself, see where i am lacking, and plan a new life that will [hopefully] allow me to learn those things i need.

if that makes any sense at all?
Christopher Fontenot on Sun, August 22, 2010

You say you may have denied someone access to something that could have given them a good life as the reason you are now suffering. But according to the belief in reincarnation, you must have done something good enough to come back as a human instead of a rat or a roach. What would one have to do to come back as a human as opposed to something less than human?
denelian on Mon, August 23, 2010

Christopher [is it ok to only refer to you as “Christopher”?]

you made me giggle WRONG flavor of reincarnation! i’m not Hindu, or Buddhist according to my beliefs, *I* pick what i reincarnate as, created to teach me the lessons i need to know to overcome my flaws.

i don’t KNOW that i denied someone access - it’s just a fear that i have [i worry, constantly, that i was that horrible… if that makes any sense, sigh]. i don’t believe that humans [normally] come back as anything other than human; dogs come back as some form of canine, cats come back as some sort of feline [and i’m POSITVE the last cat i had is going to come back as a hyena, even though they aren’t feline, because she was *evil*. well, bratty. anyway…] i can’t really imagince a circumstance that would have a person reincarnating as an animal - what would one *learn* from being an animal?

on this particular aspect of reincarnation, i’m sort of… undecided. most of my family believes that one *becomes* human after several-to-hundreds of cycles as various lower-ordered beings. and as the soul evolves, we move up the food chain. i don’t think this is *wrong*, but i’m also unsure that it’s *right*, ya know? animals are, almost always, “innocent” - very few carnivores kill for anything other than need, for instance [even if some of them play with their food, first] and ideas like “right” “wrong” “theft” “rape” “murder” are just not conceivable to them.

maybe someone who’s had a particularly tramatic life would take a “breather” cycle as a dolphin or something, but that’s considered a whimsical notion

having spoken with people who believe in reincarnation of the type you mentioned, it works rather differently - each successive life is a reward or punishment for the preceeding [hence the reincarnation as a dung beetle or etc].

the thing about what i may have done in a previous life isn’t about *punishment* for the sake of punishment - it’s about a lesson that i needed to learn, that i flubbed. [and i try really, really hard to not give in to despair and think that i *AM* being punished - that’s closer to heresy than i like to tread…]

another thing about the Eastern versions of reincarnation is that they are handled by Gods, or beings given the authority to do so by Gods. on the other hand, i choose for myself; free will is paramount. it’s possible there are people who never learn what they need to, who never *TRY* - and they’ll be cycling around here forever and ever. and if that’s what they want…

and, of course, there are people who have different systems altogether.
my interpretation of Bible, on this count, would be heretical if i were Christian but, in the context of Christianity, “Hell” would be the reincarnation - because, a technical definition of Hell [waaaay back when the Bible was written, i mean] is “being cut off from God”. so, i would tend to say that Good Christians, those who have managed to do their *BEST* and actually live up to Christian ideals the majority of the time [as well as the other requirements] would go to Heaven; those who *fail*, somehow, come back [i.e. are sent to “Hell”, i.e., are “cut off” from God and sent away from Him, back to Earth and mortality] to try again.

i have known several people who i am quite convinced are in Heaven [or, rather, in the celestial waiting room, until everyone goes to Heaven - because once one isn’t alive, there is NO Time…]

i hope this makes sense!

perhaps we should switch venues? you may email me [i’m getting all the notifications thru email, anyway ] my email address is denelian at yahoo dot com - but, if i don’t answer in a day or two, it might have gone to spam, so poke me again here?
Peter Hamm on Mon, August 23, 2010

denelian,

No offense, but your “system” is why I’m so glad I embraced biblical Christianity.

Number 1. It’s honest about the sin problem. I have sin, God doesn’t, we’re not compatible because of that, and we can never be in any kind of relationship.

Number 2. I can’t DO anything about it, but God can, and has DONE it.

Number 3. I admit I’m a sinner confess that to God and trust in the one He sent, Jesus. My salvation, my eternity, my heaven, all that is DONE. What God offers in return for this simple faith is extraordinary. He lives inside us!

In my experience, all world religions (including some branches of what passes for Christianity) focus on what we DO to win God’s favor. The “religion” of Jesus focuses on what he has DONE.

It is finished…

I’d urge you to consider that.
denelian on Mon, August 23, 2010

Peter Hamm;

um, what?!

i find your entire reply to be weird. i wasn’t speaking with you [unless you changed your name], i wasn’t attempting to “have a relationship” with you, and all i was doing with Christopher was having a conversation…

also - i’m not sure that you, at all, understood what i was saying. of course we are imperfect - that’s what being human *IS*.

i’m not sitting here talking about how one “wins God’s favor”. that isn’t the point, at all. God is there, in all the forms that God inhabits, to HELP us, yes. but…

well, the fact is, the biggest problem i have with Christianity is that it inspires lazyness. you are “Saved” - and that’s great. but, you know, most of the people i have met who claim to be “Saved” are *NOT* living up to the ideals and guidlines that are set forth for them in the Bible - they DON’T love their neighbor as they love themselves; they DO judge, and feel like it’s ok to judge, and generally that judgement is along the lines of “You are going to Hell”. there might be an addendum of “unless you do X, Y and Z” - but it’s still VERY against the Bible - which *specifically prohibits* trying to figure out if a person is going to Heaven or Hell.

all that aside, i have no clue what your reply was supposed to mean, or why you made it. you say that your brand of Christianity is “different”, because unlike all other religions, the focus is on what *GOD* has done.
except, in order to be “Saved”, in your religion, YOU have to do a lot of things to “please” God - you have to accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior, accept that he was the human incarnation of God [and that his mother was a virgin]; you have to accept the specific plan God has for you, because if you want something else it’s “sin” not matter what the something else is; you have to spend every moment of every day trying to stay in that moment of “Grace” because if you sin and die a moment later, before you can repent, you’re going to hell [no matter what the “sin” was, or the reason for it] whereas an evil person can spend decades sinning, ask for forgiveness as they take their dying breath, and go to Heaven.

yeah… *SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO* different…
Peter Hamm on Mon, August 23, 2010

denelion writes [i wasn�t speaking with you [unless you changed your name], i wasn�t attempting to �have a relationship� with you, and all i was doing with Christopher was having a conversation�] Uh, on a public forum? No, you were posting your thoughts publicly, I was merely responding publicly, not trying to offend. Truly.

Also, [well, the fact is, the biggest problem i have with Christianity is that it inspires lazyness.] No, not according to my description. If God does truly put his Spirit in those who follow Him, do you really think He then inspires them to laziness? People like Mother Theresa for example?

You put a lot of words in my mouth that aren’t there, and this is the wrong forum to debate them. I’m sorry you’ve been hurt or perhaps only affected by hypocritical Christians. We aren’t all quite as bad as you characterize.

Blessings,
Peter
denelian on Mon, August 23, 2010

well, if you read the exchanges, it was a conversation with another person. while it was on a public forum, these weren’t comments directed at the forum, only the specific person i was responding to. and what i was attempting to get across when i said “i wasn’t talking to you” is quite simply that - i wasn’t trying to tell *you*, specifically, anything. i’m not evangelizing, not trying to convert anyone. your entire first comment to me made *no sense* at all to me, because of these facts.

nothing that i said was “putting words in your mouth”. they were thoughts that *I* have, observations based on what i’ve seen. but, yes, you did sort of offend me - i’m not all sure, STILL, what you were trying to convey, but what i got was “oh, you’re such a silly person, trying so hard to follow your set of rules, when *I* have a religion that will make is SO EASY all you have to do is become someone else entirely, then all the work is done for you! you should do it!”

i’m pretty sure that you didn’t *mean* to sound that way, but you did. but you then further mischaracterized what i had been saying [to a specific person who wasn’t you] without, apparantly, understanding what i was saying to begin with. or understand “other” religions, in general. i mean… you may have studied 40 religions in-depth and have multiple Ph.Ds in comparative theology, but your broad-reaching statements of “all world religions are about how to appease God to gain favor” sounds ... very, very ignorant.

that taken care of - no, i *don’t* think all Christians are hypocrites. or bad. or evil. and while, yes, i’ve been hurt by people who profess to be Christian, i’ve been hurt by people who profess other religions, as well. that wasn’t a statement against *Christianity* - it was more a statement about things that we SEE.
[Mother Theresa is a bad example, just FYI - she did a LOT of ethically-questionable things, and the various crimes she committed are even worse in comparision to the facade of a saint that she nurtured]. if one is really, truly “filled with the Holy Spirit”, that’s different than a man who is loud in his church-attendance but rapes his step-daughter, or the woman who takes so much pride in being “modest” in dress but spends all her time spread malicious rumors and trying to destroy other women and girls who don’t exactly follow her fashion choices - both of which are examples of specific people i know.
and the problem here isn’t that they are Christian - the problem is that these are the Christians that most non-Christians see. we see the fundies who abuse their children and spouses, we see the prideful who judge everyone who isn’t exactly like them, we see the hateful who corrupt the beauty of Jesus’ ideals to attack those who are different…

the Good Christian is, almost by definition, socially invisible.
Peter Hamm on Tue, August 24, 2010

denelian,

I’m sorry I didn’t make sense to you. I was contrasting the “system” of reincarnation with the “system” of following Jesus. They are very different, and I don’t think I could say it better, so I won’t try.

You write [ the problem is that these are the Christians that most non-Christians see. we see the fundies who abuse their children and spouses, we see the prideful who judge everyone who isn�t exactly like them, we see the hateful who corrupt the beauty of Jesus� ideals to attack those who are different�] In all honesty, I sometimes wonder if these are the ones most non-Christians see or if these are the ones they look for.

In the future, please don’t be offended if somebody “breaks in” to a conversation you have on a public forum. Hundreds, maybe thousands of people read this site. There’s bound to be cross-conversation.