The Politically Incorrect Jesus – Part III –

Politically Incorrect Jesus – Part III –

One of my favorite stories of ancient battles involved the use of the Trojan horse. Now that was smart. It sure saved a lot of time fighting toget into the city of Troy. Imagine, getting your enemy to think he’s getting a gift when he really is letting in what will ultimately defeat him.

How neat. How deadly. In this generation, I get the feeling history is repeating itself. Certain influences have been so subtle, so cloaked in popular causes that we’ve failed to recognize them for what they are. The enemy is not obvious. He comes as a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

There are no invading barbarian hordes, no wild-eyed reprobates lurking in the shadows curling their mustaches. And because we have not seen them for what they are, we’ve readily embraced these influences as acceptable manners of expression. They look like gifts, but once we let them in our gates, we’re attacked.

One of the most heinous of the Trojan horses is the PC mantra of an amoral society. There is no more right or wrong in setting standards of morality because there is no one truth. No cause, no effect. Our kids are paying the price of sexual identity confusion, bullying in record numbers, and parental distraction.

I became acutely aware of this scenario in a rather strange way—by shopping with my daughter some 8-10 years ago. Sounds rather innocent, but a closer look revealed something more insidious.

While we were at a mall, my daughter asked to go into a very hip, fashionable store for teens to buy a shirt. It must have been more than 20 years since I’d set foot in that store. As I entered, I stopped dead in my tracks. I thought I was in the wrong store— that I’d walked into an X-rated video establishment. Pictures of half-naked young women (probably not much older than my daughter) lying on top of equally undressed young men adorned the walls.

After spending my life in marketing and communication, there was no mistaking what those images and messages were meant to communicate. They were very clear—our culture has sacrificed the innocence of our youth on the altar of sexual glorification. It’s no longer about selling clothes; it’s more about selling our souls. We decry the way our wives and daughters are disparaged over their body images and seen as sexual objects, yet promulgate the very lifestyles and clothing lines that lead to the thing we denounce. We have become a schizophrenic society.

It’s no longer about selling clothes; it’s more about selling our souls.

But wait, the story did not end there.

My daughter knew me all too well. She knew I’d likely say something and not merely slip away into the night, momentarily decrying the decadence of the situation and then doing nothing. As I stood in the linewaiting to pay for the shirt, I grew madder by the minute. Let’s just call it righteous indignation.

As I approached the counter to pay, I observed the young man and young woman who were standing there to service us. They were probably around 19 or 20 years old. I placed the shirt on the counter and then informed the young man that I was really offended by the display on the walls. “Please pass my comments on to the manager,” I insisted.

Of course, I didn’t stop there, even though my daughter, embarrassed by my approach, was turning quite red.

I asked the young man, “How do you feel about working in this environment, particularly working alongside a young lady?”

Then I asked her, “How do you feel about all of this? Are you offended, even a little bit? Does this promote the wholesome way in which you’d like to be perceived by the young man working alongside you?”

I guess it was the journalist in me that needed to ask the obvious questions, as I saw them.

As my daughter muttered under her breath, “Dad, they don’t care,” the young man eyed me. “I wish my father cared as much,” he said.

That was his exact quote. I’ll never forget it.

As we left the store, my daughter sighed. “You know, he had to say that.” “No,” I replied, “he could have said any number of things, like, ‘I’ll tell my manager.’ ”

To this day I’m convinced he said what he said because it was on his heart to say it.

Jesus said that out of the heart come the issues of life. And I suspect that, in this young man’s heart, rarely did he see evidence of a man standing up for what he believed to protect his child from the attack of this Trojan horse.