Who should seek forgiveness for broken sex kittens?

A culture in need of repenting. - [The following is an article that I wrote back when Anna Nicole Smith died and then Britney Spears melted down. I submitted it to an online e-zine back at the end of February but never heard anything from them in reply, so I'm going to go ahead and run it here since it was pretty much a time sensitive article.]

You know that scene in the Medieval movies, when the siege is laid upon the proverbial castle and the catapults light the night sky with fiery missiles? Those projectiles race upwards in a graceful ark of beauty, reaching such great heights that for one tick of the clock it seems possible they might cross the boundary between earth and heaven to join the distant ever burning stars in the sky. It's right after that moment that the missiles plummet with far greater speed and splatter in a fiery mess upon the castle keep. That's the image that bursts upon my mind when I think about the lives of Anna Nicole Smith and Britney Spears, two women splattered across the castle keep of our minds and souls.

Of course there are a number of sources to blame for the meltdown of these women, not least of all the women themselves. But the media itself plays a part for launching these two woman (including their numerous counterparts) to icon status. Whether it's Playboy's skin peddling of Anna so that men would "read" their magazine articles, or Jive Records's pushing the boundaries of decency in 1998, with a young Spears's plaid kilt showing her bare midriff in a music video that transfixed preteen girls and middle-aged men alike, there remains plenty of culpability to go around. Sadly, now at the end of these women's ethereal arc, the media is tightly focused upon their broken lives with what I can only describe as frenzied glee.

However, the real problem is not so much what the media has done or even the fact that most of America is spellbound by these crumbling lives. The real problem is that it will happen again. A portion of America is, from her church pews to her peep shows, chained to some form of harlotry. We're fascinated with beauty. But it's the wrong kind of beauty. It's the painted beauty of the harlot that draws the openly lustful glare of men in restaurants like Hooters. It's the kind of beauty that has super models starving themselves for glossy magazine covers designed to seduce eyes away from the gum in the checkout aisle towards sexualized headlines and quizzes.

This is the beauty that King Solomon warned about in Proverbs 6:25, "Do not lust in your heart after her beauty or let her captivate you with her eyes. (NIV)" Christ took it further in Matthew 5:28, "But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. (NIV)"

We should not be surprised by the outcome of Anna Nicole Smith's sordid life. Paul warned that this is the result of sowing to the sinful nature (Gal 6:8) . No, it's not surprise we should feel as a nation and it's certainly not morbid fascination. What we should feel is shame. But we don't.

We've so seared our collective conscience in the realm of decency and modesty that in order to catch our attention and hold it, "beauty" must be brighter and more perverted than the last flaming missile. We are lying to ourselves if we think that such a problem doesn't exist in our churches where divorce numbers match the secular world.

The silent question is, just how long before these missiles utterly destroy the castle keeps of our hearts and souls?

Like the prophets of old, the Church in America must call out and seek the forgiveness of God for our nation. But first the Church herself, needs to seek the covering of Christ's shed blood and, "Go and sin no more."

Finally, we need to pray for men and women like Britney Spears whom our pop culture exalts to an icon status which no man or woman can bear. We all must realize that true beauty is found only at the feet of Him who died for our broken souls. It's then that we will discover the wonder of, "the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight." (1 Peter 3:4 NIV)