The Lights of Tenth Street

by Shaunti Feldhahn

  Several of the ministry leaders I interviewed put it like this: We must look at whatever root is behind the bad fruit on the tree. Aboveground, we see only the fruit—someone’s visible behaviors. But hidden belowground is the root of that behavior—what that person believes about themselves, God, and others, rooted in events or relationships from his or her life. As these ministry leaders suggested, when we try to reach out and love the unlovable, we have to be willing to look beyond the often-distasteful fruit. When we concentrate on behavior, setting rules and saying “don’t do this,” we’re simply pruning. But pruning only works to make something good come back stronger. Instead, we must see the person and address the roots that are behind his or her behavior.

  I have come to realize that many of us need to come face-to-face with some issues we may have simply never confronted before, especially so that we may pray for and love those who are hurting—just as Jesus would.

  HOW THE STORY STARTED

  The Lights of Tenth Street arose from hearing the Christian testimony of a former stripper and prostitute, the first time I had ever (to my knowledge) met someone from that sort of lifestyle. She had grown up in a small, depressed town, was sexually assaulted as a teenager, and was lured into the strip club life thinking it would be a glamorous way to make lots of money. Instead it was depraved and an awful, dead-end trap. After she had spent years in that life, a Christian woman in her neighborhood knocked on her door, inviting her to her church’s Christmas banquet. And when she took her up on it, to her immense surprise, she found nothing but love and acceptance in that church, even though she didn’t know how to dress or act. The Christian woman ended up taking this jaded, world-weary young stripper into her home to live with her and just loved her into the Kingdom. Thar former stripper now has a wonderful ministry to other strippers and prostitutes.

  When I heard that story, I somehow knew that the Lord was nudging me to write a book that would feature just such a girl, to show the incredible transforming power of unconditional, nonjudgmental love. But that wasn’t all. As the months passed, I realized that the flip side of this sort of story—the consumer’s side—leaves in its wake many devastated men (and, increasingly, even women) who have been ensnared by pornography. So there had to be two character plotlines—one to follow the young stripper, the other to follow the Christian couple who will eventually reach out to her … but to do so, the husband has to confront and be delivered of his own secret addiction. (And then, of course, in the post-9/11 world, the stakes for the rescue of the young woman were raised so that the battle for her soul also became a much larger battle.) As the book’s title implies, I set these two plotlines on opposite ends of the same fictional street. Two different worlds; two very different kinds of lights.

  Although there are many elements in the story, I want to use this chapter primarily to provide information and resources on the pornography issue. When I started the book, the issue wasn’t even on my radar screen. And it just kept getting bigger and bigger. I was truly shocked to realize the depth of this problem in our culture, including among devoted Christian men.

  OPENING THE EYES OF WOMEN

  I think it is safe to say that what shocked me as a woman would be no surprise to any man on the planet. And I bet that many of my female readers are in the same boat. I knew, of course, that men and women are different. But as I tried to get inside my male character’s head, my eyes were dramatically opened to just how different!

  It has become one of my main prayers that the Lord will use this book to open the eyes of women, that we might understand the cultural and personal battle all around us … including one that almost certainly affects the men and boys that we love.

  TAKING THOUGHTS CAPTIVE

  Women readers of The Lights of Tenth Street see inside a male character’s head and come to understand, I hope, how every hour of every day a man has to “take thoughts captive”—thoughts and images that rise up, unbidden. It took a while for me to understand that men are just wired that way and that the emergence of the initial thought itself isn’t sin, because the man literally can’t help it. The key is how the man chooses to handle that thought—to “take it captive out of obedience to Christ” and push it away, or to let it play on the screen of his mind. Like all temptations, the temptation itself isn’t sin; it’s what we do with it that matters.

  What I grew to understand was that, for men, temptation saturates our current culture. Several decades ago, men had to go looking for images that would titillate or arouse them. Now, those images slap them in the face with every commercial on television, every stroll down the street. And once something has been triggered in the mind’s eye, the struggle can be wearying. As one of my male friends said, “a five-second glimpse might lead to five hours—or five days—of tearing that image down again and again and again.” Most women don’t realize how incredibly difficult it is to be a pure man in today’s culture.

  Again, that is not to excuse falling into sin; it is simply to face the reality so that we may know how to support our husbands, sons, and friends.

  Men Don’t Get It Either

  It also surprised me to discover that men don’t realize how truly different men and women are. So they may see a woman’s lack of comprehension as a lack of support. I believe that husbands and wives will be able to offer each other so much more encouragement once they realize how wide the gulf is and how great is the need to bridge it.

  With my husband’s permission, let me give you just one example. After months of writing, I had interviewed many, many men about what goes on inside their heads when faced with certain situations. Jeff and I were riding in the car one day, rehashing some of what I’d learned. Jeff finally confessed that he didn’t understand why this was such a surprise to me.

  Jeff: “But you knew men are visual, right?”

  Me: “Well, yes, of course. But since most women aren’t, I just didn’t get it. I just don’t experience things the same way you do.”

  Jeff: “See, I’m not sure I really believe that.”

  Me: “Well, it’s true!”

  Jeff: “Maybe we just use different language to describe it. For example, think of a movie star that you find physically attractive—Tom Cruise, say. After we’ve seen one of his movies, how many times will that attractive image rise up in your mind the next day?”

  Me: “Never.”

  Jeff: “I must not be explaining myself correctly. I mean, how many times will a thought of what he looked like with his shirt off just sort of pop up in your head?”

  Me: “Never.”

  Jeff: “Never—as in never?”

  Me: “Zero times. It just doesn’t happen.”

  Jeff: (After a long pause) “Wow.”

  That little exchange did more to teach both of us how each of us are wired—and not wired—than almost anything else. And that understanding has already helped me (I hope) to be more supportive and protective of my husband in today’s culture.

  (I acknowledge that I am painting the differences between men and women with a broad brush. There are women who are also very visual, or who are themselves entrapped by pornography. Although I’m discussing this primarily from the man’s side of things, it is my hope that ensnared women would also find help and healing through the resources listed below.)

  How Our Culture Has Changed

  Living in today’s culture, it almost seems as if it’s always been this way. But when we look at history, we can track a dramatic increase in the sexualization of our culture … and be forewarned about where we are going.

  Dr. Jerry Kirk at the National Coalition for the Protection of Children and Families gave me this fascinating—and disturbing—perspective:

  • 1940s—The Kinsey Report was released, setting perceptions—and expectations—about the nation’s sexual behavior for decades to come. Although a third of Kinsey’s subjects were convicts, his revolutionary declaration that ‘people are promiscuous’ soon found its way into the mainstream.
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br />   • 1950s—Hugh Hefner, via Playboy, popularizes the behavior Kinsey said was normal.

  • 1960s—Following in Playboy’s lucrative footsteps, pornography explodes across America through 300 other soft-porn magazines, main-streaming the message of sex outside of marriage for the first time.

  • 1970s—In addition to the Roe vs. Wade decision legalizing abortion and promoting the idea of consequence-free sex, the 1970s also saw the advent of dial-a-porn phone lines that enabled a whole new group of users to engage in pornography without having to go out and buy a magazine.

  • 1980s—With the advent of the VCR and cable TV, movie porn exploded, creating another exponential leap in the volume of people who would never have gone to a porn movie house, would never have dialed a porn line, but could now easily acquire and view pornography.

  • 1990s to the present—Satellite television and, most of all, the Internet mainstreamed the pornography monster, ensnaring users of all ages and backgrounds.

  As Dr. Kirk notes in his comprehensive white paper, What Pornography Is Doing to Your Family and the Family of God, “When we were growing up, most of us had the freedom not to see pornography. Our children and grandchildren have lost that freedom.” What was only a multimillion dollar business in the 1960s has become a fifty-five billion dollar business worldwide. And it continues to grow every year. Almost every new media technology is driven by pornography, simply because its use is a near-guarantee of profit. In the early 1990s, Carnegie-Mellon studied the early functioning of business on the Internet and found that the only business making money was pornography. Today, pornography continues to be the most profitable on-line business sector.

  But Is It Really That Bad?

  One of the objections I have heard as I’ve pursued this subject is the question of whether pornography is really that harmful. After all, people say, “It’s just a private thing,” or “I can handle it,” or “There’s nothing really bad about the soft-core stuff.”

  About a year ago, an adult bookstore opened its doors in a fairly affluent area of our community (courtesy of a judge who had ruled that our county’s ban on such establishments was too restrictive). Its parking lot was immediately filled, day and night, by a steady stream of clientele. I joined in a number of organized rallies and prayer walks around the property, and one day I ran into several staff members and frequent customers at the fast-food place across the street.

  Curious, I asked them what they thought of our opposition to their business. One of the staff members shrugged and said, “It’s a free country. You’ve got a right to do your thing—we’ve got a right to do our thing.”

  One of the porn-shop customers said he didn’t really understand what all the fuss was about. “After all,” he said, “what me and my wife choose to do in private is up to us, right? It’s not like its hurting anyone.”

  I said that unfortunately pornography does hurt people—quite frequently. That those of us who were walking around outside with signs opposing the porn shop were doing it not just because we were concerned about the community, but because we were concerned about the impact of the use of pornography on families like his. I told him I thought he and his wife were playing with fire, and that although he could of course do whatever he wanted, that he was at risk of getting burned. And that perhaps his wife might be negatively affected by his need to use pictures of other women. The man shook his head and argued that it was silly to think that pornography could have any effect on him or his marriage. “It’s just fantasy. I know it’s not real. My wife knows that. How could it affect us?”

  I’ve heard that argument many times since then, from people who sincerely believe (or are trying to convince themselves) that putting the content of pornography in their brain will have no real impact on them. Psychotherapist Dr. Victor Cline, an expert in this area, addresses this fallacy in his excellent report, Pornography’s Effects on Adults and Children.

  There is a belief strongly held by some Americans that pornography (or obscenity), while it may be vulgar and tasteless, is still essentially harmless and has no real effect on the viewer.

  However, for someone to suggest that pornography cannot have an effect on you (including a harmful one) is to deny the whole notion of education, generally, or to suggest that people are not affected by what they read and see. If you believe that a pornographic book or film cannot affect you, then you must also say that Karl Marx’s Das Kapital, the Bible, the Koran, or advertising have no effect on their readers or viewers. But of course, books and other media do have an effect on their consumers.

  After a year of research, I could provide reams of statistics, tons of data on just how insidious and damaging pornography can be to individuals, families, and communities. I could talk about the public health threats and increase in community crime that spring up around the opening of porn shops or strip clubs, about the broken marriages that inevitably follow a certain percentage of new pornography users, about the massive percentage of our youth that are being bombarded with pornography and act out as a result. But all that data is available from the ministries and resources listed below, and I do not have space to develop it here. I simply want to ask the skeptics to take an honest look. You will find, if you are honest with yourself, that there are negative effects both at a personal and a community level, and we should be willing to address them.

  The Role of the Church

  It is tempting to focus on all that is wrong and expend our energies opposing it. But the Body of Christ must come to grips with two key truths: First, because we are supposed to be salt and light, we bear some responsibility for the decay and darkness we see around us. If we were truly lighting the darkness as Jesus asked, much that we are opposing would have no foothold. Second, therefore, we must resist the temptation to simply oppose, gripe, and attack. We must be for something, not just against something. The Church must light the right path—a path that celebrates and supports healthy families, strong marriages, and individuals tied to the community in which they live.

  We can and often should oppose the opening of an adult bookstore or club in our community, but we must recognize that such places will exist in one form or another as long as the demand is there. The church should be working to dry up demand, should be reaching out to those who are hurting and ensnared by both sides of the sex industry. We should be fighting for spiritual and emotional health, should be encouraging our people not to bring certain things into our homes, should be educating them how to be wise and cautious to the impact the media can have on them. And once we have a loving impact on our community, then we will have much more credibility when we say that we don’t want more strip clubs or porn houses here, because it is not good for this community we all care about.

  We Can Win!

  And the good news is: When we do that, we can win. Consider this passage from Dr. Kirk’s white paper:

  Child psychologist Dr. Jim Dobson was right when he said “this is a winnable war.… Ordinary people are winning victories across America, and you can too. In Cincinnati [where the National Coalition is based] we have no “adult” bookstores, no X-rated theaters and no X-rated videos. Eight of the nine counties around Cincinnati have been cleaned up, and Citizens for Community Values, headed by Phil Burress, is working on the ninth.… Twenty thousand people have joined in the effort.…

  From Oklahoma City, only two persons came to Cincinnati for training, returned home and started building a team. In six years, they closed down 150 sex establishments in Oklahoma County. What do you think happened to the rape rate? It went down 27% in those six years, while during the same time, it went up 19% across the state. That’s a swing of almost 50%!

  Friends, with the power of the Lord behind us, we can transform our cities and communities. But we need to look like Jesus, need to recognize the logs in our own eyes, and need to reach out in love to those we oppose. For although many of them are operating in willful sin, many are certainly also lost and hurting, ensnared in a life they
would not have chosen, being used as pawns by an enemy who cares only to steal, kill, and destroy. As we do our part, they can and will be transformed by the love of Christ.

  A Vision for the Church

  In his talks, Christian care activist Tony Campolo often shares a story that resonates deeply with me because it so exemplifies what I personally want to reflect of the surpassing love of Jesus—and shows me how far I have to go. With his permission, allow me to share the story.

  Several years ago, Dr. Campolo was in Hawaii on business. At 3:00 A.M., jet-lagged and unable to sleep, he wandered out of his hotel and went for a walk, ending up in a dicey area of town. Since Dr. Campolo has spent years ministering in such areas in his native Philadelphia, he felt right at home. He went into a local all-night diner, sat at the counter, and ordered a cup of coffee and a donut.

  Soon, eight or nine young women came in, clearly prostitutes taking a break from their work. The girls took seats on the stools all around Dr. Campolo, and began carrying on a loud, crude conversation. Dr. Campolo was about to leave when he heard one of them mention that the next day was her birthday. In the jaded manner of those who have seen and experienced far too much, too young, she added that it was too bad she’d never had a birthday party, and probably never would. The girls finished up their break, and Dr. Campolo watched as they left the coffee shop and went back to the street.

  He turned to the diner’s owner. “Do those girls come in every night?”

  “Every night. Same time—right after 3:00.”

  “I overheard that one girl say that her birthday was tomorrow, and that she’s never had a birthday party. How about if we throw her one? Do you think any of the others in here would want to participate?”

  The owner lit up. “Her name is Agnes. I bet so!” He started going around to all the regulars, telling them of the plan. The owner insisted on making the cake. Dr. Campolo was in charge of the decorations.