Pornography, Sex Trafficking, and My Complicity

This is a short piece I wrote on social media the other day but the response was so positive that I wanted to save it here.

When I was a porn user and then a porn addict for those twenty-one years, beginning at the age of eight and continuing until the day in 1999 when I got saved at the age of twenty-nine, I stupidly and naively assumed that these women and men were involved because they enjoyed it. That they wanted to be there. That they were pursuing happiness in their own way. Very convenient beliefs. Little did I know that I was personally complicit in the trafficking, exploitation, torture, and misery of human beings that had very likely been abused as children, and probably by family members. Little did I know that their entry into my perverse and selfish form of enjoyment and fulfillment was probably incest and child rape. All I could think about was my next high and they were nothing to me except tools to be used toward that end. Honestly, the videotapes and magazines were far more real to me than the people in them ever were. The day I got saved was the day it ended and I thank God for that. And it wasn’t because they became real to me. No, that would take many more years of growth and getting over my self-centered world view. I just all of a sudden knew that it was horrifying.

I didn’t know that God was removing me from the sex-trafficking business, of which I was an eager, paying customer. If you would have told me I was personally hurting anyone in those days, I would have rolled my eyes and shrugged and maybe even laughed a little bit. All that mattered was the high I got from the experience. Absolutely nothing else mattered.

And it took many years to emerge from that mindset and realize that these people in the magazines and videos are human beings–just like the boys and girls, men and women on the streets; human beings who are slaves not only to pimps but also to the demands of people who aren’t just satisfied to be watching videos and looking at the magazines anymore. Or maybe they were ushered into this life by a male family member as a birthday present when they turned eighteen. That happens more than we would like to believe. But it is all part of not seeing people as human beings with real lives and souls–people whom Yeshua/Jesus came to save. People we are destroying and allowing to be destroyed.

Our Savior commanded us to live above and beyond the commandments and to live sacrificially on behalf of the vulnerable–the poor, abused, oppressed, widowed, orphaned, foreigner, etc…and those are the people who are usually involved in the sex-for-hire business, whether it be first-hand sexual experiences or second hand through pornography. The exploitation of the vulnerable strikes at the very heart of God’s Torah, His basic laws on how we are to love one another.

But people won’t give it up because they feel as though they can’t live without that high. They don’t want to live without it. And so they oppress. You cannot be a pornography user unless you are also an oppressor or the vulnerable–like I was. And if you are an oppressor of the vulnerable then it doesn’t mean a damned thing if you keep the other commandments. Tithe all you want, keep the festivals, be nice to everyone, eat kosher, don’t work on the Sabbath. Doesn’t matter. You are no different than the residents of Sodom, victimizing the vulnerable and living in ease while others suffer.

Telling God you are sorry knowing full well that it is a sham and you will do it again isn’t repentance, it is nothing but a self-centered alleviating of guilt. It is every bit as much a violation of God as your porn use is a victimization of the least of these. And until you care about something other than your pleasure, you are dead in the water. You’re a goat, no, worse than a goat because the goats of Matthew 25 merely neglected the vulnerable, while those who are porn users and who pay for sex are themselves, oppressors. And if you don’t care about that then I just don’t know what to say. There’s nothing I can say. You need to change. You need to stop cold turkey and never go back. It’s the only way. You don’t need sex to survive, or porn, you just want it no matter who pays the price.

If you want to do something about sex trafficking and child rape, please look into taking the free online training course at www.ourrescue.org/training –learning to spot trafficking in our own communities, organizations, congregations, and families is how we will defeat this scourge of modern-day slavery in our own backyards.

Also, this is the prayer that I pray during the day as I think about it:

Lord, please act according to your wisdom, justice, and mercy and confound the schemes of the traffickers. Let their cleverness become foolish. Please send your angels to be deceiving spirits to their advisors. Let them fall victim to their own traps. Please send loving people, dreams, and visions to their victims and give them hope. Open up their hearts to be unafraid of those who are there to help them. Stir up our consciences that we will stop looking away and stop covering up for the abusers who are in our own families and congregations. Expose those in positions of authority who are complicit. Turn the hearts and minds of all their abusers, both their pimps and the Johns, to your compassion and love. Inspire pity in the hearts of the Johns that they will rescue instead of violate. Let the oppressors become liberators. Save and deliver everyone who is part of this to end this once and for all. Help us to raise up a generation that says no to sexual oppression. Stir up the compassion of everyone who is complicit in this terrible thing–from the porn users who are willingly enjoying the fruit of the trafficking of souls, to the men and women who buy sex from adults, to the child rapists. Give them new hearts that are not bent on satisfaction and pleasure but upon serving others. God, turn our hearts away from worshipping this beast of seeking out pleasure and possessions at the cost of the humanity of others. Strip away the blindness that excuses our complicity in service to our own enjoyment and desires at the expense of anyone else’s needs. Destroy our complacency. In the Name of my Master Yeshua/Jesus, please help us establish Your Kingdom on Earth.




Caring for the Savior–Caring for Evan

This morning, a friend’s child (featured in another blog) passed into the arms of our Savior. It was unexpected. It was heartbreaking. It was just wrong in so many ways. But in talking to my friend Matt who will be speaking at the service, I remembered a story that I read in a Christian magazine years ago when my own special needs son was much younger and I was very exhausted and discouraged. I wish I had an original copy so that I could credit the author. That story has sustained me over the course of some very dark days. So, without trying to take credit for someone else’s work, I have done my best to recreate the story here (if anyone is aware of the original, I would love a copy)–even though the circumstances with Evan are different. Evan, this is for you, and for your brother Joshua who preceded you in 2016–and it’s for your mom and dad, Aleecia and David, who I know miss you both. You were/are both gifts from God in ways that you could not even begin to imagine in life. When we all wake up in the world to come, you’ll get it. You’ll see. You were worth every moment.

 

Evan Hibbets with his father David, Sukkot 2019

A couple had a child who was profoundly disabled, both physically and mentally, due to birth complications. It was hard, as the child got bigger and older, it became more and more difficult to care for him. There were no vacations, money was very tight, and the little things that most parents take for granted, the accomplishments and “regular” joys just weren’t there to sustain them and spur them on. No first steps, no first words, no potty training, no first day of kindergarten—you get the picture. He did smile, a lot, and that kept them going usually. He liked television, and when people would sing to him, he loved being pushed around in his stroller, and then in his specialized wheelchair, but he was always going to be largely unresponsive and would never be on his own. One day, his mom, his full time caregiver, just broke down as special needs moms do from time to time (I sure did), and wept on the floor. Part of being a special needs mom is about allowing your dreams for your child to die in many ways, some small and others very big–as she was experiencing. He would never marry, or have children of his own—he would just continue to grow. She was frightened because it was already hard to deal with and he would quickly be too heavy for her to move around. It was heartbreaking and monotonous dealing with diapers on a growing boy, and especially knowing that he would never be free of them.

This wasn’t what she wanted for him. She wanted everything for him.

Some days, despite loving her son with everything she had (she would not trade him for the world), she would lose hope that there was any sort of silver lining to the dark clouds that hovered over their lives–the fears for him and dangers to Him. She was just dead tired with little to sustain her except for one family from the church who would visit and help out when they could, and an overworked husband trying to pay the bills for things that insurance just didn’t cover.

This was one of the days when she received a visit from the couple, and the older woman took her aside, held her tightly, wiped her tears and said, “I want to read you something.” She got her Bible out of her bag and turned the pages to chapter 25 of the gospel of Matthew–the parable of the sheep and the goats. One arm around the weary, discouraged mom and the other holding her bible open, she told her the story of the righteous at the right hand of the Son of Man:

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’

Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’

She closed her Bible and held her friend tightly. “I know you are tired. I know this wasn’t the life you wanted for him or for you. I know it isn’t fair and I can’t give you any answers as to why this happened or what will happen in the future but I want you to know something. When I see you caring for your son, and I think of you bathing him and feeding him and changing his diapers every day, slaving away just to keep him alive and healthy and comfortable—all I can think of is you changing Jesus’s diapers. I know it probably doesn’t seem like much of a privilege and I am not going to give you any empty platitudes, but when I see you all I can see is someone working day and night and expending all her heart and energy into caring for my Savior. And when I see His smile, all I can see is our Lord smiling at you through your son.”

I also covered this in my podcast about the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats 




Preparing Kids for When Adults Predict Scary Things–video

Social media and religious gatherings can be a scary place for kids when adults aren’t careful about their end time predictions. What should kids be focused on so they will be ready no matter what happens, and what should they ignore? This week I am having a heart to heart discussion with kids about focusing on growing up and becoming like Yeshua. If you are having trouble with embedded video then click  on VIDEO LINK HERE 

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPPOd4vmvOg?feature=oembed&w=1080&h=608]




Honor, Shame, and a Woman’s Reputation

I hated the movie The Greatest Showman.

Oh come on, put down the torches and pitchforks, it’s just a movie.

I grew up in Northern California, specifically in Calaveras County where The Swedish Nightengale, Jenny Lind, was so wildly popular (even though she never travelled there) that there is even a “town” (formerly a mining camp) named after her. Quite contrary to her portrayal in the movie, Ms. Lind was an incredibly reputable woman who never had romantic interests in PT Barnum (who actually was a scoundrel by all accounts and nowhere near as irresistible as Hugh Jackman), and was certainly not the homewrecker that she was so callously portrayed to be. She, in fact, donated most of her $350,000 in earnings to free education causes in Sweden and the rest to charities in other countries, including the US. That was who she was – incredibly talented, staggeringly generous, and by all accounts, a virtuous lady. She had overcome her childhood as a “bastard” in the 19th century – which was quite an accomplishment in and of itself, only to fall victim to our insatiable desire for a tawdry story about a famous person.

Sadly, for the purposes of everyone’s entertainment, Ms. Lind is now associated with attempted adultery. And yes, I imagine most folks who enjoyed the movie are now saying, “Big deal. Grow up. She’s dead and so no hurt feelings.” Well, yes, she is dead. We have no recordings of her voice available, and tragically, most people who know her name now know her by the false reputation that the movie has foisted on her because most folks believe whatever is put in front of them. She will be forever remembered as a beautiful voice attached to the sort of woman who didn’t mind stealing another woman’s man. And that is a big deal because, being dead, all she had left was the reputation she worked hard to earn over the course of her very generous lifetime. And for what? For an entertaining musical experience.

Recently, Olivia DeHavilland (Miss Melanie from Gone With The Wind) was portrayed very negatively in a movie and maybe the producers didn’t think (or didn’t care) she was still alive, but she is 101 and sued for defamation of character. Sadly, a court tossed out her claim, ruling that entertainment is more important than a woman’s reputation. How sad that we have become so cavalier with a person’s identity that we can legally harm them for the amusement of others. Shame on us.

Well, I am crying foul. I hated it when Antonio Salieri was slandered in the movie Amadeus – they took a talented man who was a friend and admirer of Mozart and made him into a sadistically selfish murderer. Let’s look at a passage from the wikipedia entry on Salieri:

“However, even with Mozart and Salieri’s rivalry for certain jobs, there is very little evidence that the relationship between the two composers was at all acrimonious beyond this, especially after 1785 or so, when Mozart had become established in Vienna. Rather, they appeared to usually see each other as friends and colleagues, and supported each other’s work. For example, when Salieri was appointed Kapellmeister in 1788, he revived Figaro instead of bringing out a new opera of his own, and when he went to the coronation festivities for Leopold II in 1790, Salieri had no fewer than three Mozart masses in his luggage. Salieri and Mozart even composed a cantata for voice and piano together, called Per la ricuperata salute di Ofelia, which celebrated the return to stage of the singer Nancy Storace. This work, although it had been printed by Artaria in 1785, was considered lost until the 10th of January 2016, when the Schwäbische Zeitung reported on the discovery, by musicologist and composer Timo Jouko Herrmann, of a copy of its text and music while doing research on Antonio Salieri in the collections of the Czech Museum of Music.[41][42] Mozart’s Davide penitente (1785), his Piano Concerto KV 482 (1785), the Clarinet Quintet (1789) and the 40th Symphony (1788) had been premiered on the suggestion of Salieri, who supposedly conducted a performance of it in 1791. In his last surviving letter from 14 October 1791, Mozart tells his wife that he collected Salieri and Caterina Cavalieri in his carriage and drove them both to the opera; about Salieri’s attendance at his opera The Magic Flute, speaking enthusiastically: “He heard and saw with all his attention, and from the overture to the last choir there was not a piece that didn’t elicit a ‘Bravo!’ or ‘Bello!’ out of him […].”[43]

Salieri, along with Mozart’s protégé J. N. Hummel, educated Mozart’s younger son Franz Xaver Mozart, who was born in the year his father died.[44]”

As with Jenny Lind, people believe what they see in the movies just as they are quick to pass around fake news about Meryl Streep eating babies for New Years. We have become so used to lies and slander that the improbability of what we are reading just doesn’t even faze us and we have become fools enslaved to every catchy headline. We have trouble believing that largely anonymous website writers would publish a lie, but we have no difficulty believing the most horrific stories they write about people. Not only has our love grown cold, but our wisdom has departed almost entirely. We have an insatiable appetite for wanting to believe the worst of people, whether we know them or not, and assign virtue to gossips, liars, mockers, and talebearers.

I think the worst thing that can happen to a woman, or anyone, is to be accused of something they did not do yet also cannot prove false. How on earth can one disprove a negative? “It didn’t happen!” “Oh yeah? Prove it!” And who can even imagine how quickly gossip and accusations travel, or to whom? Accusation is the work of the enemy for the precise reason that accusations can never be fully retracted–a multitude will hear the slander and only a few ever hear the retraction. It is the nature of the – well, the Beast, frankly. Women know how fragile our reputations are–men are not so hindered. Men’s reputations can fall and rise in a moment, but women lose their reputations (especially when the accusation is adultery) in a heartbeat and never escape suspicion no matter how ludicrous the charge.

The Psalms are chock full of angry warnings to, and curses against slanderers, gossips, accusers, and people just waiting for dirt on a person (real or imagined). Accusation is not a freedom of speech matter, and it isn’t entertainment–it is a Biblical matter, and we are held to incredibly high standards, even if we don’t realize it yet.

A person who has earned a good reputation ought to be able to keep it, and when believers see that reputation being harmed – well isn’t it a weightier matter of Torah to do right by the oppressed? It’s easy to throw money at a charity, but not so easy to stand up to liars, bullies, gossips, slanderers, and opportunists–and some people out there are just plain old crazy yet never lacking an audience for their rantings. And after all, it really isn’t a big deal right? Someone else’s reputation? Someone else’s Mother, wife, sister, or daughter. No big deal, not until it happens to you or someone you love…and that is the height of hypocrisy. It’s either always wrong or it is never wrong.




The Temple Revealed in the Garden: Priests and Kings

I am eternally grateful to have friends who can do things that I can’t do – like writing about the Temple patterns scattered from Genesis to Revelation from a very Messianic Jewish point of view. Now, don’t let world-renowned artist Robin Hanley’s beautiful cover artwork give you the wrong impression that Dr. Dinah Dye has written a treatise about flat earth, quite the contrary. As in Volume one, The Temple Revealed in Creation, Dr. Dye delves deeply into ancient cosmological imagery (the way ancient people saw the universe) in order to open our eyes to how the first few chapters of Genesis would have been understood by the authors themselves. To call the information itself life-changing is an understatement because she goes way beyond facts and data and presents us with short fictional Midrashic vignettes, fictional little “what if” stories meant not to lay down an alternative account of what happened in the Garden, but instead to put us more into the shoes of the original ancient Near Eastern audience.

Volume two, her long-awaited sequel, delves into the ancient role of the High Priesthood of Adam in the Garden – linking him securely to the final Adam, Jesus Christ (Yeshua the Messiah in Hebrew). Click here to order.

Dinah is a wonderful teacher and author. Really, she teaches like a woman in the best way – imparting wisdom and knowledge in a warm, vibrant and approachable way. She cares about the reader, but most of all, she cares about getting one of God’s main thematic messages across – namely, how we can see His Temple and His Messiah from the very beginning, encoded in the very Jewish literary forms in which the Scriptures were written. I highly recommend both this book, as well as her first volume – and really, you want to read them both for maximum effect. Her teaching website is foundationsintorah.com and her new and improved ROKU channel will be up and available soon.