You'll recall reading about the now-famous stripper mom.
Christina Silvas enrolled her kindergarten daughter in a conservative Christian school in Sacramento, Calif. She agreed in writing to uphold the moral standards of the church. She even taught Sunday school!
But Silvas led another life outside of Capital Christian Center. Three nights a week, she took it all off in a local strip joint – a club members of the church had actually tried to close down through community pressure.
When church leadership found out about Silvas' moonlighting, they called her in for a meeting. They advised her lifestyle was sinful and not in keeping with her commitment to her church nor her profession of faith. They warned her of the negative impact her job would have on her daughter. They did all of this in the spirit of Christian love, not in a spirit of condemnation and guilt.
Silvas listened. According to church officials, she seemed to be considering the church's offer of financial and spiritual help through her confusion. But, within 24 hours, Silvas was going public with a story that the church had threatened to kick her little girl out of kindergarten if she didn't quit her sleazy job.
Christina Silvas had her 15 minutes of fame. Her story was featured on national news programs from coast to coast. The issues were debated on talk shows. And, as they say, the offers poured in.
Even while Silvas and the church were negotiating an agreement under which she would take a sabbatical from her stripping job, she was accepting a new job as a "shock jock" on a local radio station. Then, of course, came the all-too-predictable offer of a Playboy spread, which Silvas grabbed.
Why am I recounting this sordid tale, again?
There's a larger point here than the poor choices of one mixed-up 24-year-old woman.
It brings home to me the way our culture is rewarding deviancy, rewarding licentiousness, rewarding sin.
Our popular culture provides plenty of incentives to do wrong. Increasingly, our society gives almost no incentives to do right, to be good, to be righteous, to be upstanding, to be a pillar of the community, to be a good parent, to be a role model.
And this pathetic character, Christina Silvas, is a case study.
All a physically attractive woman has to do today to become famous is to go to church, then act slutty. America's screwy popular culture will take care of the rest. It's a surefire prescription for fame and misfortune.
We can point a finger of blame at institutions like Playboy and the disgusting creatures who own and operate radio stations like KDND in Sacramento. But let's face it. These are irresponsible people motivated only by greed who wrap themselves in the First Amendment and couldn't care less about the future of this free republic.
But there's plenty of blame to go around. There must be a huge market for raunch in America. Somebody's buying this stuff. Plenty of people must be accepting it. America is being seduced.
Christina Silvas is a sad, characterless wretch – an underachiever who has relied only on her figure for her self-worth. She's not a heroine. But she is being treated like one by the increasingly amoral American culture.
Let's face it. If Christina Silvas hadn't rejected the loving counsel and compassion offered to her by her church – the church she chose to attend, to join, to teach in and to enroll her innocent little girl in – then she would still be an obscure stripper at Gold Club Centerfolds, a place where balding men facing mid-life crises and impotent, paunchy voyeurs go to gawk at women while sipping overpriced juice.
There's nothing glamorous about a place like that.
But, in the minds of some – probably in the weak mind of Christina Silvas and other misguided young women like her – there is glamour in the Playboy lifestyle. She probably thinks she has arrived now that she gets to utter a few nonsensical phrases into a microphone each morning.
But she will be yesterday's news soon. The radio station will drop her as soon as the ratings dive. And the novelty of her un-Christian walk will quickly fade in the eyes of the Playboy recruiters, who will be on the prowl for some new raw meat to parade before the public.
Where will she be then? Where will her daughter be?
We can pray they'll be back in church – the one place they will always be welcome.