Are there just a few bad ACORNs in this basket?
A hot newsflash item of late has been a series of controversial videos posted on biggoverment.com created by activist filmmaker James O’Keefe, which allegedly unveil corruption within the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN).[1] The videos have O’Keefe and Hannah Giles (a college student) poising as a pimp and prostitute, and entering into select ACORN offices to receive aid in purchasing a house for the purposes of running a brothel with undocumented alien child prostitutes, and ACORN workers apparently offering advise in how they should go about doing it.
O’Keefe’s exposé did reach the eyes and ears of lawmakers, and the House and Senate voted to de-fund ACORN.
(For many of my conservative Republican friends, in a serendipitous way this proven that every grey cloud has a silver lining, as the decision to cut funds to ACORN is a plus for those who don’t like big government—not necessarily my politics, but I’m just saying….)
ACORN’s response was multifaceted, which can be viewed at their Web site (http://www.acorn.org/), which essentially sought to assure constituents the organization condemned the behavior of those caught on tape supporting illegal activities, announced those exposed were fired, gave assurance that procedures on the intake of service delivery programs were being reviewed, and questioned the legality of O’Keefe’s videos.
One question that ran through in my mind after hearing about the scandal is whether or not the ACORN workers could have done anything differently that would have vindicated their actions. For all intent and purpose, they thought they were really interacting with a pimp and his prostitute. Were they just simply going through the motions just to avoid a volatile situation? After all, the fact that a pimp is willing to sell a woman for sex, perhaps even manipulating the girl into doing such a thing, it is clear that person does not value the humanity of others, and there’s no telling what things he could have done had he felt the ACORN workers railroaded his idea. Perhaps after the whole ordeal, the ACORN workers should have given the information over to the police, so that the presumed pimp’s plans could be thwarted? Hindsight is always better than foresight.
However, maybe the issue runs even deeper than the problem that weeding out a few bad eggs in a community organization basket. Perhaps this is just a symptom of the larger problem—secular American is desperately seeking to divorce herself from Christianity, demanding that the followers of Christ relegate their beliefs to the realm of personal private experiences, which must be kept out of the public arena. The problem is compounded when many within the church acquiesce to the demand, and censure of their prophetic ministry of being the very salt and light that keeps the nation from sinking into corruption and darkness.
What secular America wants to replace Christianity with is a postmodernism, which embraces a form of moral relativism that declares there are not absolute truths, and militantly opposes anyone who makes claim to absolute truths. Since this is already taking place, the decay is inevitable. Some of fruits are already rotten, but the rest will come.
The problem is evident. If everyone does what is right in his/her own eyes, then can one really condemn a person from choosing to be a pimp or prostitute? Who are you to impose your values on them? If places like Thailand can have laws against prostitution but never enforce them so that a thriving sex industry can exists, what makes secular Americans think that their relativistic morality can stop the same corruption from happening in their country?
The good news is that it does not have to be this way. God is here. He is not silent. He can make a difference. The Word of God can be proclaimed. The Spirit can open the hearts and minds of men, so that they can be saved.
[1] ACORN is a grassroots community organization address issues of social justice issues, including amongst other things advocacy for raising minimum wave, paid sick leave, regulating the financial practices of mortgage lenders, affordable housing, rebuilding New Orleans, and voter registration.
O’Keefe’s exposé did reach the eyes and ears of lawmakers, and the House and Senate voted to de-fund ACORN.
(For many of my conservative Republican friends, in a serendipitous way this proven that every grey cloud has a silver lining, as the decision to cut funds to ACORN is a plus for those who don’t like big government—not necessarily my politics, but I’m just saying….)
ACORN’s response was multifaceted, which can be viewed at their Web site (http://www.acorn.org/), which essentially sought to assure constituents the organization condemned the behavior of those caught on tape supporting illegal activities, announced those exposed were fired, gave assurance that procedures on the intake of service delivery programs were being reviewed, and questioned the legality of O’Keefe’s videos.
One question that ran through in my mind after hearing about the scandal is whether or not the ACORN workers could have done anything differently that would have vindicated their actions. For all intent and purpose, they thought they were really interacting with a pimp and his prostitute. Were they just simply going through the motions just to avoid a volatile situation? After all, the fact that a pimp is willing to sell a woman for sex, perhaps even manipulating the girl into doing such a thing, it is clear that person does not value the humanity of others, and there’s no telling what things he could have done had he felt the ACORN workers railroaded his idea. Perhaps after the whole ordeal, the ACORN workers should have given the information over to the police, so that the presumed pimp’s plans could be thwarted? Hindsight is always better than foresight.
However, maybe the issue runs even deeper than the problem that weeding out a few bad eggs in a community organization basket. Perhaps this is just a symptom of the larger problem—secular American is desperately seeking to divorce herself from Christianity, demanding that the followers of Christ relegate their beliefs to the realm of personal private experiences, which must be kept out of the public arena. The problem is compounded when many within the church acquiesce to the demand, and censure of their prophetic ministry of being the very salt and light that keeps the nation from sinking into corruption and darkness.
What secular America wants to replace Christianity with is a postmodernism, which embraces a form of moral relativism that declares there are not absolute truths, and militantly opposes anyone who makes claim to absolute truths. Since this is already taking place, the decay is inevitable. Some of fruits are already rotten, but the rest will come.
The problem is evident. If everyone does what is right in his/her own eyes, then can one really condemn a person from choosing to be a pimp or prostitute? Who are you to impose your values on them? If places like Thailand can have laws against prostitution but never enforce them so that a thriving sex industry can exists, what makes secular Americans think that their relativistic morality can stop the same corruption from happening in their country?
The good news is that it does not have to be this way. God is here. He is not silent. He can make a difference. The Word of God can be proclaimed. The Spirit can open the hearts and minds of men, so that they can be saved.
[1] ACORN is a grassroots community organization address issues of social justice issues, including amongst other things advocacy for raising minimum wave, paid sick leave, regulating the financial practices of mortgage lenders, affordable housing, rebuilding New Orleans, and voter registration.
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