Reflecting Justice

This past week I had the incredible privilege to participate in powerful events and listen to convicting and encouraging conversations about ending slavery once and for all. Many of those conversations centered on the demand for sex trafficking in particular. If the demand didn't exist, the market wouldn't exist. But just as every little girl does not dream of growing up to become a prostitute, every little boy does not dream of growing up to buy sex with children or sell and exploit women’s bodies.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not pulling the forgive-and-forget card here. People will not be able to receive the Gospel without understanding the depth of their offence (Isaiah 26:10). It is critical that offenders pay severely. It is critical that the buying of sex is recognized as a degradation and a crime against humanity, and that this reality is reflected in our laws. But, we must also take responsibility for the culture we encourage which produces these perpetrators. In the words of Sir Thomas Moore, "For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them?"

Yes, changing the law is one powerful way to change our exploitative culture, but it is not enough.

What part do we play in creating criminals? Look at the things with which we choose to entertain ourselves – Dr. Dre’s net worth is $750 million. His lyrics, and the lyrics of many popular music artists (male and female) are flooded with derogatory terms for woman, sexual exploitation, and sexual, physical, and verbal abuse. Grand Theft Auto sales amount to over $40 million worldwide, a videogame that not only allows but also encourages rape and murder. 50 Shades of Grey released on Valentine’s Day as the #1 date night movie. That’s just scratching the surface of the entertainment industry, but it goes so much further. Have you looked down a girls’ toys aisle recently and seen any human looking dolls mixed in with the highly sexualized Barbies, Brats, and Disney dolls? Have you ever opened a comic book? It’s easy to think about these things and say, “how dare our entertainment industry!” And yet we must not forget that WE are paying for this entertainment and are shaping our culture by the choices we make every day.

I’m not attempting to tell you how to make those choices. I’ve probably already offended to with the list I selected above. It will help no one for me to draw moral lines and tell you what to watch, what to read, what to wear, what to listen to, or what to buy, so please don’t let that be your take-away from this. What is needed is for you and me to get down on our faces and ask the Lord to search our hearts and convict us – and then we must get up and stand on those convictions and no longer be swayed by convenience and what is culturally acceptable. 

Justice starts with us. Reducing the demand for human trafficking starts with us. It starts when we humble ourselves and stop justifying conventional morality. We must no longer be people of convenience, but people of conviction.