The Amish Porn Dilemma

This was an actual exchange between a reader/fan and a Christian bookseller:

Reader: “I wanted to let you know that the author Karen Spears Zacharias has a new book out and will be coming through town. I thought maybe you’d want to have her in your store for a signing.”

Bookseller: “What’s her latest book about?”

Reader: “Child Abuse.”

Bookseller: “Oh… Do you know if it’s about sex abuse or just physical abuse?”

Reader: “I haven’t read the book yet so I don’t know. Does it matter?”

Bookseller: “Yes. I mean if it has sexually explicit material in it we couldn’t sell it.”

Sigh.

For the record, Christian Bookseller, the abuse wasn’t sexual in nature. Not that that should matter in any way, shape or form.

That you would even ask that question appalled every Christian sitting at the table who heard that story recited.

Let me get this straight — you feel comfortable carrying a book about child abuse as long as we mean the punching, slapping, knocking them upside the head kind of abuse, but if the words penetration or vagina appear in the book anywhere you can’t carry that?

I don’t know how to say this any more clearly — Child Abuse is one issue where the Church ought to be leading the way in intervention,  healing, restoration, and redemption.

No one needs healing more than a child who has suffered at the hands of an abuser — be it sexual or otherwise.

Shouldn’t the faith community be stepping into the lives of these children and showing them the transformation powers of Jesus Christ?

But then again that might require us to act as thinking and thoughtful adults instead of sheep led about by booksellers pushing Amish porn.