An author, English professor at Liberty University, and contributor to Christianity Today, has written an article calling on Christians to “Call Out Locker Room Talk for the Sin That It Is.”
In her article for Christianity Today, Dr. Karen Swallow Prior addresses the controversy of the recently released video in which Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump talks about groping women and kissing them without their consent.
Trump later dismissed his comments as “just locker room talk."
Prior, as well as many other Christian leaders, have said that such lewd comments cannot, however, be so easily dismissed, and some Christians’ ability to so easily dismiss them points to a deeper issue.
Although a number of prominent evangelicals have withdrawn their support for Trump, many others, such as Jerry Falwell, Jr., Liberty University’s chancellor, have doubled down their support for Trump, despite his comments.
Prior gets to the heart of the issue: “But the problem is that what happens in the locker room doesn’t stay in the locker room. Scripture tells us that as a man thinks within himself, so he is. Therefore, we must take even ‘talk’ seriously.”
Trump’s comments in the video--and many Christians’ dismissal of them--points to how easy it is to compartmentalize our lives and to believe that immoral talk or behavior can be excused in certain contexts or if it is for a good cause.
But Prior begs to differ: “Endorsing a man who publicly and privately promotes sexual promiscuity in hopes of reducing abortion is no less absurd than endorsing the candidate who promises increased access to abortion,” she writes.
In other words, the ends do not justify the means.
Photo courtesy: Thinkstockphotos.com
Publication date: October 13, 2016
