In Warsaw, Ohio, 9 miles of cornfields separate the Christian church of New Beginnings Ministries from The Fox Hole strip club where women don panties and pasties and dance.
That distance is not great enough for the church, who, predictably, have been picketing the club.
What hasn't been predictable has been the response of the women who work at the strip club who have, in turn, donned bikinis and have been counter-protesting the church, brandishing signs with Christian slogans reading
"Do unto others as you would have done unto you" and
"Jesus loves the children of the world!" Club owner Tommy George has offered to call off his protesters if church pastor Bill Dunfee does the same.
Pastor Dunfee's response:
"As a Christian community, we cannot share territory with the devil. Light and darkness cannot exist together, so The Fox Hole has got to go."
Dancer Laura Meske (a 42 year old mother of four), who has seen her earnings drop from a couple hundred dollars a night down to $30 since the church protests began, explains
"Everybody has sinned, and that doesn't mean I'm not gonna get into
heaven," she said, the stud piercing in her chin shimmering in the
sunlight. "I believe in Jesus. I don't believe what they preach. They
preach hate. ... I'm not the most beautiful woman in the world. I go out there and I try to make my money."
Read the whole story. It's pretty fascinating.
Here's hoping we see more of this kind of response to protesting church groups.
