I'm glad to

live in Fayetteville! It's good to be in a city where we

can discuss issues and attempt to build an even better

city together, though we sometimes disagree.

Thanks to

The Citizen for providing a forum to share views and

thanks to our city government, who from the mayor to the

Planning Commission members have been helpful and open to

concerns expressed about Hooters restaurant. Thanks also

to Billy Murphy who gave me a good laugh with his column.

I believe in being serious about serious issues, but it

also never hurts to see some humor along the way. With

the direction our culture has been going, sometimes you

have to laugh to keep from crying!

As the

senior pastor of New Hope Baptist Church, I thought it

might be helpful to share a little bit of why so many of

our members and those of many other churches and no

church at all object to Hooters coming to town.

First of

all, we are simply exercising our rights as citizens in a

free land to use persuasion or any other legal means to

make a difference in the kind of city our children grow

up in. It never ceases to amaze me these days that it is

politically correct for anyone to do this except

evangelical Christians!

We are

expected to keep safely behind our stained-glass windows

and not do anything that would disturb the status quo.

That's not the active faith Jesus taught. He said that we

should be "salt and light" in the culture in

which we live. To every biblical Christian that is a

mandate, not an option.

When we do

step into this arena, we are told to go back and

"address real-world problems" as if all we do

with our time is stand around and oppose Hooters!

Anyone who

spends any time in our church or just about any of our

churches knows that we spend countless hours helping

people with every conceivable kind of problem, from

depression to marital conflict to financial problems.

The bottom

line is that many of us believe our community will be

better off without a sexually-oriented business that only

hires women who dress provocatively.

Imagine

what would happen if we told female school teachers or

businesswomen that they had to dress this way in order to

get a job. Why, the ruckus raised would be beyond

compare! Why do we agree with this in a restaurant in our

own community?

Anyone who

questions that Hooters is a sexually-oriented business is

fooling themselves. They virtually claim it for

themselves on their website! They admit they use

"sex appeal to sell," that their name refers to

a part of a female anatomy, and they compare themselves

to the way "daytime talk shows" use sexuality!

They admit that they cannot be "characterized as a

family restaurant" and their website contains a

pictorial of "hooter girls" in provocative

poses.

To the best

of my knowledge, there has never been a business like

this in Fayetteville.

One letter

to The Citizen was correct in stating that we do not

oppose everything else that is immoral in our city. It is

true that we cannot fight every battle. But we can try to

stop a new direction that has never existed here before

it starts. That is our right, just as it is anyone else's

right to support Hooters if they choose.

All of us

are a part of deciding what kind of community we live in.

All of us should have a voice. Would it not seem,

however, that our priorities are out of line if we are

freely willing to "limit freedom" to control

traffic or density, but unwilling to consider it when it

comes to the values of our community?

Sometimes

the logic of this debate amazes me! One writer to The

Citizen suggested that the best thing to do is to have

more places like Hooters so Christians can reach them. By

this rationale, we need to recruit every strip club,

prostitute and child-molester we can find to set up shop

here! I don't think that is what Jesus calls us to or our

community wants.

The same

writer makes the assumption that because we oppose

Hooters, we don't love people or minister to people in

sinful lifestyles. This is politically correct nonsense!

At New

Hope, as in most of our churches, we are in the business

of seeing lives transformed! We are a hospital for the

wounded, full of people from every possible lifestyle. We

spend countless hours (as well as thousands of dollars)

caring, crying and praying together with shattered

people.

We would

not however, support their effort to set up shop and sell

their sin to our community! As a 10-year-old boy said at

the Planning Commission meeting, "I don't need

anything else to tempt me as I grow up." Enough said

for me!

Whatever

anyone thinks about the Hooters issue, one thing is

certainly clear. Just a few decades ago, a business like

this would have had no chance at all of opening in our

community or most communities of America. We have most

certainly changed - at the very core of our heart

and soul.

I must ask

- are we happy with the fruit of this new culture

- with the violence, the complete breakdown of the

family, the drug and alcohol culture, rampant teen

pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases? If not, do

we really expect it to change if we do nothing?

As for me

and many people I know, we will choose to stand for what

we believe is clearly right for our community - win

or lose. We will do it in love, not hate, and with calm

resolve, not shouting and picketing. But we will do it.

And at the

same time we will call all of our city and our nation to

the ultimate answer that has always been before us -

"If my people who are called by My name will humble

themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from

their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will

forgive their sin and heal their land," (2

Chronicles 7:14).