Email: From Distraction to Action [CC]

If you’re writing for [Christianity Today], you’re a journalist. My career is probably similar to yours, and the only way to describe it all is to say I’m a writer/editor and see if the person wants to know more about what that means.

Oh, I think God had his hand in bringing all these issues to your attention in a personal way, specifically so you could write your article. No matter what we know, he can always help us learn more, and bring it closer to home. We hear of our troops dying in Iraq, but once it happens to a family we know, it becomes so real we can taste it. I’m glad you wrote the article, and I hope I didn’t give any other impression.

I don’t go to bars or dance floors either. But just flip to BET or TNL anytime to see the booty-shaking and you know what we’re dealing with, at least from the top-down of the popular media.

Thanks for sending me the link to your CT article "The Too-Friendly Skies," where you met this married guy. I really do feel sorrow for all the times that married men pull this on single women. Women do it to men too, of course, though I believe with men it’s much more common. It should never happen. It’s opportunistic or intentional, it’s deceptive and dishonest, and it’s a sin against God and all three persons concerned.

Before he [co-]wrote the Left Behind series, Jerry Jenkins said he typically went back and forth between writing for magazines and editing them. Many Christian writers and journalists I know may alternate between Christian and secular ventures. It’s all the same as far as the tools and the ethics, though of course it makes a greater difference for the kingdom of Christ if you work on the Lord’s payroll. You currently have the better lot! Thanks for the explanation and I hope you didn’t feel defensive or that I was being offensive. We’re all in this together.