It definitely gets your attention. Nothing like a few hundred bra's hanging from a building that garners ones attention. The Hotel Donaldson in downtown Fargo is the host facility for an event called "Bras On Broadway"
It is an event for raising support for the fight against cancer, a noble and honorable cause indeed. I can appreciate the cause - I do wonder what the method of fund raising says about the world that we live in . Let me say from the get go 2 things.
1. I hate cancer. It is part of the havoc that is in our world due to the fallen nature of our world. It takes many lives and should be fought against.
2. I love God's creation. All of it. God has created us male and female. He created each unique and beautiful. God also created the means for human kind to create more humans- and this is also good when used as God intended. So my thoughts on the bra's displayed is not due to thinking that "sex is bad and we must not talk about it " view of life. Quite on the contrary, I think it is one of God's better ideas. Really!
I have become aware of this event in a slightly different way because the Hotel Donaldson is across the street from the abortion clinic in downtown Fargo. I have written before about my experience at the Red River Women's Clinic (abortion clinic- see pic below) in downtown Fargo. I have been involved in the 40 Days for Life ( click here for info ) peaceful protest against abortion for the last 3 years during the fall of the year. I go with others and we stand and pray and show a peaceful prayerful presence outside of the abortion clinic. It is a way to say that this great evil should not be happening.
In many ways these events have things in common- we both are working for the good of others. But it is more complicated than that. One also needs to think about the fact that the ends doesn't justify the means when it comes to noble causes. Some pro-life people have gotten this confused in the past and have justified behaviors that are wrong (harming those that disagree with us) in light of the evil of abortion. This is where I am troubled by the bra display. I agree with the goal- just think the means is wrong.
The progression goes like this: 1. Sex is good. (true!) 2. All consensual sex is good (not true.) 3. Anything that celebrates, enables, and encourages more sex is good (not true) .
This is where I see the connection between the two- Bras on Broadway and the abortion clinic. Both are by-products of a culture that is sex centered. The abortion facility is trying to remove the God given result of sex, a beautiful creation of God- a baby. The other is using our society's fixation on breasts and sex to raise money for a good cause. The truth is there is another way...
Now I am not going to picket the Bra's on Broadway event. The two events do not compare in what is happening. Abortion is the taking of an innocent life. I believe that justice demands that we speak against this great evil. The bra's displayed are simply immodest. I do believe they are related in that they both stem from a world view that puts man at it's center and glorifies sex as the supreme good of our existence.
