How Do You Love a Porn Star?

I abhor running and despise the taste of beer–two characteristics that are almost incompatible with being a Marine. Yet in the late 1990’s, while stationed at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, I decided to join the San Diego chapter of the Hash House Harriers, a running club which has as one of its stated goals, “To acquire a good thirst and to satisfy it in beer.”

I had first encountered the infamous international group of “drinkers with a running problem” in Okinawa. Despite the running and the drinking I had enjoyed the camaraderie and so thought it might be an opportunity to meet new people in California.

On my first San Diego run we were on a long hash through the city when an old man jogged by, easily outpacing me and another thirty-something Marine. We chuckled at first, but as his balding grey head faded into the distance we realized that we didn’t have the stamina to catch him. When I caught up to him at the finish line I expressed my shame at getting beat by a geezer. He laughed and boasted that as a retired Army Lt. Colonel he had been running longer than I had been alive.

Instantly charmed, I was eager to learn more about the life of Dave Connors. He told me about his kids, his grandkids, and how he had divorced after two decades of marriage. Dave also told me about what he considered his most noteworthy distinction: he was the world’s oldest working pornographic-film star.

Over the next year I ran the hash nearly every week, logging over a hundred miles and a dozen conversations with the avuncular Vietnam Vet. We’d talk during the runs and after each event a gaggle of hashers would typically end up at a pub or restaurant to chat some more. Dave, needing always to be the center of attention, would steer every conversation toward the topic of sex–the raunchier and more twisted the better. He savored his pseudo-celebrity status and was eager to share with us the gory details about his on-camera exploits.

Being only slightly less moralistic than I am now, I was naturally disturbed and disgusted by Dave’s repugnant vocation. Yet I truly wanted to be his friend. He was warm and amiable and, like many of us, completely messed up. For his age, he was physically vibrant and healthy. But it also seemed as if he suffered from a form of moral leprosy, as if his soul was slowly rotting.

Looking back, I realize I should have set aside my disdain for his work and my fear that he was contagious and simply showed him the love of Christ. But I didn’t know how. I still don’t.

How do you befriend someone who relishes what you despise? Can you show someone love while keeping your distance? If not, how do you draw near to someone who wallows in unrepentant sin? We’re told to follow the example of Jesus in loving our fellow sinners. However, we are rarely provided with practical advice on how to carry out this duty.

For instance, we Christians often speak about how Jesus was a friend to the sinners, how he would often be found in the company of drunks, gluttons, and prostitutes. In all of these cases, though, we are left with the impression that the sinners turned away from their sin. That seems to be the expected reaction to an encounter with the Messiah. Indeed, I can’t imagine how a prostitute could share bread and wine with Jesus and then go back to turning tricks on the street corner.

Still, it seems likely that some of them probably enjoyed Jesus’ company without being fully convicted of their sinful nature. How did he respond? How did his disciples interact with those people? And what do we do when we encounter those types of people today?

Because of his peculiar vocation, Dave Connors may seem like an unrepresentative example. But we all have people like him in our lives–acquaintances, coworkers, family members–who have no intention of giving up their sinful ways. How do we make a friend of someone who chooses to remain an enemy of God?

Normally this would be the point in the post where I would insert a homiletic bromide that would point the way toward a resolution. On this one, though, I not only don’t have an answer; I don’t have a clue. Somehow I’ve managed to spend thirty years as a Christian without learning something so basic as how to truly love an impenitent sinner.

Not surprisingly, learning how to become an unrepentant transgressor of the moral law is much easier. To instruct aspiring video prostitutes, Dave once wrote an essay titled “How To Be A Porn Star.” I’ve never had the stomach to read it, but I suspect that it is much like Dave: fatherly in manner, pragmatic in content, and soul-crushingly obtuse in worldview. We Christians could use a similar guide, one that is pastoral, pragmatic, and edifying, on how to reach the Dave Connors in our broken world.

A sermon on “How to Love a Porn Star” isn’t something I’m likely to hear on a Sunday morning, but it’s a lesson that I desperately need to learn.