Rick White steps out from behind a post-modern metallic background, which looks similar to a discarded set from a bygone Christina Aguilera video. The swirling array of blinking blue lights announces the arrival of White, who looks like Jesus' middle-aged cabana boy in a lime-green Hawaiian shirt and spotless khaki pants.
White is the senior pastor to Williamson County's largest Baptist congregation, The People's Church. This, of course, is an obvious feat in the largely conservative Franklin, primed with untouched Bush-Cheney yard signs dotting well-manicured front lawns like immovable mini-monuments to compassionate conservatism.
"This is Porn Sunday," White tells his attentive flock last weekend. "Parents of young children who are uncomfortable with today's topic may elect to have them participate in the Carpenter Kids Children's Worship down the hall."
Yes, you heard right.
After a staff member attended the Nashville Film Festival screening of the documentary Missionary Positions, White extended the once-taboo pornography debate to The People's Church's inner sanctum in an unconventional way, naming the greatly hyped "Porn Sunday" event.
The headliners of Porn Sunday and the low-budget Missionary Positions are California youth pastors Craig Gross and Mike Foster—two twentysomethings who travel the nation proclaiming Jesus' love for porn stars, helping Bible-thumping sex addicts through the clutches of sin and dissuading youth from getting hooked on porn.
"There's too much judging [in the Christian church]," Foster tells the crowd in his kindly Ned Flanders tone. "We as Christians need to put our arms around [the sex addicts] and hug them."
Foster and Gross' tongue-in-cheek website (xxxchurch.com) and respective movement have raised a few eyebrows within the mainline Christian establishment. Pat Robertson reportedly canceled the duo's scheduled appearance on The 700 Club after Foster publicly deemed his repeated visits to porn exhibitions to be Jesus-worthy deeds.
Locally, a lone dissenter stands outside The People's Church with a sign reading, "Porn Is Addictive. Free Preview Inside." The sweat-drenched man is apparently miffed that, among other things, the XXX Church website features a talking cartoon penis named Wally the Wiener alongside scantily clad women.
But solemn protesters aside, The People's Church seems to welcome the garish circus-like atmosphere, proudly claiming the buzzing media anarchy of flashing cameras and awkward reporters trying to make nice with the lily-white elders. (After all, this is the church that boasts a Hallmark-inspired gift shop and brews Starbucks coffee in the kitchen.)
"Pornography is not a First Amendment issue," executive pastor Dick Wells says above the deafening din of caffeinated Christians. "To the church, pornography is a moral and evil issue. It's destroying the moral fabric of America."
The "moral fabric of America" stump speech was threaded throughout the sermon. And while the usual evangelical pet issues like homosexuality and abortion remain, these garner nary a mention on Porn Sunday.
As the inaugural event draws to a close, White mops the pools of sweat from his forehead. After dealing with reporters and protesters all day, the good reverend seems drained of his holy energies.
While his church may have survived Porn Sunday I, White looks ready to go home. For once it seems, Jesus' cabana boy does not like being the center of attention.
