I Read it For the Articles

I heard a BBC News report on the radio this morning: Playboy Magazine will no longer include pictures of nude women.  The BBC had an interview with a prominent feminist who was asked how she felt about this, and with a real sense of irony, she had to admit that it probably was not a total victory.  Removing the aspect of the magazine that objectified women, and reduced them to airbrushed and impossible things for men to covet and lust after, who were defined by their turn-ons and turn-offs, well that has to be good.
Except for the fact that, in addition to your Grandma would call smut, Playboy also, at one point was a cultural bell cow.  They did interviews with important people and they let them use bad words, which apparently is something many important people do a bit.  The feminist in question had to admit that Playboy probably did more to improve relations of all sorts between men and women, because it essentially taught men about what women like, and encouraged them to care, because if you want to have any chance with one of the girls that look like Miss September, you probably should do more than just grunt and stammer.
Lamentably, the reason why Playboy is making this move is not because they suddenly decided that they had objectified enough women and were changing their ways, it's because they can't (or maybe wont) try to out-porn the internet.  Yes, essentially they're just throwing in the towel.  Playboy has held on to what I suppose is the high ground when it comes to porn, meaning that they tried really hard not to be disgusting.  The silliness, contrived poses and obvious manipulation of women as sex objects, all well and good, but let's keep it "tasteful," within the bounds of what we do.  Let's try to sort of make it just a shade racier than the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue, and not go much further.
The internet is a cesspool that probably makes even Larry Flynt, not to mention Hugh Hefner, a little uneasy.  This decision is a capitulation to that reality.  It also, I suppose, takes a certain restraint off of Playboy as a journalistic enterprise.  Playboy has actually had some relevant things to say over the years.  But if you wanted to read an interview or an article they published, you had to get over the sort of awkward moment of buying a Playboy Magazine at the Seven-Eleven.  "I read it for the articles," has been a punchline for years, well now that's the only reason to read it, so let's see if that flies.
This whole scenario interests me on a couple of levels, the first of which is the cultural slide that has led the company that pretty much introduced us to porn to throw up their arms and say, "Y'all are disgusting perverts, we are not going there."  I'm not one of those who says we are on the verge of complete destruction, or one who really even believes that we are becoming worse as time goes by.  What I believe is that evil and sin are pretty much constant factors in human behavior, sometimes they erupt and sometimes they just sort of simmer, but they are always there.  I have read the Bible extensively, and what I find there is pretty much of a type with the sort of twisted depravity that we live with today, and in certain cases (like the end of Judges) it actually turns the stomach of someone who has watched Eli Roth movies.
I believe we are making some progress on some fronts, and we're getting worse on others, nothing's shocking.  Playboy quitting the nekkid lady business does not solve our dysfunctional sexuality problem, or mean that women are no longer going to be objectified, it does demonstrate something that is even more interesting to me: adaptation.
My vocation is facing a similar challenge when relating to the changing culture.  In fact, we have many of the same problems as Playboy Magazine.  To state it as simply as I can, no one wants what we're selling anymore.  Is it a stretch to compare the church to Playboy?  Maybe, but bear with me a second.  Both of us were once a cultural force, and both of us are not any more (or at least not as much of one).  The church's cultural hegemony has been around a lot longer than Hugh Heffner (I know, that's hard to believe), but that probably just means the habits we picked up as a result are going to be tougher to kick.  We both have to deal rather directly with sin.  They picked a couple of  sins (lust and gluttony) and decided to roll with them, while we decided to try to take on and conquer all of them.  They tried to help people "get over hangups about sex," while we were busy trying to keep people hung up about sex, but somehow or other neither approach to healthy human sexuality really seemed to work out so hot.
Because sin.
Because sin is a force of nature, and it is utterly beyond our capability to control it.
That is why we must forgive and be forgiven.
That is why grace must be a thing.
What I admire about this whole shift is the guts that it takes to change the thing that you are famous for, because you won't capitulate to the demands of "the market."  How is it that Playboy has figured this out so much faster than the church?  We scurry about trying give people what they want.  We capitulate to a consumerist culture, we fight with the world and with each other in the name of the Prince of Peace.  We try to make like we are cool, entertaining, spiritual and all kinds of things that we think are going to be attractive to the world, and we are continually surprised when it doesn't work out. We sometimes have a hard time marking out those lines that we just should not cross, even in order to "reach more people."
The way I see it, we really only have one thing to offer this broken, sinful world: the grace of God in Jesus Christ.  That is, or should be, our content.
Everything else is vanity and chasing after the wind.