WHITE OAK, Ohio – No, folks, this is not a strip club. This is a church. For real.
A pastor in suburban Cincinnati has gone over the edge and installed a stripper pole in the church to help drive home God’s word about sexual propriety.
The stripper pole, along with a bed littered with fake money, is not just in the Light of Word Ministries on Colerain Avenue.; it is sitting smack-dab in the middle of Pastor Mike Scrugg’s pulpit.
“We try to make it relevant straight forward we don’t sugar coat anything,” Scruggs told a local TV station.
Being a former Ohio resident, I had never heard of White Oak, but some people believe that Scruggs may have had too much white oak in his breakfast cereal to pull a stunt like this in God’s house.
Yet, while his sermons might make the average churchgoer do a double-take and shake their heads, the Friday night event drew a packed house.
“We talk about sex, we talk about drugs, we talk about faith, we talk about relationships; things that people are dealing with on a day to day basis.”
This month-long series, called the “Battle of the Sexes,” with some rather interesting visual props.
“With our bed on one side what men want or desiring your stripper pole, your video games, your sports. The woman’s side orderly neat it’s all about love candy teddy bears roses and being wined and dined and cherished.”
“We push the envelope that’s true. I definitely don’t take it out of context. Some people might say he’s going to hell, he’s wrong. We want to talk about it we don’t want them to guess at it assume it’s wrong it right we want to talk about it.”
Scruggs says the radical stance he took is to try to crystallize what men and women want in relationships. “On one side, (we’ll have) what men want or desire: your stripper pole, your video games, your sports,” Scruggs explains. “The woman’s side (is) orderly, neat, it’s all about love, candy, teddy bears, roses and being wined and dined and cherished.”
Scruggs went on to say that single people are having too much sex and married couples are not having enough sex.
What does his mother think about Scruggs’ controversial tactics? She approves and attends the church.
Well, since Scruggs believes in radical religious approaches to secular issues, perhaps he and his colleagues and begin to tackle other issues of equal, or greater importance:
— terry shropshire
