Except for a rare moment of salacious intent in early childhood, I have never read Playboy.  Maybe you have.  Or maybe you have read some of its racier counterparts.  Although Playboy's heyday was over long ago, the death of its founder, Hugh Hefner, has stirred a malestrom of commentary across the globe.  Some people lauded him for how they believe he liberated man and woman to follow their emotional passions.  Others derided and criticized him for the way they feel he denigrated women.  It was difficult to find anyone who was neutral.  Whatever else Hefner did in his life, he managed to stir up controversy, from the right as well as the left.

      Although I have my own feelings about Hefner, I found in a column by New York Times columnist Ross Douthat some cogent observations.  In an eloquent paragraph, Douthat notes, "Now that death has taken him [Hefner], we should examine our own sins.  Liberals should ask why their crusade for freedom and equality found itself with such a captain . . . [and] conservatives should ask themselves how their crusade for faith and family and community ended up so Hefnerian itself--with a conservative news network that seems to have been run on Playboy Mansion principles and a conservative party that just elected a playboy as our president."
     Well put, Ross.  Though sexuality is an important and integral part of humanness, part and parcel of our creation in the image of God, it is far from the only thing.  God didn't make us for a totally sybaritic existence.