I guess what I'm wondering today is this.
When talking about Christian celebrities (whether they claim to associate themselves in some way with the Christian faith or whether these beliefs are attributed to them), many Christians dismiss certain ones. Let me know if this sounds familiar to you:
"Well, [insert celebrity's name here] isn't really a good example."
"[That celebrity] probably isn't really a Christian. He/She can't be. He/She [insert sin here]. He/She claims to be a Christian but his/her life shows otherwise."
And so we have people like the Catholic Mel Gibson, who has given us such work as "The Passion of the Christ," but we have no desire to associate ourselves with him because of comments he made publicly, his highly publicized divorce, alleged affairs and the list could keep going.
I also think of Jon Gosselin - the reality television star parent of eight children with his wife, Kate. People referenced the couple's faith frequently until it was made public that the couple was filing for divorce and, subsequently, stories began coming to light of Jon's alleged affairs and relationships with other women.
I'm not condoning their behavior. I am not advocating looking to celebrities as role models, but I am also not saying that it should not be done. I am not saying that these celebrities should be role models. I am not saying that they should not be. All I am wondering about today is this.
Why do we vilify them? Why are we so quick to turn our backs and unidentify ourselves from them? What gives us the right to question whether or not they have faith or what their relationship with God is like?
Maybe I'm completely off base. But that's what I'm wondering about today.
Celebrities are in the public eye, more open to scrutiny. We, as a culture, look up to them as role models, because they're famous. So it makes sense that, when they screw up, we get mad and vilify them. It's not right, mind. I think we have some sort of complex that idolizes celebrities as infallible, and when they fall, we forget that they're human and cast them out as ungodly heathens.
ReplyDeleteOr something like that.