Christian Celebrity is an Oxymoron

WARNING: Consenting photo of a persecuted Christian activist and stalwart for traditional marriage below

 

Oh what a strange world we live in. A beauty pageant contestant can be against gay-marriage “because she was raised that way,” and  become a Christian celebrity. She can write a book about her struggles for the faith and persecution and make money speaking at church after church even though she is a pornographer. She can get a standing ovation at the Dove Awards, and even speak at Liberty University, no really, I did not just make that up. Sure she isn’t perfect, but neither was Jesus, oh wait… nevermind.

A pastor can “bring the gospel of grace” to a new generation of people reaching the unchurched, while at the same time raving like a madman at children’s movies because they value the embracing of nature and macho invasion soldiers are somehow “bad.” James Cameron produced the most satanic, demonic film ever, and Christianity Today Magazine apparently doesn’t have the Bible Astute Learned Lens Sight (or B.A.L.L.S. for short) to call it like it is (see the video linked). Remember, grace has its limits, like stay-at-home dads. Now the celebrity pastor is streaming himself to a theater, er… church near you!

Traditional Marriage Buff and Christian Activist Carrie Prejean

These are just two who stick in my craw. I bet you have yours too. I just want to point out that when you have two descriptive nouns in a row, like red dog. The first one modifies the second. A red dog is not a red that happens to be a dog, it is a dog that happens to be red. Likewise a Christian celebrity is first and foremost a celebrity. A celebrity is someone who is celebrated, you know, honored, esteemed, looked up to, envied. All the things Jesus refused to take on himself. But that was then and this is now. Today celebrities reign supreme, the good looking crowd we admire and want to be like. Lately, the prophet Isaiah’s description of the true Lord of Lords and King of Kings keeps ringing in my head for some reason:

For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
(Isaiah 53:2-3)