Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Divine Nobodies

The current online issue of Next-Wave features a reprinted excerpt of a book by Jim Palmer entitled Divine Nobodies: Waffle House Theology. It served as a good antidote to The Church of Celebrity.

For that matter, so did Len Hjalmarson's recent post on The Kingdom Prayer. I particularly appreciated the closing paragraph:

In this world direct assault tends to perpetuate injustice. As a result, the Kingdom of God works in a way that seems foolish to the wise: where we expect power, the kingdom path often leads through weakness. The Son of God dies the death of a criminal, and wins a great victory. Between the times God’s kingdom rule is expressed in weakness and humility.

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Monday, August 13, 2007

The Church of Celebrity

Some time ago I audited a course on the theology of film. Tonight a particular clip that was played in that course came back to mind — the opening voice-over by Susan Sarandon to the movie Bull Durham: "I believe in the Church of Baseball."

I think I was in a church like that this morning (or rather, yesterday morning now, I suppose). Not of baseball specifically, but sports definitely. And not of sport in its widest sense, just the celebrity sense. And while sport celebrity certainly dominated the liturgy, there were numerous spots given to celebrities from music and other pop-culture spheres. One of the curious features of this church was that as numerous as the quotations and illustrations from various celebrities were, far more time and emphasis was placed on establishing the bona fide celebrity credentials of the individual than was spent on the actual quotation or specific illustration.

Celebrity also seemed to me to be a key component of the principal text for the day — a quote attributed to Neil Young along the lines of getting yourself noticed in the biggest, widest circle possible and not settling simply for Moose Jaw. Ironically, the only scriptural reference was from Ecclesiastes — and of course the author's celebrity bona fides had to be established by virtue of his wealth and his 1000 wives — for whom "Celebrity" would certainly have been included within the ambit of all that was "vanity of vanities and chasing after the wind".

I can suppose that the speaker thought he was encouraging people to go out and make a difference in the lives of people. And indeed the closing movie clip from Pay it Forward could have really reinforced that message. But for me, the omnipresent underlying theme music of "Celebrity is Everything" just drowned everything out, and changed it all from "making the difference that you can" to "go big or go home".

Another irony, perhaps, lies in the fact that everywhere else God seems to be speaking into my heart and mind that trying to make a name for oneself is the perennial human sin problem. God has already made a name for me, a name that He alone knows now, but which He will reveal to me at the changing of the age. It is the name that God bestows by grace that is my true name, not that which I could make for myself. The irony lies precisely in this: reminders that it is God that is at work to bring about His Mission in the world, and we get to join in with Him like little kids following Dad around with their plastic lawnmowers actually encourage me to get out there with Him, working hard at whatever my hands find to do — but messages like that from the Church of Celebrity, cajoling me to get out of Moose Jaw and go for the gusto just leave me deeply depressed. And I don't think I am alone in that.

Two years ago, when I first became involved with this particular faith community, I found it tremendously refreshing that I did not have to put on a particular mask in order to be accepted and welcomed into the community. Today, however, I was keenly aware of how thoroughly that had changed — how much pain, uncertainty, and confusion lay hidden behind the masks of proper social behaviour all around me. And I was painfully aware that, no matter how much I needed these people, I simply have no more strength to put on the masks necessary to keep the connections up.

In short, I recognized that I felt profoundly homeless yet once again.

And in between I wonder, can the Church of Celebrity ever become the Church of Broken, Humble Servants once again?

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