The news cycles and Twitter trends of recent weeks have reminded us of just how degraded and inane American pop culture can be. Without commenting on the details of sex changes and molestation, I would recommend that Christians take this opportunity to reflect on the perennial question of the church’s relationship to culture. I understand the impulse to bring light and truth into the hot news topics of the day, but at what point does evangelical reflection on the sexual dysfunctions of celebrities simply perpetuate the problem?
In the case of the Duggars, the answer is more obvious – evangelicals largely created their celebrity status and political influence, and now are participating in Josh Duggar’s Icarus-like crash. In the case of Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner, fewer evangelicals (hopefully) contributed to building up the Kardashian phenomenon, but now we gawk with the rest of America at a man (who says he’s a woman) and his family who have the camera exposure to enact their self-destruction in full public view.
As Americans, we like to watch these things happen – watching them is one of our primary uses for television and social media. We’re entertained by it, even as we politely express our revulsion (or in the case of some with Jenner, congratulations).
Not that these problems with media are new – at least since George Whitefield became the first modern celebrity of any kind in the eighteenth century, people have speculated and profited upon the sin and personal struggles of preachers, entertainers, and politicians. (In Whitefield’s case, it involved the nature of the “abominable secret sin” that he indiscreetly mentioned in his autobiography.) Such speculation is more immediately available and pervasive today, but not new. Thus, we Christians don’t need to spend much energy lamenting how much worse things are today than in some pristine past.
Nevertheless, Christians need to take a hard look at how they participate in celebrity gawking. It would be strange if prominent evangelicals made no comments on Jenner, the Duggars, or whoever the sensational celebrity of the week is. But as best we can, Christians’ approach to these celebrities needs to be muted, erring on the side of love rather than self-righteousness. Be mindful always that “but for the grace of God go I.” Yes, we will need to speak up about the ways our culture is abandoning the wisdom of millennia about the nature of human beings, sex, and gender, and about the way in which churches and evangelical culture can tragically foster sexual abuse. But let’s steer clear of lurid wallowing in the details.
Let’s be especially careful about letting celebrity scandal dictate our weekly intake and output. Let’s not make these topics a primary focus of our sermons, our dinner-table conversations, or even our social media feeds. No amount of complaining and denouncing by evangelicals will change America’s degraded culture of sex and celebrity. We do have control over the culture of our churches, our homes, and even the culture of our own mouths and eyes. Let’s guard them carefully.
See also Peter Leithart’s “How to Preach About Bruce Jenner.”
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