Celebrity-Christians

I have recently been hearing a LOT about Tony Dungy's faith. When I say a LOT, I don't mean in content but in frequency. This usually happens when anyone on a Super Bowl winning team goes to church or prays or if they've just read "Wild at Heart."
(Seriously. Jon Kitna read "Wild at Heart" during his "comeback" with the Bengals a few years ago and Christians went nuts over him)

We Christians go batty when celebrities turn out to be Christians... or if Celebrities have even read a Christian book. Why? Does this mean for instance that the Colts are a Christian team? Does this mean that good Christians can't root for their own godless football teams because Tony Dungy prays? Woe to me and my heathen Broncos! No, I don't think its about that. We hear about these celebrity Christians because like most Americans, Christians are obsessed with celebrity. We bow at the cult of celebrity with the rest of our VH1 viewing countrymen.

What is it about Christians going batty for Celebrities becoming (or turning out to be) Christians? Evangelicals spend a lot of time and energy maligning Hollywood and celebrities but as soon as one of them turns out to be "one of us," then all criticism is laid aside and we get them a book deal and tv time as soon as evangelically possible. It seems to me that the reasons throngs of people are obsessed with celebrities are the same reasons that Christians are also obsessed with Christian-celebrities. Celebrities are people used to live out vicarious fantasy lives. Why do so many people care about who Paris Hilton is dating? Because in some way or another her dating life is either a vicarious way for them to be in a relationship or is a false promise that they can one day also be that famous, that adored and that rich. We fawn over celebrities not so much based on their merit as much as the hope that one day we too can be like them.

This is a problem for Christians because our Lord did not come to show us 7 highly-effective habits for our best life now! He revealed the upside-down Kingdom of God where the poor and marginalized are first class citizens and the rich and famous are last. While the "saints" of popular culture tell us that we can be anything we want to if we just work hard enough, or are shocking enough or have the right body, Jesus tells us that we can be his disciples if we are willing to give all that up. Jesus' message is in direct competition with the celebrity-message.

The problem is that we are a people so shaped by celebrity we tend to buy into the unspoken assumptions that come along with it. We start to think that "successful" people are famous, rich and beautiful. We define success by how high one can climb on the social ladder. Celebrities obviously fit this model of success. So when a Christian becomes a celebrity or better yet, when an already-Celebrity becomes a Christian, in some kind of round-about way it legitimizes our own faith. "See, Christians can be successful too! We're also cool and famous!"

One of the many problems with holding up the image of a celebrity Christian is that we rarely examine the content of their faith and certainly don't hold them to much of any standard. It is not their theology or lived out practice that makes them a good example, it is their status as a celebrity. We Evangelicals particularly fall into this trap because we think that celebrity Christians are automatically great evangelists based on their fame alone. Walk into any Christia... I mean Family Christian Bookstore and see how many celebrity Christian books you find on the shelves. Chuck Norris, Kurt Warner, Stephen Baldwin, Joe Gibbs just to name a few. And why? Because we think we can harness the power that comes with the cult of celebrity (and I mean cult in the most literal sense) for evangelistic good. It's a nice idea, but it's wrong. As Marshall McLuhan said, "the medium is the message." If we think we can take the cult of celebrity with it idolatrous tenancies and preoccupation with wealth and fame and just plug Christians into that model and still be true to the gospel we're sadly deceived. Instead we will produce a "gospel" that will be overly spiritual (to the point of being gnostic) and reinforce our own desire for wealth, fame and influence.

This is the same kind of mentality that says to youth pastors, first reach out to the "cool" kids because where they go, the rest will follow. The problem with this is of course that it's counter to what Jesus taught us! He tells us to reach out to the least of these, the unpopular, the uncool, the nerds, the kids who don't bathe as often as they should because the Kingdom of God looks like these! The "good news" is not that unpopular kids or unemployed adults can become Christian and then climb the social ladder to the places where Tony Dungy and Chuck Norris reside. The gospel is that even when the world says you're unsuccessful, lame, oppressed, poor that Jesus meets you there... Jesus lives there and that the Kingdom of God is not like this world. The first shall be last in his Kingdom and the last shall be first! The gospel says that it is more honorable to hang out with dying people who can't help you network, who won't ever write you a good reference than it is to win the super bowl.

When we don't examine their theology or lived out practices beyond statements like "George Bush goes to a study on the book 'The Prayer of Jabez' every month," we get what we deserve, a Christianity more concerned with celebrity than with discipleship. The above quote is enough for a great deal of Christians to believe that Bush is a Christian in the exact same way they are a Christian, that he is concerned with discipleship and becoming more and more like Christ every day but going to a Prayer of Jabez study does not a disciple make! Now, I'm trying really hard not to say "George Bush is not a Christian." I'm not saying that. What I am saying is that if we really think he is a Christian and are going to hold him up as an example for other Christians we'd better know more of his story than "he read the Prayer of Jabez."

"It is through your kneeling and holding hands that they shall know you are my people."
- Jesus?

It is this same rush to claim someone as our own that results in Enlightenment-deists who denied the divinity of Christ, like Thomas Jefferson and other "founding fathers" to be held up as Evangelical heroes. Few bother to examine what they actually believed and lived, it's enough for us that Jefferson mentioned a "higher power" once and we're happy to claim him as our own.

Maybe our "Christian celebrities" should be people like Shane Claiborne and Mother Teresa rather than already-celebrities who happen to be Christian. Christian Saints are witnesses to us that following Jesus into the dumps, to the margins of society is what the Kingdom is all about. Christian martyrs are witnesses to us that we too can one day resist living on the world's terms, that we can live in the way of Jesus even if it means we will be killed for doing so.

So is it nice that Tony Dungy is a Christian? Sure. But Tony Dungy and You and I are called to be disciples of Jesus Christ and that journey does not end in celebrity. It is not a journey of "climbing the ladder" but it is a journey of humility, of faithfulness to God in the way of Jesus. So all of us Christians, Tony Dungy included, need to keep our eyes fixed on the example of the Saints, of the martyrs and most importantly of our Lord, and not that of celebrity-Christians.

Labels: Funny, Sports, Theology