She goes to church, loves her parents and Jesus, posts appreciative Instagrams about the latest homily she heard from the pulpit.
She sings about Bad Romance, twerks onstage in skimpy outfits, performs anthems celebrating the LGBT spectrum and identifies as bisexual.
To her fans, especially the religiously inclined, she’s an icon of “provocative faith.” To me she seems pretty anodyne, even white-bread normal.
I have nothing against Lady Gaga and don’t presume to judge her inmost heart, or the heart of the writer of this piece in the Washington Post. It’s not my purpose to dump on anybody, only to address a few misperceptions. The article is about this year’s Super Bowl halftime headliner and how she exemplifies an open-hearted brand of Christianity not so far removed from that of Jesus himself. A lot of the content is not surprising: “She prays to an affirming God with expansive love, no a narrow-minded magician in the sky who damns nonbelievers to eternal conscious torment.” Her audience resembles “the group of outcasts and misfits who flocked to Jesus.” And finally, “She champions Christian values not of exclusion and discrimination but of empowerment, grace, and self-acceptance.”
Let’s unpack those values as they are understood in the culture at large.
Empowerment – I’m the one who knows me best and knows what’s best for me. So shut up and mind your own business.
Grace – That’s all. Just grace. Got a problem with that?
Self-acceptance – Of course! I mean, if you can’t accept yourself, who can you accept? And God accepts everybody, except for those who don’t accept everybody because they’re too busy not accepting to be accepted by God.
That’s what I’m picking up from the zeitgeist. The article says “Lady Gaga’s faith confounds a popular narrative of religion in America.” Um, don’t think so. Her faith is pretty much the most popular brand going. It’s flying off the shelves.
Christian faith as Jesus taught it was never popular, not even in goody-goody Victorian times or witch-burning Puritan times, much less today. Here’s a capsule version of it: Then he said to them all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). To unpack again:
Deny yourself – Don’t listen to your heart because it’s deceptive. Don’t assume that your deepest self is your best self because you’re inclined to rebellion. Look at me. Listen to me. Obey me.
Take up your cross – The life of self-denial is a struggle because you keep bumping up against your worst self. It can get discouraging, and sometimes not much fun.
Follow me – It’s a narrow road marked with bloody footprints. I know because I walked it first.
Grace – Yes, just grace. But if you knew what it cost me you might not be so glib.
Self-denial . . . Liberals don’t like it. Conservatives don’t like it. Mainstream Presbyterians don’t like it, nor Fundies either. What’s more, I don’t like it. And neither do you.
‘Cause baby, we’re born that way.
But that’s why Jesus came. And if it makes you feel any better, he denied himself first.
Because every self is different, self-denial won’t look the same in everybody. For the pious evangelical, as well as the progressive, it might mean giving up the checklist that makes you feel superior (they look very different, but they’re still checklists). For the exhibitionist, it could mean putting on some clothes and for the fundamentalist it may mean taking a few clothes off. For the conservative it could mean separating Christianity from Americanism and for the liberal, reconnecting God’s law to man’s law. For the ambitious writer (like me) it often means settling aside certain projects because I’m called to do something else. And much, much more.
But it’s worth it–because he is.
Sign me up for this excellent blog.
I loved how you unpacked the terms. Very powerful and true. All I can say is EVERY knee will bow…and EVERY tongue will confess. She will stand before her Maker and give an account.
Superb Sis. Thank u.
I’m a little speechless. How does someone like Lady GaGa feel comfortable calling herself a Christian.
I don’t understand why someone like Lady GaGa would call herself a Christian. I mean, why bother? As long as we’re making up things to suit ourselves let’s just say I’m a good person because I say I am and leave it at that.
To so grossly misrepresent the body of Christ is mystifying as it is disturbing.
But then people adore Anne Lamott. I’ve friends who say she’s a wonderful Christian that is reaching people that most Christians can’t reach, whatever that means.
As you say, we deny ourselves. That may mean becoming extremely unpopular.
In fact I think popularity is the barometer by which we can gauge our faith. The less popular it is, the more it is attacked or held in contempt, the more it is probably the cross-carrying kind.
Love this! Amen, sister!