Responding to the Cult of Celebrity
Celebrity news travels fast. Today Demi Moore announced she intends to divorce Ashton Kutcher and Google News already shows 1,259 articles on the subject.
Twitter shows that Demi Moore has 4,255,784 followers and Ashton Kutcher has 8,382,530 follwers.
How should Christians and Christian media respond to stories such as this one?
After thinking about the cult of celebrity in our world I have concluded that Christians should do three things.
1) Pray for celebrities. News can inform us in how to pray for hurting people. I call this informed intercession. We can pray for Ashton and Demi and their attorneys to make wise decisions as they go through this breakup. We can also pray that celebrities will encounter the love of Jesus Christ and be drawn to Him.
2) Boycott toxic celebrities. A psalm in the Bible says, "I will refuse to look at anything vile and vulgar ..." - Psalm 101:3 NLT. That is good advice for today's TV viewing audience.
Recently Cyndy Snider started a petition calling for E! - the cable TV network - to cancel the TV show Keeping up with the Kardashians. The petition has obtained 135,058 signatures.
According to CBS Denver, Snider is critical of Kim Kardashian's involvement in pornography: selling a sex tape and posing for a porn magazine. Other critics of Kim such as reality TV actor Spencer Pratt writing in The Huffington Post points out that Kim's marriage was a money-making event, even though Kim's mom denied it.
3) Expose the dark side of celebrity. Christian media should investigate and expose when celebrities are involved in fraud, especially televangelists and Christian authors. Televangelists have used manipulation to raise donations and authors have written dishonest autobiographies that were really fiction.
By rejecting the cult of celebrity, Christians can send our culture a message: Celebrity and earthly wealth are temporary. Instead we should focus on things that last for eternity.
"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal." - Matthew 6:19-20 NIV
