Loving the Word with the MudPreacher

I enjoy relaxing on Mondays, my supposed day off. I like to read the various news feeds I have, and one led me to look into a new Bible which has been recently published.  It got my blood boiling just a bit, especially when I heard a lady in this video clip say something like “There is nothing wrong with using people in the media and entertainment world as role models. They do a lot of good!” Sad to say, most people think like her. Why else would we use celebrities and rock stars to sell God and His Word? “Bible Illuminated: The Book” is a new Bible that contains “striking, provocative, contemporary photographs” of world news as well as celebrities such as Angelina Jolie and Bono, according to illuminatedworld.com.

On top of this I was greeted by my favorite sliced and diced celebrity in the Kansas City Star this morning. In a little blurb in the FYI section, Joan Rivers is quoted as saying: “I wish I could say I was a religious person,” she said. “I believe in God, but I also think God dropped you on Earth and said, ‘I’m giving you brains, you can think. I’ve given you all these things now go and do it.’ I don’t believe that God’s looking down on each of us and saying, ‘Oh, Joan has gained 4 pounds, I’m going to let her lose weight today.’ No, he’s saying, ‘I gave you a brain, now get out of my face.’” (Clearly God had nothing to do with your face-that is now totally man-made)

So I wanted to find out, what do Celebrities and Rock Stars (our role models according to some) have to say about God? In fact, since Angelina is featured in “Bible Illuminated”, what does she believe?

When Angelina Jolie was asked “Is there a God?” by “The Onion”, she replied: “Hmm… For some people, I hope so, for them. For the people who believe in it, I hope so. There doesn’t need to be a God for me. There’s something in people that’s spiritual, that’s godlike. I don’t feel like doing things just because people say things, but I also don’t really know if it’s better to just not believe in anything, either.”

So Angelina doesn’t need a God! Sounds like a great role model for selling God’s Word!

God According to Celebrities and Rock Stars

Here are just a few more samples of ‘God according to Celebrities and Rock Stars’:

When asked by the Onion “Is there a God?” Trey Anastasio (sings and plays guitar in rock band Phish): “[Pauses.] I should have had a quick, witty answer to that question, but I missed my window. I’ll say… I don’t know if there’s a God.”

Onion: … People look for the solution to life’s issues through celebrities and rock stars. (I know that is where I look!-mudpreacher)

Trey Anastasio: That’s the most bizarre thing I’ve ever heard in my life, that anyone would… Did you ever see the episode of The Simpsons where Lisa becomes a vegetarian? She tells Homer about how she met Paul and Linda McCartney, and he says, “Rock stars. Is there anything they don’t know?” I think that really sums it up. If there is a God, He’s definitely a rock star. (Oh No! Now the Simpson’s are the authorities! Are they our role models too?)

Martha Plimpton’s (remember Goonies?): God exists, and He lives in all the little salt particles in children’s tears all over Africa. (That is so cute, and touching. Imagine, a God of salt! Remember Lot’s wife? Maybe she turned into Martha’s god.)

Two years later the Onion asked some more “stars” (The Onion in 2002):

John Leguizamo (actor): Yeah, but there’s not just one God. There’s a whole lot of gods, because one God couldn’t have possibly made so many mistakes all by Himself. This had to be done by committee. (Now God makes mistakes, and with so many mistakes, he must be a whole bunch of gods.)

Steven Wright: Ahhh… You’ll have to ask Jesus. (The mudpreacher actually likes this answer, because Jesus said “I am the way, the truth and the life, no man comes to the Father but by me)

Chris Matthews (hosts Hardball With Chris Matthews every weeknight on MSNBC) Yes. In 1978, I was in a plane situation, flying in a plane without air pressure. I’d never been in a situation where the air was disappearing from the cabin, where you had to put the mask on, and I was scared to death. I didn’t know whether I could get air, and I remember putting on the oxygen mask—scared to death that it wouldn’t work—and at that moment, I imagined God. He was a guy with a beard, Jewish probably, although not overly ethnic, from 2,000 years ago. I imagine Jesus as God. That’s my only response to that question. (I am so glad to know that God revealed himself to Chris. I am disappointed that he didn’t see for sure that God is Jewish. It makes sense though, since Jesus was Jewish.)

Bill Maher (From a June 07, 2006 article titled Bill Maher takes on Religion in New Documentary in SlashFilm): “I’m not an atheist. There’s a really big difference between an atheist and someone who just doesn’t believe in religion. Religion to me is a bureaucracy between man and God that I don’t need. But I’m not an atheist, no.” I believe there’s some force. If you want to call it God… I don’t believe God is a single parent who writes books. I think that the people who think God wrote a book called The Bible are just childish. Religion is so childish. What they’re fighting about in the Middle East, it’s so childish. These myths, these silly little stories that they believe in fundamentally, that they take over this little space in Jerusalem where one guy flew up to heaven? No, no, this guy performed a sacrifice here a thousand million years ago. It’s like, “Who cares? What does that have to do with spirituality, where you’re really trying to get, as a human being and as a soul moving in the universe?” But I do believe in a God, yes.” (Excuse me, but I need a translator to figure this comment out)

Jack Nicholson: (1992 interview in Vanity Fair) “I don’t believe in God now,” but he added that “I can still work up an envy for someone who has a faith. I can see how that could be a deeply soothing experience.” (Jack has a soft side after all! Let’s pray he softens further until he comes to Jesus!)

Woody Allen: “If it turns out that there is a God, I don’t think that he’s evil. But the worst that you can say about him is that basically he’s an underachiever.” (It would be a scary thing to see the world through this man’s eyes) “I do not believe in an afterlife, although I am bringing a change of underwear.” (Cute, but a change of underwear won’t help where you are going)

Carrie Fisher: “I love the idea of God, but it’s not stylistically in keeping with the way I function. I would describe myself as an enthusiastic agnostic who would be happy to be shown that there is a God. I can see that people who believe in God are happier. My brother is. My dad is, too. But I doubt.” as recorded by Jon Winokur, editor, in The Portable Curmudgeon Redux, 1992, p. 302.  (Does she mean that God does not go with her shoes?)

Julianne Moore (Actor’s Studio December 22, 2002): The host asked (paraphrased) “What would you say to God at the pearly gates?” Moore answered (not paraphrased) “Wow, I was wrong, you really do exist.” (Sorry Julianne, but you will never even get close to the pearly gates)

Mira Sorvino: According to an interview in the August 15-17, 1997 issue of USA Weekend, when Sorvino was little girl, she was horrified after learning about the genocide perpetrated by Idi Amin in Uganda in the 1970s. When USA Weekend asked about her reaction to these horrors, Sorvino said, “I couldn’t believe a conscientious God would let so many people get killed. These things blew my mind. In a way, I couldn’t understand the world.” (Boo-Hoo, God gets blamed for so many things that we don’t understand)

Robert Redford (Playboy magazine, November 2007): Problems can’t be solved with one way of thinking. If anything is my guide, nature is. That’s where my spirituality is. I don’t believe in organized religion, because I don’t believe people should be organized in how they think, in what they believe. That has never been driven home as hard as with this administration. When somebody thinks God speaks to him, you’ve got trouble. If God is speaking to the president, he’s speaking with a forked tongue, because the behavior of this administration doesn’t seem very godlike or spiritual. (Nature speaks the truth and God speaks with a forked tongue…Have you ever read about the serpent and Adam and Eve? I think you have it backward!)

Phyllis Diller (Nov 2001) How does she {Phyllis Diller} visualize the hereafter? “There isn’t any, you dingbat!” she replies as she lets out that legendary, raucous laugh: Ahhha… Ha… Ha… Ha… Haaah. This is it, baby! Enjoy, carefully! Religion is such a medieval idea. Don’t get me started. I have thought about every facet of religion and I can’t buy any of it.” She pauses and with a subtle smile continues; “So God made man in His own image? It’s just the other way around. Man made God in his own image.” (Sad but true, most people make a god that fits their ‘style’, one who goes with their own way of living!)

Cyndi Lauper: God has more important things to worry about than who I sleep with. (I don’t even know how to respond to this)

Ellen DeGeneres: In the beginning there was nothing. God said, ‘Let there be light!’ And there was light. There was still nothing, but you could see it a whole lot better. (Ellen, is everything a joke to you? Better get all your laughs now, because there will be no stand-up comedy in Hell!)

Jennifer Aniston: I don’t have a religion. I believe in a God. I don’t know what it looks like but it’s MY god. My own interpretation of the supernatural. (Finally an honest celebrity that admits she has made her own god!)

And then there are those who think they are God: Voice Of God Revealed To Be Cheney On Intercom “In a transcript of an intercom exchange recorded in March 2002, a voice positively identified as the vice president’s identifies himself as “the Lord thy God” and promotes the invasion of Iraq, as well as the use of torture in prisoner interrogations.” (I believe this was a spoof, but it is very funny. It could explain some things)

I find all of these comments amusing, but unsettling, because so many people do indeed look up to these people as role models. Our society is heavily influenced by the entertainment world. I laugh when I think of what the True Creator God is thinking. He reveals His thoughts to us in Psalms 2. The Message Translation is quite descriptive:

Why the big noise, nations? Why the mean plots, peoples? Earth-leaders push for position, Demagogues and delegates meet for summit talks, The God-deniers, the Messiah-defiers: “Let’s get free of God! Cast loose from Messiah!” Heaven-throned God breaks out laughing. At first he’s amused at their presumption; Then he gets good and angry. Furiously, he shuts them up:  “Don’t you know there’s a King in Zion? A coronation banquet Is spread for him on the holy summit.” Psalms 2:1-6 (MSG)

One day (soon I believe) all the gossip rags will be kindling for those who denied Jesus Christ, and calloused their heart to the truth of their Creator God. They worshipped a god of their own making, and experienced the truth of Romans 1:25-26 (MSG):

“And all this because they traded the true God for a fake god, and worshiped the god they made instead of the God who made them—the God we bless, the God who blesses us. Oh, yes!  Worse followed. Refusing to know God, they soon didn’t know how to be human either—women didn’t know how to be women, men didn’t know how to be men.”

God reveals in Romans 1 the result of making and worshipping your own god–depravity, lack of shame, loss of moral values. Isn’t that everything Hollywood and Rock and Roll stands for? Anything goes-without apology, without shame.

Well, at least I kind of like Bono being pictured in the Bible. In Bono: In Conversation with Michka Assayas (Riverhead Books), he mentioned his belief in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. Assayas questions that:

Assayas: That’s a great idea, no denying it. Such great hope is wonderful, even though it’s close to lunacy, in my view. Christ has his rank among the world’s great thinkers. But Son of God, isn’t that farfetched?

Bono: No, it’s not farfetched to me. Look, the secular response to the Christ story always goes like this: he was a great prophet, obviously a very interesting guy, had a lot to say along the lines of other great prophets, be they Elijah, Muhammad, Buddha, or Confucius. But actually Christ doesn’t allow you that. He doesn’t let you off that hook. Christ says: No. I’m not saying I’m a teacher, don’t call me teacher. I’m not saying I’m a prophet. I’m saying: “I’m the Messiah.” I’m saying: “I am God incarnate.” And people say: No, no, please, just be a prophet. A prophet, we can take. You’re a bit eccentric. We’ve had John the Baptist eating locusts and wild honey, we can handle that. But don’t mention the “M” word! Because, you know, we’re gonna have to crucify you. And he goes: No, no. I know you’re expecting me to come back with an army, and set you free from these creeps, but actually I am the Messiah. At this point, everyone starts staring at their shoes, and says: Oh, my God, he’s gonna keep saying this. So what you’re left with is: either Christ was who He said He was—the Messiah—or a complete nutcase. I mean, we’re talking nutcase on the level of Charles Manson. This man was like some of the people we’ve been talking about earlier. This man was strapping himself to a bomb, and had “King of the Jews” on his head, and, as they were putting him up on the Cross, was going: OK, martyrdom, here we go. Bring on the pain! I can take it. I’m not joking here. The idea that the entire course of civilization for over half of the globe could have its fate changed and turned upside-down by a nutcase, for me, that’s farfetched …

Bono, you hit it right on the head. This world is hurtling through space toward a head-on collision with the truth of God Word. That’s why the time has come to heed the warning from God’s Word:

Psalms 2:10-12 (MSG) “So, rebel-kings, use your heads; Upstart-judges, learn your lesson: Worship God in adoring embrace, Celebrate in trembling awe. Kiss Messiah! Your very lives are in danger, you know; His anger is about to explode, But if you make a run for God—you won’t regret it!”