Celebrity Preachers...?

In our culture today news and media is typically bombarded and dominated with scandals of immoral, obscene and ludicrous aspects of famous Hollywood superstars. The lifestyles of celebrities is closely watch and scrutinized things such as how they eat, drink, sleep and socialize greatly shapes and manipulate how as humans we perceive and undertake those same obligations.

Chris Ahrens was featured in a local San Diego newspaper sharing his longing to give celebrities an opportunity to share something greater than the new diet fad or even the details of their current fling of the week instead providing them with an opportunity to share their views on Jesus Christ, faith, spirituality, Scripture and religion in their lives overall. He founded the website celebritypreacher.com. On this website, celebrities are interviewed and given the chance to proclaim their faith and beliefs.

My curiosity was sparked when I read the list of celebrities who have contributed to the website thus far, not because I was judging them but because I felt a certain sense of disconnection between what they believe and what they do. We are all called to proclaim our faith, to not only believe in it, but to walk in it, daily. How would being a superstar prohibit or inhibit that? We (including myself) are faced with this issue daily and we are not even superstars (or at least I do not think anyone in our class is).

Life (A.K.A. the world) makes it nearly impossible for us to live in line with our faith. I cannot even begin to understand both the external and internal issues that celebrities are faced with in having to perhaps live this double life. Do I think it is right? No, and overall I think this is what this class has taught me personally, integration is not just a product of combining theology with psychology but it is about becoming integrated. The process by which we can integrate our faith into our practice, knowing that our perception will change as will our circumstances but neither can truly determine our character and our relationship with Jesus.

Overall, I chose to blog about this because I enjoyed the videos of celebrities proclaiming their faith. I would encourage the readers to watch as it helped to gain a better image of the celebrities beyond their “title in Hollywood” and in the eyes of the Savior.