All Hell Breaks Loose

As most of you know I tend to keep this blog free from this sort of thing but this is worth seeing. I commend Brit Hume for his open comments.

Just Another Opinion...

As tragic as Micheal Jackson's death is, the endless media coverage is even more so. Carl Trueman paints an accurate picture: I never liked Jackson's music but he was clearly a hugely popular and talented entertainer. And he continues to entertain in death -- not just because his records can be played but, at least for a week or two, because the media are able to play his death as one more big showbiz event, burying the tragedy of real death, real bereavement, and really shattered and terminated relationships under the schmaltz of the faux-bereavement of his fans through the sanitizing and distancing medium of television and video. Of course, the response to his death by the people on the street says a lot about the importance of entertainment in our age, indeed, about the idolatries of the modern world. But is also tells us something about the entertainment media. Like casinos in Las Vegas, come rain or shine, the House always wins.

On Personality Cults...

Such fan bases, such personality cults, are nothing new. They afflicted the church in Corinth, and they have been an ever-present malady ever since. Psychologists could no doubt have a field day here. Transposition of filial affection to a surrogate parent figure, a desperate need to belong to a group: both of these can offer plausible, second-level explanations for such commitment and surely contain important truths. At root, however, the problem is even more serious: the Christian, biblical perspective has to be that what we see in such relationships is idolatry. The Bible is clear that idol worshipers take on the characteristics of their idols. Worship a dumb statue and you will become dumb (Ps. 115); we might add that, if you worship a professor or teacher or pastor, you will come to be like them, warts and all, and probably in an exaggerated way. That is why so many professorial disciples sound like cheap, lightweight versions of the original. They are basically idolaters and what you see in their lives and language is the inevitable result of their idolatry. - Carl Trueman.

Read the whole article here - well worth a read.