Revering Celebrities
By Amanda Markel
Ever since Hollywood has been the center of the entertainment scene in America, people have been obsessed with stars. This obsession has taken different forms over the years, from the old bus tours of the neighborhoods that celebrities lived in in the 1950s, to today’s tendency to think that because someone is a star they should hold public office. We have revered these people– occasionally going as far as committing the sin of idolizing them.
Reality TV has made this an even more dangerous prospect because the people that have become “stars” in our home via the television are often promoted as being regular people like you and me, even though they have their own TV show.
This has been especially apparent recently. Most people by now have heard of the famed Duggar family, consisting of a father, mother, their 19 children, and more recently, grandchildren. Even if you hadn’t heard about them in the last 10 years that they’ve starred in specials and later their own series on TLC, you’ve likely heard about them recently because of a scandal involving the oldest Duggar child.
This has been difficult for many people, particularly Christians, to process. Why? Because the Duggar family has long been advertised as the “perfect” Christian family. They looked good on paper (or the screen, as the case may be). They were outspoken about their faith, shown praying together, serving together, reading the Bible together. They seemed like a family that Christians should want to emulate, and many Christians did, without thinking twice about it.
What a lot of people didn’t realize before the Duggars were thrown under a less pleasing spotlight than the one to which they had grown accustomed, and might still not know, is that the Duggars are not your typical Christian family. In fact, they belong to what many of us would classify as a cult. The limited exposure to their Christian life might have looked good to us on TV, because the producers of their show were able to pick and choose what they showed us, and they primarily chose only the more mainstream aspects of their faith to highlight. But if you dig even just a bit deeper, you will discover alarming elements to their theology, their views on women and family life, and the leadership of their church.
We often think that if something has a Christian label on it, we can abandon the need for Christian discernment. But we need to consider who is labeling things as Christian. Is it someone trying to sell something to us? This could be a TV producer, a musician, and author, or even a pastor. And if they are trying to sell themselves or their product, they are going to try to get us to believe that they’re just like us, that they believe the same things we do, that they share our faith, whatever it takes to get us to spend our money.
The need for Christian discernment has never been greater than it is today. We are bombarded from every angle with things claiming to be Christian…thing on TV, the radio, on website and in bookstores, even from churches. If we fail to do any research because we’ve been lulled into a false sense of security by the Christian label on these items, we run the risk of slowly falling into a trap of believing that the things they’re selling to us are good and right. We may get bogged down in a law-based culture like the ones the Duggars live in without even realizing it, and we may forget that we need to hear the Gospel as well.
We as Christians need to be very careful who we choose as our role models, where we spend our money, and what principles we’re buying into. It can be easy to think that anything with the word Christian stamped on it, anything that shows a Bible or a family praying is a good thing that belongs in our lives. Satan would love for us to believe the lies the world is selling, instead of the truth that God has given us in His Word. Be ever vigilant, and make sure you know what you’re buying, and that it lines up with the Word of God!
Photo Credit to Tom Mascardo. Creative Commons license.
6 Comments
Jenna Parshall
Well done Amanda! Thank you so much for this very important and timely reminder.
Heather
Amanda,
I am not an expert on this family. Can you please elaborate on what you had written?
Who ever said the Duggars were perfect? (I have heard the parents say the opposite.)
“…the Duggars are not your typical Christian family. In fact, they belong to what many of us would classify as a cult.”
What makes them cult members? Please be specific.
“But if you dig even just a bit deeper, you will discover alarming elements to their theology, their views on women and family life, and the leadership of their church.” Can you please name the things that you found alarming in their theology, views on women and family life, and the leadership of their church? I am not sure which things you are referring to.
It seems to me that the great scandal that the world sees here is that they responded to their son with both law and gospel. How would you improve how they dealt with the situation?
katieluthersisters
Heather,
This article will address some of your questions. //thefederalist.com/2015/05/29/7-takeaways-from-the-duggar-family-sex-abuse-tragedy/
–Holly
Heather
Thank you Holly. This does explain some things.
I watched the interviews that Megan Kelly did. I know that Josh Duggar has confessed that what he did was wrong. He used the word mistake. I don’t know that we can say that he did not think of it as sinful based on his choice of words. He confessed it to his parents years ago. Nobody knows what he said then. His parents sure seemed to make it clear that what he did was very bad.
Lance Brown
First, let me say that I think the last 3 paragraphs of this post are great. And I think much more can and should be written about that. But I have a hard time understanding why that message needs to be mixed up with the ongoing shaming of the Duggar family.
I don’t watch their show. I know slightly more than nothing about their lives. I don’t share their fundagelical theology. And I don’t condone sexual abuse AT ALL. But I really don’t see any justification for the way people from all sorts of political and religious contexts have been talking about these folks.
I try to avoid getting caught up in celebrity madness. And I despise the way serious issues are trivialized and turned into a media circus. For those reasons and more I have largely stayed away from the Duggar scandal. But after watching two of the victims (both Duggar daughters) speak to Megyn Kelly in the lengthy interview referenced above by Heather I honestly do not understand why I should feel or think anything bad about these people. The only reason I even watched the interview was because so many Confessional Lutherans were blogging about the Duggars. The article linked above on The Federalist and the discussions it spawned on social media made me think I should investigate this. Judging by the accounts of those two very impressive and obviously educated women (who did not seem brainwashed or oppressed to me)I am left to conclude that most of what people have been saying about this just wasn’t true. I believe the whole reason for this being a media sensation was that Josh Duggar worked at the Family Research Council and his family are social conservatives. That’s it. And a lot of folks (on the left and the right) who despise social conservatism and see the word “evangelical” as being simply a voter demographic category felt like getting their two minutes hate.
I have heard some of my Jewish friends and prominent Jewish public intellectuals lament that for most Jews in America today being Jewish is mostly about being NOT Christian. It often seems like many Lutherans are more concerned about being NOT evangelical than being Lutheran. Who really thinks that some family on a “reality” TV show represents Christianity as a whole? Who thinks they represent Lutheranism? Why is it the duty of faithful Confessional Lutherans to join in the flogging and shaming of this family?
I’m sorry if I’m being unfair with my remarks here. Maybe I’m just not in the target demo but it seems to me like this is very different from aggressively going after false teachers like Joel Osteen or Creflo Dollar or even going after the bad theology of the Duggars (which was just as flawed 6 months ago as it is now). There are lots of other false or heretical representations of Christianity out there that don’t seem to be getting as much attention because they don’t fit a media narrative around social issues.
marian volek
I have never cared about the Duggers, but friends, colleagues, co-workers comment–and it more likely than not involves “gee, and these Christian people do this–” I can’t respond, because I have never watched or known much about the TV series–so Thanks for this discussion, which has given me some needed information for “response.” Christianity gets attacked in so many bizarre ways, it’s hard to even react. Now, what do I say when everyone “gushes” over how lovely “Caitlyn” Jenner looks—am I delusional or—? “He” looks like an overly photoshopped–well, man!–yikes! Thanks for this forum to vent!