1. Kathy says:

    Could write a long comment, but life events leave no heart-space for it. Just want to say, “Nicely done! I read the linked article about Chris Pratt. One commenter said that in heaven they were going to live on a different street from certain people. Will we really? Some how I doubt it. I have recently found myself saying, “I will be living at peace with these people in heaven. Seems like I should be practicing now.”

  2. Then there’s the additional option that this, along with his previous delusions of actually being God (and running for president), is part of his bipolar. My brother has bipolar. I know how profoundly it can impact your thoughts, words, and lifestyle. In a manic phase, my brother thought he was the son of an archangel. My brother is a Christian, but he was profoundly confused by his illness. It’s a shame that Kanye’s been put on a pedestal, because it’s enabled him to continue in a state of illness without getting the help he needs. I would wait 12 months, see what happens, and not count out that he’s a person who struggles with mental illness–which means this is more complex than most people seem to want to admit. Perhaps this is the real Kanye showing through, and the rest is the bipolar. Who knows? But there’s no way in heck he should be put on any sort of pedestal. Still, there he is… so he needs grace and kindness and strong leadership. As do we all… but him more than most of us because of the unique combination of popularity and illness. Hope that makes sense… I’m not being down on Kanye. I just hope he’s healthy and getting good support, and that this is the result of that. Rather than the other way around.

  3. notleia says:

    Fred the Slacktivist wrote some about how the Kardashians may become the biggest influence in the evangelicalism.
    The thing is, they run in the same circles as prosperity gospel peddlers like Paula White-Cain. They’re the kind of capitalists who are trying to trademark things like “kimono” and “rise and shine” that create no value for the consumer but makes them buttloads of money.
    I guess I feel about them the way I feel about the the Green family of Hobby Lobby — peddlers of cheap particleboard crap who fund tomb robbers and museum thieves in the archaeological black market in order to stock their Bible museum.
    So I have lots of cynical feelings about them but for different reasons. But I can back it up scripturally because whatever your feelings about works-based anything, words are cheap and faith without works is dead. Kanye can afford to release an album of him belching into the microphone without much damage to his status.

    This has been your Cynicism Moment with Notleia.

  4. Since I’m conlanging hacker slang for the next half of this century, I can inform you that “finna” is a version of “finally.”

    Bob Dylan’s three-year embrace of music as a ministry sent me into spasms of new believer exultation and his retirement from the ministry wasn’t the end of his musical career nor was it a verdict on the sincerity of his relationship with God.

    I guess that puts me firmly in the “Praise God! Let’s see how this turns out ” camp.

  5. I guess my response is ‘this could be good if it’s genuine, so let’s wait and see’. But then it could be really bad, too. If someone is in the public eye AND they’re Christian, one has to hope they conduct themselves well, otherwise it will probably hurt more than it helps.

    Not wanting to put a brand new Christian on a pedestal or leadership position is a legitimate concern. Of course experienced Christians can easily have problems too, but any big life transition can be pretty turbulent. A new Christian is still getting used to adjusting their lives or even figuring out how to act on their new beliefs in a constructive way.

    This kind of reminds me of a youtuber that was once kinda famous in the Warrior Cats community. He was an atheist, but converted to Christianity and started including that in his videos. It was fine at first, but then apparently he said something on Twitter that angered everyone and got him pushed out of the community. I didn’t see that controversy and don’t know exactly what he said. But as everyone dragged his name through the mud, they shared screenshots of conversations that were less than stellar, but no worse than the millions of other youtube comments people leave without any major repercussions. Considering that many people were supportive enough of him before, though, (Christianity and all) one can presume and hope what he said on Twitter was actually a big deal.

    But even though many were supportive of him at first, there were still comments from people that weren’t happy about his faith. Like, during the fallout of his ‘banishment’, there were comments saying that when he first came out as Christian, their reaction was like ‘oh great, another Christian youtuber’. (As if there weren’t tons of nonChristian youtubers already…) So seeing this guy come out as Christian, be on a pedestal, then fall from grace, is just another thing they can point to to reinforce their negativity towards anything remotely resembling Christianity.

    What people won’t understand(in many cases) is that this is less about the guy’s faith and more about his maturity levels as a person. In one of his early podcasts talking about his conversion, he was talking about what a die hard atheist he used to be, and if I recall correctly, he even mentioned that he might have been the kind that would have thought religious people must have a mental illness of some kind.

    But that was such a small comment. Maybe a lot of people missed it, and the videos containing it might not be up anymore. Even some people supportive of his faith might have had an increase in negativity towards Christians. Maybe not a lot, and maybe they ‘know’ that this was more about who he is as a person and that not all Christians are like that. But in their hearts, seeing situations like this over and over might reinforce an unconscious bias towards Christians or at least conservatives.

    So, yeah, definitely should be careful about the pedestals we put anyone on, especially new Christians that are still figuring themselves out. Same for experienced Christians, though. People should be careful when saying they know the way(or even just acting like they know). Instead, it’s often better to be like ‘here’s what I think and why’ or ‘I’m on a journey like everyone else, so here is my perspective on this issue at this time’.

  6. Esther says:

    Thanks, E. Stephen Burnett.

  7. Jes Drew says:

    I lived under a rock when it came to pre-conversion Kanye West. Didn’t really know about him until suddenly everyone was talking about his conversion. But boy did I thank God to find out about another brother in Christ. He definitely needs a lot of prayer, because you know the evil one is going to be doing counter-measures

What do you think?