"Sound" Doctrine

Lady G in her "meat" dress

Lady Gaga tops the record charts for the last two and a half years. She appears on numerous talk shows and lately entertained us on Saturday Night Live. Selling over 15 million copies throughout the world, her first album garnished two Grammys out of six nominations and thirteen MTV video music awards.  In the world of social media, she has broken all the records.  Lady Gaga “likes” on Face book total 33 million and she has close to 10 million followers on Twitter.  Past “stage shockers” like Madonna, wowed us in the late ‘80’s with her choreographed songs and provocative dance not to mention her fashion statement with “stylized underwear.”  Lady Gaga is more like Lady Goulash…a little bit of Madonna stirred up with Gene Simmons of Kiss and I Dream of Genie with her flippy blond ponytail.  Outlandish for my viewing taste, I do find myself watching her performances and interviews.  I confess, I love most rock music and  if you look back in my album collection which I still maintain, you will find Alice Cooper and a lot of Elton John. 

 

 

Beautiful Barbara Eden

Lady Gaga’s newest hit is called “Born This Way.”  You might have caught her beginning act where she hatches herself from some space capsule looking “egg” while performing.  Like a lot of music, she not only seeks to win the approval of her fans, (…it has a good beat and you can dance to it…) but with her words, encourages worldly beliefs, defining what sin is not; another mantra to “if it feels good to you, just do it because God made you this way”.  Probably most pop culture song writers preach the same in their lyrics. Vulgarity seems to rule as well.   (I wonder if they have a special thesaurus for those words?)

I’d love it if one of our Christian Alternative Bands rewrote some of her lyrics and made their own version…”I’m on the right track baby, yeah, I’m born again…”  God tells us to be discerning, to be careful listeners.  In Hebrews it says, “We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.” (Heb. 2:1 NIV).  In II Timothy 4:3, the Apostle Paul is quite clear: 

 “For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear”.

 The world’s ears are itching to hear.  Are you going to say something or is Lady Gaga?

I am enjoying watching American Idol this year.  The two kids that are left, Lauren and Scotty, impress me as wholesome, God inspired, grace-filled kids with incredible gifts; a refreshing breeze of change.   The contrast in style and persona between Lady Gaga and her aspiring songster students, (as seen in a previous episode) is outlandish to say the least.  

Lauren and Scotty

Jesus turned heads and popular culture weighed in every day, when His ministry became active.  Jesus Christ Superstar was riding into town one day, hailed as King, but within a week, He was rejected by those He came to save.  Popular culture moved Him to a new theater, a top a hill with two other failed performances aside Him.  Jesus would do one more outlandish act, and act called Love.  He would die for the World and then resurrect the off key tunes in our own hearts. His title remains, King of Kings and Lord of Lords for all eternity.  Jesus Christ is outlandish for He promises that same power to all His true fans. 

Alice Cooper ---saved by Grace

I mentioned Alice Cooper earlier and now to quote the aging rock legend:

 “Drinking bear is easy. Trashing your hotel room is easy, but being a Christian, that's a tough call. That's rebellion.” 

 No longer biting heads off of snakes, Alice plays a lot of golf and knows the Lord as his Savior.  While Lady Gaga is at the top of her game and may be there for awhile, her shock value will wear off unfortunately. In the lyrics of the same song mentioned earlier, crooning “Capital H- I- M”, maybe Lady G is referring to God. Maybe she has a few questions behind all the theatrics. Maybe some one will share or just maybe, she can go ask Alice. 

Coleene VanTilburg

May 24, 2011

I wrote this for the Faithwriter Challenge/Outlandish, but never posted it. 

w/c 716