::Rants-Mike Guglielmucci and Christian Entertainment Some of you may not know who Mike Guglielmucci is. Some of you may. Lisa and I certainly know who his dad is. Lisa and I would often prioritise hearing Danny speak at the various youth conferences and training events we participated in earlier on in our life. He was (and I suspect still is) a wonderful encouragement to keep your feet on the ground, keep honest, keep real, basically an encouragement to be as transparent as possible.

So when a colleague of mine who was a good mate of Danny's son Mike told me whilst holding back tears, that Mike had confessed to faking a terminal illness for two years, a great number of emotions swept over me. Many of those emotions have been documented on various blogs and message boards. Anger, disappointment, a sense of sobriety, cynicism, and ultimatley sadness.

However, there were two feelings/thoughts inside of me that I just need to get out, so sorry to rant all over you here.

The first thought was, how could the son of someone like Danny do something like this? Danny, as far as I could tell, seemed to live a life of transparency. Surely some of this would pass some of that to his kids? I mean, from what I know about Danny, a dad like that would have been pretty wonderful. What happened?

Thinking about "where it all went wrong" led me to the next thought/feeling. When people throw their hands up and go "there goes another fake Christian leader", something inside me gets real angry. Before I describe what it is that makes me angry, I want to say that I do not condone what Mike did for one minute. I am not about to make excuses for his blatantly destructive choices.

However, the thing that makes me angry is this, if there were not masses of consumers, who apply pressure (I will buy your records, download your video clips, pay to hear you speak, add you as my myspace and Facebook friend, etc), there would literally be no space for people like Mike to inhabit. The only reason he can have such a huge impact is because our lust for celebrity heroes creates that space where he and others like him live! At least half of this is our fault!

We love celebrities (Christian ones included) for two reasons. We perceive that they are successful, that they have made it, that they have everything they want, from the economic (ie: I can do anything I want because I have the economic means to achieve it), the social (ie: because I am famous, I know and spend time with all the special people), through to the spiritual (ie: they are in front of thousands of people, therefore God must be with them in everything they do) and then the most critical factor, we can *be* them! We can have what they have!

It is this dream of being the celebrity that drives us. We are in love with the idea of being the one that everyone else is in love with that often lies at the heart of our faith and practice. So many times, I have heard people talk about the "plan that God has for their lives" and in almost every instance, when that "plan" is described to me, it involves a stage, and thousands of people (dare we read adoring fans, spectators, consumers, plebeians, etc?) watching the individual do whatever it is that "God has called them to do".

So to achieve this "dream from God", we participate in the hellish system that creates Christian versions of the secular entertainment industry. We put so much pressure on people in this system to "perform". For goodness sake, we are so fickle, so we create the high pressured environment that requires the consumed celebrities to keep it fresh, current, cool, interesting, entertaining. It is our own broken desires for fame at any cost that creates the environment. Is it any wonder that some will do anything to retain the spotlight? Then we have the audacity to be shocked and surprised when people crack and break under such pressure.

I am not sure how Mike will come to terms with his sin and brokenness. After reading the official statement read out in the most effected churches yesterday, Mike is now talking about a pornography addiction that is the cause of his mass terminal illness hoax. What a Pandora's box that will open. Regardless, Mike and his family and friends (the ones that will remain when things turn sour), have allot of work to do. It will be a long hard road. One of the most difficult aspects will be dealing with the system which has largely turned on him and consumes his brokeness, in the same way it simply consumed his dysfunctionally driven creativity previously.

But the question I want to ask is, will those who consume and devour Christian celebrities repent of their idolatrous behaviour? Will we collectively bring our Christian idols (entertainment paraphernalia and all of our dysfunctional behaviours and desires that it represents) to the bonfire to be burnt? Will we publicly declare our destructive desires to be the centre of everyone's attention and instead embrace a spirituality that dares to serve in obscurity?

If we don't want this to happen again, stop looking! Refuse to be entertained. Choose the wisdom that comes to you over a cup of coffee from a *nobody* to the sound bytes that come to us through the microphone, refuse to be an adoring participant in the pagan celebrity worship game. Choose to listen to, and follow him who did not think that equality with God was something to be grasped, rather he made himself nothing, taking on the form of a servant, a humble obedient servant who followed his instructions, even knowing they would result in his death.

Labels: Lifestyle, Mike Guglielmucci, Rants, Spirituality

  Posted by Stephen @ 8:46 AM