{"id":67,"date":"2008-07-31T19:33:18","date_gmt":"2008-07-31T23:33:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.elsweb.org\/nsftmfx\/?p=67"},"modified":"2023-08-27T07:14:59","modified_gmt":"2023-08-27T11:14:59","slug":"hosea-119","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.elsweb.org\/nsftmfx\/2008\/07\/31\/hosea-119\/","title":{"rendered":"Hosea 11:9"},"content":{"rendered":"

I will not execute My fierce anger;
\nI will not destroy Ephraim again.
\nFor I am God and not man, the Holy One in your midst,
\nAnd I will not come in wrath.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In an unexpected, unprecedented move, I just now found myself on a celebrity gossip blog site<\/a>, attracted by the words “Whatever happened” & “DJ Tanner<\/a>” occurring together in the same sentence. I should be reading because really this book<\/a> is just starting to get good, but I am easily distracted & somehow I wound my way to a Full House<\/a> child star. So, to take the long way to my point once again, a quick catch-up with Candace Cameron, TV’s oldest Tanner daughter: she is 32, happily married with 3 young children, runs a wine label with her husband, & here’s the kicker — she’s Christian<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Now, I have several bones to pick with the state of pop culture & youthful spiritual engagement, so let me begin with the most blatant. In this blog post, this quick internet rundown of the last ten years of a child star’s life, how can it possibly be important to note that she is an Evangelical Christian? Well, the way the story is laid out, a paragraph opens everything up by stating where just about every other major actor from Full House has gone wrong — Michelle<\/a> is (are) a druggy (druggies) & hounded by the media, Stephanie <\/a>did meth, Uncle Jesse<\/a> had a public meltdown, etc. etc. DJ, though, DJ seems very happy. She is married & does not do drugs, nor does she appear spontaneously on Celeb-reality shows, nor does she do filthy-minded stand-up routines. Already, I’m sure you can see the celebrity gossip’s gears turning — what can we pin on her, what can we snidely poke at?<\/p>\n

& thus, the inept sarcasm evident in one woman’s dedication to her religious affiliation. To go further: at first I was a little confused why the article insisted on referring to a diety directly, writing that Ms. Cameron is dedicated to “the Lord.” Then I realized that to understand this medium, just as one would understand a newspaper story, one must read between the lines & grasp blindly at the writer’s own sense of biased scorn. They write that she is dedicated to the Lord because it uses a phrase that she would use (& has used on her personal website) – The Lord – in order to scrape it apart with an unnecessary literate roll of the eyes. The language is akin to the writer, were s\/he speaking aloud, doing air-quotes & scoffing when telling his\/her friends, “Yea, she’s dedicated to ‘the Lord’.”<\/p>\n

At first, I know, I sound a little too suspicious & a little too skeptical of the media, but the reaction I expected this story to be brought out in the reader was pinpointed perfectly in the comments section. Here are actual comments written by real people on this story:<\/p>\n

She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a little creepy with the religion and I am surprised at the wine thing, but as an investment you can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t beat it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not at all for the religion thing, but hey if it works for her and her family, well, good for them. I would actually watch her on DWTS. I wonder how much of the religion thing is from her brother Kirk?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

& then the comments, they spiral out into dangerously meta-cognitive waters, completely outstretching the arms of DJ Tanner & embracing topics like homeschooling & freedom of religion. But it brought me back with sudden clarity & shock to my thoughts from last week<\/a>, when I sat here thinking about the sorry state of religion in the mind of my generation. Let me elaborate.<\/p>\n

\"\"A lot of this blog tends to deal with Christianity & spirituality, as is sometimes a little self-evident. I do this because my fascination with Christianity in America is a very big part of the way I view media of all kinds. As someone who is often completely floored at the idea of adhering to any one specific religious doctrine for an entire lifetime, I am fascinated more than anything else by this generation of mine & its separation into the extremes of faith. It seems to me that we have two clearly divided sides pitted against one another: those who are devoted to their God to the point of hatred & sometimes even violence, & those who see this side & associate it with the entirety of Christianity’s long long long history & immediately denounce spirituality of any kind.<\/p>\n

What worries me is that there is no strong middle ground evident in this debate, no one to stop things & say, “Hey, guys. I’ve got a question. Is there a reason this matters?” There seems to be nothing stopping these two sides from continuing in their efforts against each other into a blank & dangerous infinity, & this is why I often feel it is so important to come at religion, & I suppose Christianity more specifically, from a neutralized base. I offer many posts up in this blog as a way to say, “Isn’t this interesting, the way this is all connected by a history of the faith of other people & the art they make as an expression of this faith? Wouldn’t it be fun to enjoy this music, this book, this movie, this sandwich, regardless of the spiritual motivation of whomever made it?” My point is that everything you read or see or listen to does not need to be commented upon with a disclaimer if it is unnecessary. If one reads somewhere that DJ Tanner is Christian, one does not need to react by immediately proclaiming that one agrees or disagrees, no one is going to judge one’s life choices by the comments one makes on a celebrity gossip blog site (no one with half a mind, at least). That is, unless<\/em> one does display ignorance of other people, feeling one may need to start a sentence with, “I’m no Christian, but…” or “I don’t agree with the religion, but…”.<\/p>\n

I’m afraid for my generation sometimes, afraid that so many of us are drifting into extremes & falling into the pitfalls of polar oppositions, rather than making judgments based on loose criterion & willing to combine ideas into something entirely new. I’m afraid of labels & coined phrases, afraid we compare things too much for the sake of placing everything into neat piles. I’m afraid because it is the separation into sides that drives people against one another rather than into conversation & debate, it creates a need for conversion or confession – “You have to believe I am right, or I have failed everything I believe in! If I am not strong enough in my convictions to change your mind, than my convictions are not strong enough, & this means I myself am too weak” – & this, this is far too dangerous. Why can’t someone say, “Here is a very good song by a Christian artist” without fear of being framed a zealot or “religious freak” by an opposing side? This worries me a great deal.<\/p>\n

What worries me even a greater deal, though, is that I somehow found myself reading about DJ Tanner in the first place. School needs to start again, please. & now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I will not execute My fierce anger; I will not destroy Ephraim again. For I am God and not man, the Holy One in your midst, And I will not come in wrath. In an unexpected, unprecedented move, I just … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.elsweb.org\/nsftmfx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.elsweb.org\/nsftmfx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.elsweb.org\/nsftmfx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.elsweb.org\/nsftmfx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.elsweb.org\/nsftmfx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.elsweb.org\/nsftmfx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":195,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.elsweb.org\/nsftmfx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions\/195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.elsweb.org\/nsftmfx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.elsweb.org\/nsftmfx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.elsweb.org\/nsftmfx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}