Justin Bieber took the stage after winning a teen choice award in LA and shouted,
“Jesus loves every one of you.”
Interesting. He used a very specific Christian reference rather than the less amorphous “God.” I kind of like that because he’s honest about who he is and I doubt he was trying to be derogatory to non-Christians here.
However, I wonder if there’s at least a loose correlation between Jesus and prosperity that gets misconstrued?
Cathleen Falsani at Godstuff has an interesting point as well:
The way Bieber speaks about his Christian faith is neither defensive
nor offensive. He doesn’t sound like he’s trying to be right, pious or
triumphant. Rather, the way he speaks about his beliefs feels like a
genuine extension of the way he connects to his fans. Authentic. Humble.
Loving.Bieber’s mother, Pattie Mallette, a deeply faithful woman who
embraced Christianity not long before she gave birth to her only child
when she was just a teenager herself, has said she believes Justin has a
“prophetic call” to be the “voice of a generation.”
I think the more interesting message that Bieber is sending is that Jesus loves us no matter what. No matter who we are or what role in life we play. It’s not the usual, “Follow Jesus and he will bestow riches on you” message that you too often hear from Joel Osteen or the hateful messages that you hear from Pat Robertson every time a natural disaster strikes. As a friend often says, “Well what about those poor folks in Somalia? Does God NOT like THEM?”
Speaking of Somalia, Br. Dan Horan has a great post about the famine there today.
A quick snip:
It’s interesting that every January hundreds of people gather in the US Capital to protest the legalization of abortion in the US, but so many of these people who carry placards denouncing the would-be killing of unborn babies, so many of the politicians that ride that wave of religious empathy to legislative office, have said and done so little about the death of so many real-life babies. Thousands of young children have slipped off into death because there is simply no food to keep them alive. I recently heard a first-hand account broadcast from Kenya on Vermont Public Radio of a young man who watched his two-month-old sister lose consciousness and die from starvation.
Amen, Br. Dan! But we forget, somalians don’t vote. So our elected officials simply won’t care enough about them to encourage their constituents to give a damn.
Today let us pray for those who are not prosperous. Those that even Justin Bieber would remind us are loved by Jesus and who need our love as well. Despite their poverty, may God hold each one beyond the tragic end that many of them will face and may we be moved to reach out to them as well.