How Katy Perry can make us better Christians

I read an article over on the Fox News website yesterday about Katy Perry that really made me think. Feel free to head over that way and read it, too, and then come back to read my thoughts. Don’t worry. I’ll wait.  I need to make some more coffee anyway.

Welcome back.

Let’s go ahead and get the obvious out of the way first.  Like most parents, I’m sure hers did the best they could.  Some days they got an A in parenting, and others days, well, they didn’t.  That doesn’t make them wrong.  It just makes them parents.  This post isn’t about blaming them, and if Katy Perry did the interview in Vanity Fair to blame them, then she’s missing the point to.  I’m not going to write a column slamming her parents for raising her according to their beliefs.  I just want to open the discussion that challenges some of the beliefs that they may have, and that many Christians do have.

Here are a few that jumped out at me:

Wrong Belief: Change happens outside-in
The Truth: What is in us will come out

Did you catch the part in the article where Katy said she wasn’t allowed to say things like “deviled eggs” or “Dirt Devil?”  I couldn’t read that and think anything other than “bizarre.”  When she mentioned that she didn’t have a childhood because of a very strict upbringing, I don’t think she was exaggerating.  Not be able to say the d-word implies that there were plenty of other things she couldn’t do as well, and when we put the focus on changing our behavior before our heart, we set ourselves up for failure.  “Fake it until you make it” comes to mind, and while it may sound like a great leadership strategy, it is, at the core, a lie.  Isn’t it?

Our faith is an inside-out faith.  Proverbs 4:20-27 instructs us to put the truth of God’s word in our heart, then to guard our heart, and as a result our speech and steps will change.  Jesus said in Matthew 12:34 that our mouths speak what is in our hearts.  It’s just like a NASCAR restrictor plate.  The presence of that plate doesn’t change the engine, and if you remove it, the true nature of the engine will be revealed.  Pretend all you want.  Dress the part of good Christian, talk the part of righteous believer; I can guarantee you that whenever the restriction is gone (whatever form it takes for you – parents, friends, pastor), your true nature will be revealed.  I mean, Katy Perry isn’t exactly holding back on her words now, is she?

Wrong Belief: The world is bad and will corrupt you
The Truth: Because we’re corrupt, the world is bad

She wasn’t allowed to listen to secular music or read any books other than the Bible, and that usually comes from the belief that what is in the world will get on you if you get too close.  Listen to one bad song with a good beat and you’ll run the risk of tapping your toe to it, which we all know is just the first step towards becoming a serial killer.  Sure, there are plenty of bad things in the world, but when we focus on “them” we forget that our biggest problem is “us.”  Jeremiah 17:9 says that our hearts are deceitful more than anything else and impossible to understand.  Even after salvation, when the Bible teaches that our hearts are made new, there is still so much work for me to do on my own stuff (Philippians 2:12) that I don’t have time to deal with everyone else’s junk.

I love how Mark Driscoll puts it when he says that we need to stop seeing the world as bad people and good people and start seeing it as bad people and Jesus.  Face it, not one of us is as good as we think we are.

Wrong Belief: Our separation from the world must be physical
The Truth: Our greatest connection with the world is often physical

This wrong belief is what leads to Christian clubs, Christian gyms, Christian civic groups, and a ton of non-Christians going to hell. This belief embodies the world that Jesus stepped into.  An Israel that was divided between the religious and the real, and Jesus chose the real.  He didn’t choose to stand on top of a 12-foot platform behind a plexiglass pulpit and scream truth at them, either.  Philippians 2:5-11 describes beautifully what the Gospels re-tell about Jesus: He was God come down to man.  He walked with us, talked with us, laughed and cried with us.  He healed us.  He touched lepers and prostitutes.  The first group had never been touched and the second had never been touched with love and grace.  Jesus’ physical interaction is what paved the way for His spiritual intervention.

It is no different now.  The church has failed the world because we have fled the world.  We can’t meet their needs because we’ve never even seen their needs.

Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. (James 2:15-17)

Is it possible that the greatest evangelistic programs already exist, and that the world has already funded them?  They’re called rec leagues, school clubs, and civic groups.  Maybe we should join them and start rubbing shoulders again with the hurting people in them.  That connection alone could go a long way towards opening a heart to Christ.

Wrong Belief: Questions lead to doubt
The Truth: Questions lead to Jesus

Katy says something that should be a dagger to the heart of all who have placed their faith in Christ. “I’ve always been the kid who’s asked ‘Why?’ In my faith, you’re just supposed to have faith. But I was always like … why?”  Did you catch that?  “In my faith, you’re just supposed to have faith.”

When did Christianity become a “don’t ask, don’t tell” faith?  When did we decide that it was better to leave the obvious questions unasked?  The day that we decided the faith was really all about us.  The day that we assumed that if we didn’t have the answer, then the questions might reveal us as frauds.  Isn’t that ridiculous?  If the whole of Christianity rests on the foundation of my understanding, then the end of it is inevitable, and will come sooner rather than later.  But it doesn’t rest on me, or on my questions and answers.  It rests on Jesus, and I believe that the more we talk, the more likely we are to find Him.

Paul went to Athens (Acts 17) and he explored their culture and then engaged it.  He spoke with them, asked questions of them, and heard questions from them.  He knew that the more they talked, the closer he could move them to seeing Jesus.

All this leads me to one final wrong belief that must be addressed.  I don’t know if it is a belief that Katy Perry’s parents hold, but I do think it’s one that the majority of believers in America hold.

Wrong Belief: I’ll start when I know more
The Truth: Start and you’ll learn more.

You can already think of people who need you.  They need someone to give them the permission to ask questions, to explore the faith that we hold.  They don’t need an expert; they need a friend.  Most of us hide away from people like that, memorizing Scripture and trying to prepare for the day when we accidentally meet them at Wal-Mart.  We expect the conversation to be more like an interrogation, and so we spend our time cramming to prepare for it like a kid who hasn’t studied all semester would on the night before a final.

But they aren’t tests.  They’re people.  People who are hurting, searching, reaching.  And if we learn from Katy Perry, I think we’ll be better prepared to help them.

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