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I have real pity for this girl. At one point in time a group of people believed that they could make a few dollars off her looks and personality, and that they did. But as happens to many children that are not fully grounded in real life and then are thrust into stardom, when reality came around she did not know how to cope.
I was in a job that took me into restaurant one day many years ago where I was talking with a district manager whose daughter got some kind of karaoke machine for her birthday. She turned to me and said, “She may not be able to sing that well, but you have to think she’s pretty, right?”
She may have been– but pretty went to pretty trashy. And from there, two marriages (one annulled, one divorced) two children, accusations of drugs and drinking, DWI, in and out of rehab, shaving– in fact the only things that she’s avoided so far are prison and release of a popular sex tape. (The former may change after we see about the DWI/hit and run, the later– well, let’s just not go there.)
The thing is, Britney was never was never what she was packaged to be. She was made up and sold to mothers of daughters as a Christian girl that learned to sing in church, and she was close to the line– close enough that it made her sexy without making her sleazy.
Britney needs a Savior. Some churches are trying to cash in on her celebrity– and to me that makes them no better than those that used her to make a buck in the first place:
The congregation of Southland Christian Church is being asked to send letters of love and support to troubled pop star Britney Spears, described by the pastor as having made “devastating life choices.”
“Take a few minutes and write a note to Britney Spears,” pastor John Weece said in a sermon and in a blog on the church Web site. “No preaching. No criticizing. Just love. As a church, let’s love Britney the way Jesus loves her.” [Hat Tip: Christian Research Net]
You see, they are trying to get something out of her celebrity. Now, don’t get me wrong– sending a letter to Miss Spears to try to share Christ’s love with her is not a bad idea. I mean– you got a slim chance that it doesn’t get thrown out with all the other mail she never reads.
But what’s sad about the whole thing is that this church could be making a difference with people that are actually in its community– reaching real people where they are– but instead of (or hopefully as well as) doing that, they’re spending time encouraging people to write letters to Britney hoping to catch some buzz. If that’s all it is, it’s disgusting.
Here we have a woman that I think should be watched carefully as a suicide risk, and all we can think about is using her to get more publicity…
You can’t be sure that’s the motive behind this. The original article doesn’t opine about that at all – but the one you linked to certainly did. Could that be the source of your obvious bias here?
Britney screwed up. A lot. She just lost her kids, for crying out loud. Sending her some letters of support/encouragement is a great idea, and is actually something that Christians should do.
Now, considering that the pastor was quoted from his sermon (and his church blog), I have to really wonder if he’s the one who went to the press to get publicity for this. Or if someone from the congregation mentioned what was going on and the reporters ears were pricked.
If this church were writing letters to someone in prison, rather than a celebrity, no one would care. It wouldn’t have been picked up.
That’s not the church’s fault.
I have to agree with mandikaye, churches I’ve been to before have publically prayed for (I mean on stage with the congregation) “celebrities,” and it wasn’t an attention getting scheme. It just seems one step further to write them letters. I wouldn’t read this or the pastor’s sermon and assume he’s trying to cash in.
Perhaps you’re both right and I allowed the original article to color my judgment. I didn’t want to take advantage of the celebrity name, and so I didn’t put it in the title of the post.
I’ve never been in a church (at least as far as I can recall) that has said anything about celebrities except about the things that we should not copy– and even that’s not all that often.
I still think that the church should spend more time trying to reach people that they can have a direct impact on in their community than worrying about celebrities that wouldn’t give them the time of day. I’m not saying that you can’t pray for them, or can’t send them mail, but that you shouldn’t be focusing all your energy on someone that’s not even in your reach.