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As a boy Christmas began in the same way every year, with the Sears “Wishbook”. My sisters and I would page through the toy section and dream what might come under the plastic tree.

While it is true that the older we get the toys we want just get bigger too, they also change. The toys we now want aren’t made of plastic or metal, they are made of people, identities, relationships and empires. We are no longer satisfied with something that will occupy us for a few hours on the living room floor, we want to be enthralled, loved, and worshiped and we want it to on forever. Nothing else will do. We are restless until we are at the center of the inner ring. 

Katy Perry Getting What She Wants

Katy Perry’s story is an interesting one. I don’t listen to her music, maybe I’m too old for that, but her story fascinates me. She was raised the daughter of a Pentecostal minister and initially tried to launch a career in Christian music. She failed. She then relaunched her career, and new self, as a secular pop star with the kinds of songs and productions that look very much like rejection of the place she began. She might not see it so. She’s got “Jesus” tattooed to her left wrist, and “Anuugacchati Pravaha” which means “Go with the flow” on her right bicep.

Her most recent major performance on the American Music Awards was criticized for being racist.  The complaint by one Asian psychologist was that she was disrespectfully appropriating Japanese cultural artifacts without honor the people or the source.

She’s now I’m sure a mega-millionaire, with a huge fan base. Her latest album was reviewed by ThinkChristian.net, a website missioned to work the intersection between Christianity and culture. The Christian reviewer, on a similar note to the Asian psychologist complained that she appropriates Christian and other religious images but finally takes them no place interesting.

There is no image too sacred for Perry to use for her own purposes. Her spiritual vocabulary is rich indeed, but it seems to point to a hodgepodge of motivational philosophy and hedonism that is completely disconnected from anything having to do with the Gospel. Perry’s is a sadly self-centered spirituality in which every hunger is worth satisfying. There’s no doubt she is extremely talented, it’s just too bad she can’t seem to connect to the truth and power behind the religious images she so deftly misappropriates.

King Headache, Queen Beautiful and A Jewish Orphan Continue reading →