Ayesha and Kehlani
While the political scene continued to wring its hands over Donald Trump, another conversation about men, women, and the good was happening on social media.
A young female rapper named Kehlani was having a bad time. She had been dating an NBA player when something went wrong. Next her ex-boyfriend posted a picture on Instagram of them watching TV together in his bed crowing a bit about having her back. She then posted something about being in the ER after a suicide attempt.
As all of us know the Internet can be a cruel place. On Twitter a lot of criticism came down on her about cheating. Some speculated that the suicide attempt was bogus. Others jumped into expose the double standard of expectations on women’s sexuality verses men’s.
I’m not normally up on all this gossip but I caught a piece on the Daily Beast pointed out that it seems that among a certain group of men the piece described as “misogynists” hold many celebrity women to the standard of Ayesha Curry.
I knew who Stephen Curry was, a top NBA star from the Golden State Warriors and a public Christian but I had never heard about his wife. She’s also a very public figure who presents herself on social media as a Christian, a devoted wife and mother, and someone who contrasts herself with other celebrity women like Kim Kardashian and the lifestyles they represent.
This raises for me interesting questions.
In this world where especially on social media we see a race to the bottom here we see a group of young men and women who see this conservative Christian woman as a standard against how other women should be judged. Is that fair? Is it surprising?
How do cultures work with respect to morality?
How do our individual choices impact culture and how do cultures impact our individual choices?
From Judges to Ruth
Over the next 5 weeks we’re going to be looking at these questions through the lens of the last few chapter of the book of Judges and a small transitional book about a non-Israelite widow named Ruth. Many of our our issues from today, from Trump to Kehlani to Ayesha find resonance in these stories. We’ll also see how this intersects with the stories from last week of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection and all of this should point to the Gospel and how we are to live in the complicated, mixed up world we find ourselves.
Corruption Continue reading →
