Still disagreeing with Miley Cyrus

Reader, you've probably already gotten a huge earful/eyeful of feedback about Miley Cyrus' performance at the VMAs a few days ago. Maybe you saw some tweets that praised her performance. You more than likely saw lots of posts online about people who were totally disgusted with her performance and concerned about its repercussions and the things in her heart that she kinda revealed during her performance. You've heard from parents. You've heard from celebrities. You've heard from celebrity parents. So, now it's my turn to offer my two cents, because frankly, I can't escape this news story. It's still wallpapered all over the internet four days later. I didn't watch or listen to any of the performance or any of the VMAs, but I still saw and heard about what happened. Miley Cyrus expressed the heck out of herself for all the world to see, and she shocked us. And yet, I don't think we were completely surprised. Well, I don't have a worldwide stage and MTV cameras pointed at me, but I do have a computer and a blog where I can express my opinion.

I would like to offer some disclaimers to my opinion and my perspective. I'm not an official Miley Cyrus fan (especially since most of her fan base is probably less than half my age). I became rather familiar with some of her music and her TV work while I was employed with the company that composed the closed captions for her TV show. (And when I was in high school, I roller-skated a bit to her dad's achy-breaky heart. Don't tell my heart.) I'm somewhat familiar with the empire that Disney built for her, and I'm definitely familiar with the kind of influence that she has in the world. Perhaps you remember me blogging previously about my disagreement with her views about gay marriage. That's part of the reason why I and other Christians are appalled at Miley Cyrus' recently raunchy performance. Supposedly (at least according to Wikipedia), she professes to be a Christian, and yet she is very outspoken about gay marriage rights.

Again, if you're familiar with my blog, you know about my previous struggle with and victory over my own homosexual/bisexual tendencies. These are past, previous, dead tendencies. Jesus fixed it so that if my enemy tries to run that software again, he'll only get error messages. So, please understand that if you struggle with or embrace homosexuality, I don't hate you. I'm not afraid of you. You are a beloved human being. And I believe Jesus can help you overcome homosexuality, too. So, please also understand that I completely disapprove of the homosexual lifestyle, gay marriage, and anything LGBT-related, and please understand that my position is completely irrevocable. This is because I follow Jesus, and I choose to live my life God's way.

"Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due." (Romans 1:24-27)

I'm not trying to be witchy about gay marriage. I'm just saying that this is the cause that Miley has embraced quite fully. And I'm not trying to be all doom and gloom when I quote Romans. I'm not perfect, and I've struggled a ton with worshiping created things instead of the Creator. It's just that when other Christians have presented arguments to me in favor of gay marriage, they tell me that the Bible isn't relevant in today's culture. Um, I'm sorry, but I can't explain Romans 1 away. I see it happening in front of my eyes all the time: the gradual migration of a person from life under the Creator's protection to His giving them over to worship the other gods that they've been aching to worship.

Supposedly, Miley wants to live God's way, too. Maybe she did at one point, but I'm honestly not sure she's still choosing Him. Oh, no! Tirzah is judging Miley Cyrus! Yes, I am. I'll explain why. Here's what the Jesus that Miley supposedly follows explains in His word:

"For a good tree does not bear bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. For every tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks." (Luke 6:43-45)

If you see oranges growing on a tree, that means it's an orange tree. If you see bananas growing on a plant, that means it's a banana plant. If it talks like a duck, walks like a duck, and smells like a duck, that means it's a duck. Don't tell me it's a chicken or a turkey. I'm not overtly saying that Miley isn't a Christian anymore, and I'm not saying she was never saved in the first place. Let the fruits do the talking. Who or what exactly was she worshiping at the VMAs? men? women? herself? sex? I don't think she was necessarily worshiping a god intentionally, but I do think she's being foolish if she honestly thinks God would endorse her performance, her attitude, or her gay-marriage cause. Actually, she reminds me of somebody who I've recently begun to admire and respect. Posthumously.

Speaking of banana trees, Freddie Mercury was a musical, artistic genius. I mean that very sincerely. I hope this doesn't creep anybody out -- especially his family and friends -- but I consider him to be one of my musical fathers. I have an eBay-purchased autographed picture of him hanging on my wall. And I've just barely begun to acquaint myself with his and Queen's music.

No, I don't listen to all their songs, and I'm somewhat grossed out by the fat-bottomed ones. (I think the bicycle company made a smart decision to sell the bike seats.) I'm extremely picky about the music I listen to, anyway. I've just been having a few "OH, MY GOSH, WHERE HAS THIS MUSIC BEEN ALL MY LIFE???" moments recently. (I was kinda the same way when I discovered ABBA several years ago. What's the name of the game? Does it mean anything to you?) Yes, I was alive while Queen was making music. I was in high school when Freddie Mercury died. Although I barely knew any of their music back then, I knew that AIDS killed him.

Which is a tragedy, of course, and I think I really would have loved getting to know him while he was alive. (Thank you, YouTube, for posting interviews.) He wasn't a Christian; I believe he was Zoroastrian. I can't get over how brilliant of a genius he was musically and artistically. If you ever hear me writing songs with crazy chord progressions and cutting-edge formatting, please know that I consider Freddie Mercury to be one of my musical influences.

So, Miley reminds me very much of Freddie Mercury because of their musical influence and because they both either supported or embraced LGBT themes/lifestyles. Here's where my perspective comes in: I think Miley and Freddie are/were worship leaders.

During a church service, a worship leader is somebody who takes the stage/platform for a while and, usually with music, leads you into God's presence. A worship leader helps people worship God by finding Him and pointing to Him. I'm a worship leader. If I take the stage/platform in a church sanctuary, or if I take a section of carpet in somebody's living room, here's how I usually lead worship: Look at me! Great, you're looking at me! Now follow me, sheep, and do what I do! Look, there's the Shepherd! Let's go get Him!

Of course, I'm just expressing my opinion here on my computer and my blog, but I think whether Miley or Freddie were singing about having the best of both worlds or whether they were declaring that we are the champions, my friend, I think they're worship leaders. They have your attention for a while, and while they do, they have the gifting/superpower to point you to a god and worship it (whether they realize what they're doing or not).

Which is part of the reason why I've had such a beef with Miley this week. She has been gifted -- whether God gave it to her or whether Disney implanted it in her -- with a hugely tremendous platform where she can proclaim whatever the heck she wants. She has a huge fan base, her name is a household word, and people listen when she sings, when she speaks, and when she tweets. She has extreme influence. And what does she do with it? She dry-humps a married man while the entire world gawks.

If she wants to give up her inheritance for a bowl of soup like Esau did, that's her business. But she's gyrating a pagan dance to her gods in front of impressionable young people's eyes. And its aftermath is all over the internet while we Christians (just to name a few people) are still trying to figure out what the heck happened on Sunday night. Her performance was extremely influential and powerful in the sense that it's pretty much taken over the internet opinions for the week. And I wasn't planning about blogging about her again. I was so powerfully influenced that I'm just trying to get it out of my imagination. I was even gyrating with my words in a very rated-G sort of way while I was working from home today: I got to find Excel... I got to find Excel.

That's really all I wanted to say about Miley Cyrus. I'm not going to blame Hollywood or society or the music industry. She's a big girl who's decided that she doesn't give a bleep about what we think, and I don't think her performance was just a VMA thing, and I think she proved it when she posed for butt-exclusive photos the day after her MTV-nuclear explosion. I think she has an unprecedentedly huge worldwide platform where she has a huge influence, and she's flushing it down the toilet. To me, it seems that she's found her god, and she's pointing to it. And yet, before she became Miley, her name was Destiny Hope. I think there's still hope that she'll find the destiny that God originally planned for her. After all, I've found mine. No time for losers, 'cause we are the champions... of the world.