Dancing With the Devil Without Armor

My buddy and I had a collaborative point-counterpoint blog session some time ago, and the topic at hand was Christians’ struggles in vocational areas whose cultures are antithetical to the faith they profess. We clearly agreed that the answer isn’t to avoid these fields a priori, but our respective positions had nuances in terms of what we felt was most prophetic at the moment. The Urban Christian seemed to stress the importance being supportive of Christians who enter these “difficult” fields, while my stronger point is that Christians need to be more brutally honest with themselves as they enter these fields in the first place.

I was reminded of this topic upon hearing about Billy Ray Cyrus’ (father of Miley Cyrus) interview with GQ Magazine, where he spoke sadly about how he had brought his family from what he sensed was a safe Christian environment in Tennessee (he got ‘em baptized at church before they went West!) to Hollywood to make “family building” entertainment together. What has happened since is a divorce resulting from his wife’s affair with another man and his daughter being two steps away from going Lohan/Sheen.

Billy Ray, is actually a bit of a celebrity in his own right (people in my generation remember him as the guy who did the “Achy-Breaky Heart” – not quite the dance floor phenomena as the “Electric Slide” or “Macarena”, but a pretty big deal nonetheless), so it’s surprising that he seems so blindsided with the trappings of fame and fortune, so it’s logical that his words elicit a combination of incredulousness and sympathy:

"I hate to say it, but yes, I do. Yeah. I'd take it back in a second, For my family to be here and just be everybody OK, safe and sound and happy and normal, would have been fantastic. Heck, yeah. I'd erase it all in a second if I could.""It's the way it is, There has always been a battle between good and evil. Always will be. You think, 'This is a chance to make family entertainment, bring families together...' and look what it's turned into."

I can’t help but make a couple of observations from this. First, no sacrament or ritual can protect a person from corruption. ‘Getting baptized before leaving Tennessee’ is nice and all, but this is not like the purported effect of garlic and holy water upon vampires. What would be more helpful is being immersed in a family life full of prayer, Scripture, fellowship, accountability and mutual encouragement in the Lord – I don’t know whether this was the case with Cyrus family, and even having that sort of family life is no guarantee, which leads to my next point.

Never underestimate the corrupting power of pride, and never overestimate your own ability (or your family’s ability to resist its allure and temptations. As “The Lord of Rings” depicted so well in allegory, we are so easily deceived by the trappings of power and fame and so quick to justify and rationalize the pursuit of it (‘'This is a chance to make family entertainment, bring families together’ a man once said.)

A cautionary tale, splashed on the pages of the National Enquirer and People magazine, but relevant in more subtle ways to everyday folks like me and you. Unless things like adultery-induced divorce and having your daughter smoke from a bong don't bother you, that is.