A brilliant article has appeared over on The Gospel Coalition. I'm going to quote the whole article, I usually don't, because it makes some very valuable points in regards to Lady Gaga's superstardom.

The Passion of Gaga

Chris Castaldo, 8th November 2011

She had all the makings of a one-hit-wonder. Exotic flare, dance club style, and a larger-than-life ego have launched her into stardom. In record speed, she solidified her identity as the leading lady of pop culture by attracting millions of fans who memorize her lyrics, emulate her style, and imbibe her passion.

Lady Gaga is not just a stage name; it's an alter ego, a tool the 25-year-old uses as she masters the art of fame. While she claims music is her first passion and eccentric style her vehicle for expression, consistency in playing the part enables her to continuously shock the world.

The loyalty of her fan base makes Lady Gaga's reign unlike any other. She refers to them as "Little Monsters." In return they call her "Mother Monster." It's a mutually beneficial relationship because millions of people---who vary in age, gender, nationality, socio-economic standing, and sexual orientation---cling to her words and yearn for her presence, as she responds by praising them for their individuality and exhorts them to unleash the superstar within.

"Tonight I want you to let go of all of your insecurities," says Lady Gaga, offering redemption to her devotees from middle school heartbreaks, confusion about self-identity, and mid-life crises. "I want you to reject anyone or anything that ever made you feel that you don't belong. Free yourself of these things tonight!" As she imparts these words and soothes her Little Monsters with song, they claim freedom from angst and awkwardness. Like a nursing mother, she promises them solace.

Such a close relationship with fans has never been seen before. Even Madonna's followers lacked the identification with their pop-star hero that Lady Gaga has secured in a fraction of the time.

The Art of Fame

How did this modern-day heroine reach this place? Like many celebrities, it began with a childhood dream and dedicated parents. Stefani Germanotta grew up in an affluent area of New York, attended Catholic schools, and began studying music and dance when she was 4.

Today, she is a classically trained pianist with a powerful voice. But, according to Lady Gaga, this isn't the only art form she has studied. In an interview with Anderson Cooper she offered this insight: "One of my greatest artworks is the art of fame. I'm a master of the art of fame."

This is evident in her similarity to pop-icon Madonna, whose notoriety was largely due to her ability to reinvent herself. However, Madonna did this with different fashion trends every few years or so; Lady Gaga changes her appearance on a day-to-day basis. Furthermore, Madonna pushed the envelope in many regards, especially in terms of sex, helping make it "acceptable" and even normal for young women to engage in premarital intercourse. Lady Gaga takes this one step further; she not only flaunts her own bedroom activity, but one of her public platforms is homosexuality.

In a recent number-one hit, "Born this Way," Lady Gaga sings, "It doesn't matter if you love him, or capital H.I.M." The song emphasizes the need to love oneself at all cost. She promotes self-love despite nationality and disability, but most of all, with reference to sexual orientation.

The basic argument runs this way: "I'm beautiful, 'Cause God makes no mistakes, I'm on the right track, I was born this way." The song has a catchy beat that masks its ideological edge, but the real shock value is in the music video. The pop diva splits her physical appearance in two; half of her is dressed like a woman, the other half, a man.

This is the Lady Gaga the world has come to expect. This, apparently, is how she has mastered the art of fame.

Who Are Her Fans?

It's also why her fans adore her. One of Lady Gaga's reasons for her behavior is "vicarious eccentricity": if she is weird, it takes pressure off of others who are seen as weird. She attracts the alienated. This is why social outsiders, in-the-closet college students, and underappreciated housewives all gravitate to her.

It's also fascinating to see how Lady Gaga appeals to society at large. She sold 1.1 million records in the first week of album sales in May. Such an accomplishment bears testimony to the sweeping scope of this "fame-monster." She speaks to virtually everyone with her message of love and understanding. "We are all born superstars," she exclaims. But if her fans truly believed and adopted this doctrine as their own, would one of her young fans recently commit suicide because of cyber bullying?

Jamey Rodemeyer, a 14-year-old from Buffalo, New York, took his own life this September. His last words were sent in a tweet to his idol. He wrote, "Goodbye, Mother Monster. Thank you for all you've done. Paws up forever." Jamey had been mercilessly taunted on account of his homosexuality. Unfortunately, his heroine and her promise of deliverance couldn't save the sorrow that plagued the young boy. He thanked her anyway.

Will the Real Deity Please Stand?

Can someone like Jamey Rodemeyer, whose life is ridden with rejection, be redeemed from self-hatred? Why didn't Jamey's inner-superstar emerge to save him as Lady Gaga had promised? Jamey needed a Savior who loved him to the point of death, even death on a cross.

A parody of so great a salvation took place at MTV's 2009 Video Music Awards. Lady Gaga ended her performance by being raised above the stage, drenched in blood. Her body hung there like an icon who had been murdered, dying in the midst of those who both loved her and scorned her. When asked about this she explained, "Everyone wants to see the decay of a superstar."

This is where Lady Gaga's philosophy gets seriously twisted, even damning. In proclaiming the message of redemption by inner illumination, she also promotes death as a spectacle. In this vein, she exploits Christian themes of redemption, only to mock and denigrate them as meaningless. For those who have eyes to see, this messiah complex is a common thread to much of her work. Its expression is profuse and explicit, including her recent song "Judas," in which Gaga sings about her ongoing love for Jesus' betrayer.

Lady Gaga, a mother to her fans, claims that she loves her Little Monsters. While exhorting them to break the shackles of self-imposed weakness, she performs in the foreground of the cross. When viewers try to peek around her theatrics to behold the man with outstretched arms wearing thorns upon his head, she reclaims their attention with provocative display of eroticism. "Keep your eyes on me all you who are rejected, ridiculed, and out of place in society," she cries. "I am your Mother."

But that Man will not be silenced. His love is too broad to be concealed. His redemption isn't a performance. It was a real cross, with real nails, in real time. Truly God and truly man, he died a physical death for actual sin resulting in genuine redemption. This one Savior, truly rose from the grave and really lives. Therefore, his promise is unyielding: "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Matt 11:28). He is the Savior of the world; his name is Jesus.

Click here to go to The Gospel Coalition's website.

Here's a very moving article by Bill Muehlenberg regarding two recent news stories. I pray that this challenges you.

Two Children, Two Outcomes

Article by Bill Muehlenberg

"Two recent news items offer a marked contrast in how we treat other people in general, and children in particular. Most people would have seen the first tragic story. It involved a toddler in China left to die while onlookers walked by and did nothing.

Here is one news account of this horrific incident: "A video showing a toddler being struck twice by vans and then ignored by passers-by is sparking outrage in China and prompting soul-searching over why people didn't help the child.

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"The 2-year-old girl, identified as Wang Yue, is in a coma in critical condition in the Guangzhou Military District General Hospital following Thursday's accident, state media reported Tuesday. The Guangzhou Daily quoted the hospital's head of neurosurgery as saying the girl is likely to remain in a vegetative state if she survives.

"A closed-circuit television video obtained by state media shows the toddler wandering along a narrow market street in the city of Foshan when she is struck by a van. As several people walk or cycle by, the child lies in a pool of blood and is then hit by another van. All told local media count 18 people passing by before a trash collector finally picks up the child and gives her to a woman identified as her mother.

"The case is the latest heavily publicized example of Chinese in distress being ignored by fellow citizens in a phenomenon seen as illustrating the corrosive effect China's headlong pursuit of economic growth has had on public ethics."

This is a shocking story, although the last line is a bit questionable. It is not economic growth that causes people to become uncaring and indifferent. The problem is far deeper, and needs to be addressed at that level. At bottom we have here a perfect illustration of the biblical worldview.

We are all sinners, focused on self, with little or no concern for others. That is what life is like in a fallen world. We look after Number One, and feel no sense of obligation for others. Life is all about self, not others, and when people actually do show concern for others, particularly strangers, it tends to be the exception to the rule - and that because of God's common grace and being made in His image.

That is what the biblical story tells us. As a race we are locked onto self, and other-love is something that does not come naturally to us. Jesus came to set us free from this fixation with self, and show us what real love is all about. When we come to Christ in repentance and faith, he begins a major makeover of us, starting on the inside.

With his Spirit resident in us, we can finally start to love as we were intended to. Jesus of course powerfully demonstrated this radical new way of living, as we read about in the gospels. He went to those who were unloved and rejected, and lavished the Father's love on them.

Indeed, stranger love is at the heart of the New Testament message, and we find it so explicitly spelled out in the parable of the Good Samaritan. This story makes it clear that most would rather walk on the other side of the road than deal with a stranger in need. But the truly loving person will go and minister to that poor fellow, even if it is a costly thing to do.

When Jesus died for our sins on the cross, even when we were all still shaking our fists at God, this was the most complete and fundamental demonstration of this other-love. While we were yet sinners who rejected God, Christ died for us, showing us what sacrificial love is all about.

The second story very nicely illustrates just how this sacrificial love can take place in today's self-centred world. It concerns a mother who made the ultimate sacrifice to save her own unborn daughter. The story goes like this: "An Oklahoma woman died of cancer last month after refusing chemotherapy that would have threatened the life of her unborn child.

"Stacie Crimm was 41, single, and unexpectedly pregnant, when she was diagnosed with head and neck cancer this past July. Faced with the agonizing decision of whether to expose her unborn child to a potentially fatal course of chemotherapy, Crimm decided to put her own life on the line instead.

"Her daughter, Dottie Mae, was born August 16th by emergency C-section after Crimm collapsed in her home.
Doctors managed to save the 2-pound baby and resuscitate the mother, placing both in intensive care units in separate buildings. While Crimm seemed to be improving at first, her condition soon deteriorated until three weeks later she stopped breathing and had to be resuscitated again. Her family was told that she was dying."

This is an amazing story of courage, self-sacrifice and supreme other-love. She represents what we find in the work of Christ, but on a much smaller scale of course. And her love was for her own daughter, not a stranger, or for those in fact hostile to her. But it is nonetheless a moving and powerful image of what Christian sacrificial love is all about.

Her love contrasts so strongly with the apparent indifference and lack of love shown by the Chinese. But of course such sad stories are in fact common, and can be found all over the world. I recall many decades ago a story coming from New York about a woman being attacked while dozens, maybe even hundreds, of people stood by and did nothing.

People don't want to get involved - they just want to make sure their own little world is OK. In a world filled with self-centred people, such cases of gross apathy and heartlessness are not surprising. What is surprising is when people love others, even strangers, and are willing to do so even at very great cost.

That is the story of Jesus, and that is the story told millions of times over by those whose lives have been transformed by Christ. Atheists may say Christianity is evil and harmful, but the very opposite is true. Such selfless sacrificial love is only available because of what Christ has done for us.

It certainly is not the product of selfish genes or the survival of the fittest. The two children mentioned above were treated in two quite different ways. These treatments ultimately reflect two contrasting worldviews. One is the gospel of self and me-first, and the other is the gospel of Christ and selfless sacrificial love, even for strangers.

All of us fit in one or the other worldviews. I used to belong to the former, but because of God's pursuing and relentless love, I now belong to the latter. It is my hope that everyone reading this will make that leap from sin and selfishness to genuine Christian love and compassion.

www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gIZGR8pZ1hIwYO99dxv2E9a1fVyA?docId=2f048be70b2d4e37b4b0cfc263c58b1f

www.lifesitenews.com/news/woman-dies-of-cancer-after-refusing-treatment-to-save-unborn-child"

Used with Permission

Click here to go to Bill's website.

Barney Zwartz has written about what books he derives inspiration from:

Inspired - and inspirational
Barney Zwartz (The Age), 19th April 2011

"I became a Christian in my mid-20s because, after years of ridiculing the Bible, I actually read it.

Of course there were many other factors in my thinking and circumstances at the time, but the book that Christians have claimed is divinely inspired certainly inspired me.

Books are a common theme in this blog, particularly by posters, and after themost recent thread delved into the reote recesses in science fiction, I decided I would like to devote a topic to the books that have mattered in people’s lives.  And we might even get an invective-free thread....

With the Easter break coming up, which will give many people the chance to relax and read, why not share the books that made an impact? This could be on the world (Darwin’s Origin of Species or Marx’s Das Kapital,  Freud, even Hitler’s Mein Kampf) or on you personally, or both. Genre is not important. Which books changed the world, and changed you? How did they do that?  What do you turn to for pleasure or improvement, and are they the same.

This being nominally a religious blog, I’d be particularly interested in which books contributed to your spiritual life – or led you to reject religion – and why...."

Click here to read the full article.

What books do you find inspirational? What ones do you love reading in the holidays? Have your say on our forum.

The San Jose Articles were created "to help governments and civil society promote human rights through a proper understanding of how the rights of the unborn child are protected in international law. The articles should be used to counter false assertions, such as the erroneous notion that abortion is a human right". I will quote all of them because of the absolute power they have:

Article 2. Each human life is a continuum that begins at conception and advances in stages until death. Science gives different names to these stages, including zygote, blastocyst, embryo, fetus, infant, child, adolescent and adult. This does not change the scientific consensus that at all points of development each individual is a living member of the human species.


Article 3. From conception each unborn child is by nature a human being.


Article 4. All human beings, as members of the human family, are entitled to recognition of their inherent dignity and to protection of their inalienable human rights.  This is recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and other international instruments.


Article 5. There exists no right to abortion under international law, either by way of treaty obligation or under customary international law.  No United Nations treaty can accurately be cited as establishing or recognizing a right to abortion.


Article 6. The Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW Committee) and other treaty monitoring bodies have directed governments to change their laws on abortion.  These bodies have explicitly or implicitly interpreted the treaties to which they are subject as including a right to abortion.


Treaty monitoring bodies have no authority, either under the treaties that created them or under general international law, to interpret these treaties in ways that create new state obligations or that alter the substance of the treaties.


Accordingly, any such body that interprets a treaty to include a right to abortion acts beyond its authority and contrary to its mandate. Such ultra vires acts do not create any legal obligations for states parties to the treaty, nor should states accept them as contributing to the formation of new customary international law.


Article 7. Assertions by international agencies or non-governmental actors that abortion is a human right are false and should be rejected.


There is no international legal obligation to provide access to abortion based on any ground, including but not limited to health, privacy or sexual autonomy, or non-discrimination.


Article 8. Under basic principles of treaty interpretation in international law, consistent with the obligations of good faith and pacta sunt servanda, and in the exercise of their responsibility to defend the lives of their people, states may and should invoke treaty provisions guaranteeing the right to life as encompassing a state responsibility to protect the unborn child from abortion.



Article 9. Governments and members of society should ensure that national laws and policies protect the human right to life from conception. They should also reject and condemn pressure to adopt laws that legalize or depenalize abortion.


Treaty monitoring bodies, United Nations agencies and officers, regional and national courts, and others should desist from implicit or explicit assertions of a right to abortion based upon international law.


When such false assertions are made, or pressures exerted, member states should demand accountability from the United Nations system.


Providers of development aid should not promote or fund abortions.  They should not make aid conditional on a recipient’s acceptance of abortion.


International maternal and child health care funding and programs should ensure a healthy outcome of pregnancy for both mother and child and should help mothers welcome new life in all circumstances."

Visit the San Jose Articles site for more information.

Article by Cameron Spink

Today is R U OK? Day where we are challenged to turn to someone we know and "help stop little problems turning into big ones". That is, today is about suicide prevention. This is a great venture. However, to restrict it to one day seems very underwhelming. I would challenge my readers to be on the case everyday looking for ways to actually be involved with those around you.

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It may well be that one conversation will change a life. However, I think your strike rate of having an impact will be much higher if you participate in the act of caring for substantial periods of time. Also I must question why we should be involved merely for "suicide prevention". This is like stepping in front of an out-of-control train and trying to slow it down. Sure, that's now what R U OK? is actually about but this is how it will likely play out. How about you care for people because they are people. There are so many different stages of hurting. It may well be that no-one in your work-place or your group seminar is actually suicidal. Well, guess what, even if this is the case it does not let you off the hook. While my article yesterday titled Why Study Theology demonstrates that theology is the cornerstone of our faith this should not undermine the necessity for establishing relationships. After all, our faith is not merely a theoretical faith to be practiced in a vacuum. It is a faith that is worth telling and showing others about.

As Christians we know that as fragile and broken human beings we have no capacity to influence others in-and-of-ourselves. We rely upon Christ working through us and the Holy Spirit's power over the lost. Basically our involvement has everything to do with our Saviour and nothing to do with our capacity to be good friends. We also know that we are to expect trials and tribulations. In fact, if we do not come across them then we are probably doing something wrong.

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

James 1:2-4

I believe as Christians we can be confronted with depression in two ways. The first is in that of a friend or fellow believer. We should, as a group, surround him or her with prayer cover and hold their burden as our own. Much can be done from listening to someone's problems but if we don't get God and a strong support network involved then the battle will be more spiritually rigorous and much less likely to succeed. If you, as the reader, is struggling with depression then I want you to dwell upon the words of James 1:2-4 above. Our faith provides us with a non-shifting platform that we know will stand against the strongest storms. We need not be held hostage by our continuous pain. Sometimes this pain is because of actual tragedy and sometimes it exists because of other factors, like loneliness. Very rarely is depression a conscious choice. Regardless, the power it has over us is dependant upon how much power we give it.

Article by Cameron Spink

The idea of Disney doing another princess movie should be getting quite cliché by now. However, in Tangled, Disney has brought together a formula that is both fun and heart-warming. Perhaps it is their best princess movie ever, but I should not be the judge of this as the earlier ones were never catered for a male at my age.

Tangled takes, at a very basic level, the Grimms Brother's story of Rapunzel, the lass with undefinably long hair, and yanks it into the 21^st century. You'd think that this would be in bad taste but it manages to avoid any sort of squeamish pop-culture references which would make this movie age very quickly indeed. Instead, Tangled sticks to Disney's tried-and-true method of musical animations. And this is to great effect. While the songs are not as brilliant as those in the company's history they do compliment the storyline, perhaps as good as any animation movie that I can recall.