Christian Idols
Categories : Christianity, Personal, Television, music |
I normally try and avoid shows like Today Tonight and A Current Affair like the plague. I invariably find myself irritated and occaisionally yelling at the TV because of the low-brow one-sided tabloid journalism. And how many times can they rehash the same stories - the neighbours/tennants from hell, petrol prices, kids out of control, miracle weight loss cures, how to feed a family for $10 etc etc etc? But sometimes I just don’t get to the TV off button in time and find myself watching part of the show. The last 2 nights I have had the misfortune of catching Today Tonight and their story on how the sinister evil cult of Hillsong church is manipulating Australian Idol. Like all their stories this was incredibly one-sided and skewed - they didn’t give Hillsong or any of their 20,000 or so memebers a chance to respond. Rather they gave time last night to a bunch of commentators who didn’t really seem to know what they were talking about, and tonight to a disgruntled seemingly defacto couple of ex-Hillsong members of fairly limited IQ. Hillsong may not be perfect, and people may have some legitimate criticisms of some aspects of their theology, however the media portrayals of them as some kind of brainwashing cult and money machine are grossly unfair and are an insult to the thousands of people who attend that church and many thousands more who are associated with them one way or another.
Specifically, the allegations related to Australian Idol are that Hillsong have deliberately infiltrated people into the competition and then (shock, horror) advised their congregation that they might want to vote for them.
To tackle the first allegation, it does seem that a disproportionate number of successful contestants on ‘Idol’ are Christian and have some kind of connection/affinity with Hillsong, however they are inaccurate when they suggest that all of these people are Hillsong plants. Most are not members at all, but attend other churches. One blatant error in their story was their claim that the original Idol winner Guy Sebastian was a Hillsong member, when in fact he went to Paradise Church in Adelaide (the home of PlanetShakers). The reason why there are so many Christians on Idol is much more straightforward - contemporary churches are an excellent nursery for musical talent. Where else in our society are so many people given an opportunity to use and develop their musical talents but in Christian worship? Even of those who work hard to form a band and persue a musical career, few would play to audiences of several hundred or more every week but this is commonplace for church musicians. And the example per-excellence of this is Hillsong church, who are at the cutting edge of innovation and excellence in Christian music in Australia, if not the world. So don’t be surprised if, in a musical competition, a disproportionate number of contestants hail from the breeding ground of Christian churches, especially those in the style of Hillsong. Churches don’t need to plant or infiltrate a competition like Australian Idol - contestants will spring up naturally from such a nuturing musical environment. For millienia the church has been the soil and the inspiration for music - why should things be any different today?
Secondly, the charges that it is somehow wrong or insidious for churches to encourage their members to consider voting for Idol contestants who hail from their congregation, their denomination or their faith in general - what is wrong with that? Imagine a member of the West Coast Eagles also happened to be a brilliant singer and at a game an announcer encouraged the crowd to “don’t forget to vote for Ben Cousins in Australian Idol tonight” - would that be considered a form of brainwashing? In the first season there was a performer called Cosima who we were encouraged to vote for just because she was from Western Australia (I believe even the Premier at the time was guilty of this) - is that part of a sinister plot? If someone from our church at Warnbro was on the show I wouldn’t consider it to be at all wrong if our pastor or one of the worship leaders encouraged us to support them? So why is it such a sin for Hillsong to do the same? Apparently they’ve shied away from such public mention of Idol candidates now, but I wouldn’t have a problem with it if they did.
I’m sorry but such illogical, biased and erroneous reporting really gets my goat. I really must make a better effort to avoid these shows from now on.
