stop hating Madonna

In the last few weeks, I saw this flurry of email activity about a network special airing of Madonna's latest show. Apparently, there's a portion of the show where she gets on a disco ball-esque cross and stays there for a while (while singing?). NBC reviewed the segment and thought it would be cool to air it.

Of course, conservative Christian "watchdog" group the American Family Association got hold of this, and immediately began rallying the troops to lobby NBC via email, etc not to show this particular segment because it was blasphemous and a mockery of Jesus Christ. They were apparently successful -- I believe it was last week that I got an email in which Don Wildmon was quoted as saying that they expected an announcement would be coming from NBC soon that the crucifixion segment would not be aired.

I'm left wondering why.

As I heard more information about the situation, I found that Madonna is going to be on this cross with AIDS statistics flashing behind her. She says she's drawing attention to the AIDS crisis, and Jesus would too.

Do I believe her? Partially. There's probably quite a bit of good old-fashioned Catholic-baiting mixed in with whatever good intentions she may have.

Again, I'm left wondering why it is that evangelical Christians feel it's necessary or productive to do things like this. I try to put myself in the position of a non-christian hearing about this or working on it from the tv network's end, and this tells me one thing about Christians: they're those angry people whom I don't want to offend or make any angrier than necessary in the course of conducting my business.

I try to put myself in Madonna's position, and I realize that Christians have been yelling at and boycotting her for a generous 20 years now. How do you think she feels about Christians? If you were her and you had a chance to snub their sensibilities and make a point while you were at it, would you?

Have we as Christians become more concerned about making our society externally moral than about reaching out in love to people Christ died for? Could it be that we're too busy defending family values to worry about helping the poor and seeking justice for the oppressed worldwide? And which would Jesus be pursing more hardily?

This is easy for me to write -- I don't have kids whom I'm concerned about protecting. I understand that we want to give our families a wholesome environment to grow in, and I respect that. But perhaps need to examine our priorities and see where Jesus is calling each of us.