Blurred Lines

I didn't watch the vma's on Sunday night, and honestly I don't think I ever have.  I realize that as a youth pastor that may mean I'm less "relevant" but that's a risk I'm willing to take. I have a two and a four year old that I am far more concerned about. I do watch a lot of news however and the few seconds of footage they have shown are more than enough to depict what was happening on stage that has everyone talking.

I have already read some great commentary from several people far wiser than I, and I can't say that I have anything profound to add to the conversation. I do think something is missing here though. Miley Cyrus has been the recipient of the brunt of the criticism the last couple of days and her actions were the most obvious and outrageous.  And while we can make apologies and excuses for her, at the end of the day those actions were hers and they were disgusting and inappropriate - but they were hers. She has to own what she did and her accountability is to God. This situation is a great reminder, however, that we should not take our cue from celebrities. They are human - they're going to drop the ball, and this is MTV we're talking about here not the Disney Channel.

What is intriguing to me is that Robin Thicke, Miley's co-performer that night has been seemingly left out of the conversation. Thicke's song "Blurred Lines" is one of the most popular songs of the summer. A quick google search of the lyrics to that song give us an idea of what is on this guy's mind. "You the hottest b**** in this place......The way you grab me, must wanna get nasty...." Those are just a small sampling.  This song is objectification of women at its worst. This man is 36, Miley Cyrus is 20. Think about this men, in almost any other arena, a girl sixteen years your junior does to you what Miley did to him in that video and you're probably going straight to jail. Nevermind the fact that Thicke is married with a three year old son. Did he miss the rehearsal for this, or did he just not care? Appropriate or not, Miley was playing out the role of the girl that Thicke is describing in this song - a good girl gone bad.

I'm not advocating that we grab some more stones to throw at Robin Thicke. If we were to pick apart the vma's we would see a large amount of glorification of sin. Taylor Swift apparently dropped the f-bomb when cameras panned to her while One Direction was on stage, and one can safely assume any time Lady Gaga and Katy Perry take the stage they are probably not dressed in a modest manner. None of that is the point. The point is, the lines are blurred for what is and is not acceptable in our society. Should we be concerned about what Miley Cyrus did Sunday night? Absolutely! Should we also be concerned that an artist can lyrically paint a picture of a woman as an animal that must be domesticated, shoot a video about it with scantily clad girls, and do it all in the name of a catchy tune? Why are we not?

In Matthew 12:34 Jesus says "out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks". This is not just a lyrics issue, it's a heart issue. And men, especially young men, if you're reading this I would encourage you to delete every song on your ipod that includes the word b*tch. The more times you hear that, the more numb you become to that idea.  And women, especially young women, I would encourage you to do the same thing. You are not an animal. You do not need to be domesticated. You were not designed to be what that 20 year old girl was on stage at the vma's.  You are a daughter of the King.

The sobering news for all of us is that we are just as jacked up as Miley Cyrus, Robin Thicke, and the MTV executives that gave the go ahead for this fiasco. But God wants to redeem us all. Our past does not have to define us. That's why these artists need our prayer support more than our monetary support. Society may have blurred lines about what is most important, but God has drawn a line in the sand.