According to the Church of Gaga, everyone is really in no need of redemption.  We are all born perfect in our own way.  The idea is a sad one, also held by many in God’s church.  The idea that I mean is that we are born good, that good is the natural state of things.  The idea that we will be good if we are true to ourselves leaves us angry when we see that the world is so seriously screwed up.  The world should not be the way it is.  Children should not be born premature and have underdeveloped lungs, like the child my wife was tracking on Facebook who died yesterday.  An uncle like mine, who fought for justice and advocated fitness should have lived to an older age.  He should not have died last week.

Lady Gaga creates a ‘multiverse’ perspective in her 7:20 video of Born This Way, that creates a dichotomy of good and evil.  However, her ideas are old ideas that are borrowed from New Age thinkers and are floating around in mainstream society.  She is clearly painting the church as evil and her as a worthy rebel.

It would seem to me though, if you remove her garish visual displays, that she is voicing the opinion of the majority with musical styles we have all heard before.  I don’t think that her opinions are uncommon, and so I think the church is more the rebel that will not die.  She just represents the ugliness and glam that is the Gaga psychobable of the masses.

To be a rebel today dress modestly, live righteously, and seek redemption of mankind from the sin and sickness of the fall.  I think that faced with the growing uglification of the world that Milan Kundera observed on the rise in the 80’s, people are increasingly looking for something truly beautiful.  With Lady Gaga presenting a picture of the corruption that we are born with and accepting it as beautiful, there is a rising existential quest for more than we have at birth.  That is not to be found in H-I-M (His Infernal Majesty ??? http://www.heartagram.com/ ) but in the authentic cries of the psalmists.

Psalm 6

 For the director of music. With stringed instruments. According to sheminith.^[b] A psalm of David.

 ¹ LORD, do not rebuke me in your anger
   or discipline me in your wrath.
² Have mercy on me, LORD, for I am faint;
   heal me, LORD, for my bones are in agony.
³ My soul is in deep anguish.
   How long, LORD, how long?

 ⁴ Turn, LORD, and deliver me;
   save me because of your unfailing love.
⁵ Among the dead no one proclaims your name.
   Who praises you from the grave?

 ⁶ I am worn out from my groaning.

   All night long I flood my bed with weeping
   and drench my couch with tears.
⁷ My eyes grow weak with sorrow;
   they fail because of all my foes.

 ⁸ Away from me, all you who do evil,
   for the LORD has heard my weeping.
⁹ The LORD has heard my cry for mercy;
   the LORD accepts my prayer.
¹⁰ All my enemies will be overwhelmed with shame and anguish;
   they will turn back and suddenly be put to shame.

Questions

1. How do you see that the psalmist is physically ill?
2. How does the psalmist view death?  Why does that create an intense emotion in the psalm?
3. How does the psalmist approach God concerning his illness?  Does he manipulate God?  What can God do?
4. What is your approach to sickness?  Do you see it as having a spiritual component?
5. How does the fact that sickness and deformity are evils that God would not create inform our views on those who are born sick in mind and/or body?  They have done nothing wrong, but obviously something is evil.  Do we leave them that way because ‘God makes no mistakes’?  Can we say, “God created you just the way you are?”

Going Deeper

The following video contains some vulgar imagery, but reveals the kind of things that are becoming the next level in ‘normal’ entertainment.  What will Lady Gaga do to increase the shock value? 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV1FrqwZyKw 

Consider how those like Tom Green shocked us until we were bored with them.  I wonder when we will be so covered in filth that we will no longer smell the stench, but just be bored for a lack of new entertainment.  Perhaps then, the masses will investigate the ancient truths that many are rediscovering. http://www.chapel.org/first-steps/rediscover_god/

Contrast the two messages from the two links above.