Lady Gaga in 2010. Image courtesy of John Robert Charlton, Flikr/Wikipedia.
Joel Kontinen
Even the secular media have begun to suspect that Lady Gaga’s Messiah complex has gone too far. The pop diva who spreads the good news of humanism is known for her antics; she has for instance appeared in public, dressed in chunks of animal meat. Now, however, she has chosen a new strategy.
As reported in The Guardian, the diva, whom the paper calls the Billy Graham of pop, claims that she is not encouraging people to worship her. "It's more self-worship, I think, not of me", she says, “I'm teaching people to worship themselves."
It seems that human beings have a natural tendency to worship someone or something bigger than themselves. If they do not worship God, they will often worship a fellow human being or become deeply committed to some ideology, for instance, Communism, Freudism or Darwinism.
The worship of pop stars or other public figures is nothing new. The breakthrough of rock & roll brought many idols to the post-World War II youth of the west, although Elvis Presley for instance also sang gospel songs.
A four-man band hailing from Liverpool that older readers might recognise from the name The Beatles did not dampen the desire to worship human beings. We might also add Michael Jackson, a few Olympic winners, footballers and actors and actresses to the list of potential candidates for worship.
The approach Lady Gaga has chosen is extraordinary in the sense that she wants us to worship ourselves.
Moses did write something about the worship of false gods. And the apostle Paul warned of the danger of worshipping and serving “the creature rather than the Creator” (Romans 1:25, NKJV).
Source:
Hattenstone, Simon. 2011. Lady Gaga: Lording it. The Guardian (14 May).
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