#829. Quietly distancing ourselves from Mel Gibson.
Every day that he’s in heaven, Solomon better literally thank God that TMZ and paparazzi didn’t exist when he was doing his nonsense.
I know some horrible Mel Gibson audio tapes were recently released, but can you imagine the audio from Solomon?
“Hey, I’m thinking about marrying 10 more wives. Probably going to get some of those ladies that are into child sacrifice and establish some high places where we can tape some epic episodes of ‘Girls Gone Wild.’”
US Magazine would have had a field day with Solomon. Billy Bush and AC Slater would have built their tabloid careers riding his every exploit. But fortunately, for Solomon’s sake, things were different then. We don’t have techno mashups with Solomon and Christian Bale on Youtube swearing.
But we’ve got them for Mel Gibson and it makes sense, he recently unleashed some unbelievable phone calls to a woman who was taping them. A friend challenged me in the midst of it and said, “Have you noticed how we Christians loved Mel during ‘Passion,’ but have since tried to distance ourselves from him?” I have, but that’s not even the five things I thought when I first heard about what had happened.
Here’s what went through my head:
1. Unless Mel kills James Bond, he’s got nothing on David.
Unless tens of thousands of people die because Mel counts his money or he’s kicked out of his house by a bloody rebellion from his son or he kills Timothy Dalton, who was his girlfriend’s ex-husband, he’s got nothing on King David. Unless Mel lies and a village of priests and their families get slaughtered, Mel is still no King David.
2. Quit frontin’ like you didn’t love Braveheart.
That movie was the jam. It was turned into countless sermon series and referenced in more Christian books than I can list. Long before “Passion” was made, we were down with Mel. Let’s quit pretending we weren’t. And during the release of Passion we showed it in churches, sent church groups to it and proclaimed it the official movie version of Christianity. (I stretched that last one a little but our fervor for all things Mel was not tiny.)
3. Get Mike Foster and Jud Wilhite on this thing.
Mike and Jud have a ministry called “People of the Second Chance.” It’s built on the belief that we’ve all fallen and all need second chances. Every time someone self implodes publically I think of these guys and the amazing work they’re doing. I want People of the Second Chance to be like Christian SWAT, rappelling down ropes, breaking through windows and bringing forgiveness through the Hollywood Hills.
4. Why are we surprised Tiger stinks at golf right now?
I’ve written about this before but for some reason we’re kind of surprised when our heroes fall in one area of their lives and then proceed to fall in all the others. We like to think we’re able to box things up. As if you can have a dozen affairs and then put that in a corner while you dominate the golf circuit. Or divorce your wife of 28 years, date someone much younger and then make wise decisions. Sin is liquid poison. It spreads and sticks to every surface. It’s invasive and terribly hungry. In our life and the lives of celebrities too.
5. Noah would have been a mess on TMZ too.
Our pop culture loves to see people rise to tremendous heights and then fall. Noah would have proved that perfectly. Imagine the headlines, “Mere moments after being part of God’s plan to save humanity, Noah caught in a naked, drunken rage. The video tape that makes David Hasselhoff’s drunk cheeseburger incident appear tame! Today on Extra.”
I don’t mean to make light of the Mel Gibson situation, although they are only allegations at this point they are pretty horrible. And if he didn’t have a long relationship with Christianity I would not have mentioned it. But regardless, I keep coming back to the point that we’re the faith of mess ups. We’re not just the people of the second chance, we’re the people of the 1,000th chance. When Christ says he came for the sick, that’s me. That’s you. And that’s Mel too.
Just promise me you’ll stay out of TMZ.
