Just what you have all been begging me for, an article on Taylor Swift.
Usually I ignore Taylor Tales. ( I just came up with that. Not bad, eh?)
But this one was REALLY shocking, and I’ve seen a lot.
If you’ve got any Taylor fans in your life, you might want to share this with them.
Imagine being disappointed by someone giving God glory.
Saturday was the SAG Awards.
And none us care about these people patting themselves on the back.
But during the event a camera captures Taylor’s reaction the moment someone on stage lists off the names they want to thank for their award.
“And of course, God. Without God none of this would be possible.”
You would’ve thought Taylor’s agent just fired her and said there’s a nationwide boycott on her albums and she now has to get a job at McDonalds.
Though, this viral story might prompt a boycott.
“America’s sweetheart” literally shakes her head in disgust.
Watch the clip:
Fresh off the presses…
Watch her closely when “God” is mentioned… pic.twitter.com/79gekzWmR5— D-Bark (@DBark012) February 23, 2024
Premier Christian reports their take on her ‘faith’:
In December 2023, a clip of preacher Dr Tony Wood went somewhat viral. The pastor of Mission Bible Church in Costa Mesa, California regularly posts clips from his sermons on Instagram, but the reason for the wider-than-normal distribution of this particular message was that it made a target of a beloved cultural icon. The world outside the pastor’s window had become obsessed with singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, and he was not impressed. “When the hope of the world is someone in pink spandex and known for glitter bombs, you know that the world is in a woeful and grievous place,” he declared.
Wood was apparently incensed that TIME magazine, America’s traditional arbiter of global influence, had named Swift as its 2023 ‘Person of the Year’. Taking particular exception to a line in the magazine which described her as a ‘light’ in a dark time, he went to great lengths to explain that, in fact, a “middle-aged pop star” (Swift is 34) was no one’s idea of hope in a suffering world. That she couldn’t help you with your everyday problems, let alone your eternal ones. “Taylor Swift can never lay her body over that chasm, allowing us to walk over it to get into the graces of a mighty God,” he rallied. “There is only one who ever could, and his name is Jesus.”
In the background of all the break-up songs and glitter bombs, the vapours of Christian faith remain
And so while we enjoy her music, and find her intriguing, there’s another part to the equation; the context within which Swift inevitably resides. It’s the dark world to which Jacobs referred in his editorial; the uncertain cultural moment that desperately demands some heroic light. Perhaps TIME is right: Swift’s popularity is found in her ability to illuminate our world in its gloomiest moments.
Raised in a Christian home and formatively shaped in the Bible Belt hotspot of Nashville, Tennessee, Swift has publicly declared herself to be a Christian. In a famous clip in which she railed against the rise of Trumpian politics (and specifically the Republican senator Marsha Blackburn), she expressed her anger at policies such as one which legislated against domestic violence victims. She was furious that Blackburn had suggested that such policies were in keeping with “Tennesee Christian values”, saying: “I live in Tennessee. I’m a Christian. That’s not what we stand for.”
This outburst seemed to be a little slip of the mask for a figure who has generally adopted the ‘we don’t do God’ approach to entertainment-world-domination. Without interrogating the nature of her faith, we can take her word that she at least has one.
Her lyrics offer few clues to what that faith looks like, and she makes only fleeting and occasional references to it. In the song ‘Soon you’ll get better’, Swift talks about turning to prayer – specifically to Jesus – when her mother was diagnosed with cancer: “Holy orange bottles, each night I pray to you / Desperate people find faith, so now I pray to Jesus too.” Like many Christians, her theology seems to embrace the power of God to work alongside and through medicine, but she still makes space for the work of the miraculous.
But I ask you, what kind of Christian would be upset by that someone gave thanks to God?
Is she a Christian?
Maybe she’s just made at God at the moment.
You be the judge.
Poor, Taylor.
Someone put on a sad Radiohead song to comfort here.
This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport.
