By Laura Koenig | Contributor
Did you hear about Justin Bieber's interview? All right-I saw that eye roll. I heard that sigh. And was that the subtle fist pump of a devoted fan?
Opinions about Justin Bieber range from brutal hate mail to obsessive video marriage proposals. Christians' opinions about his declared faith in Jesus mirror those same extremes.
After becoming a teenage heartthrob of American pop culture around 2010, Bieber seemed to take a plunge into the deep end. With a night in the slammer last year for DUI and drag racing, his bad breakup and other questionable antics shown across the media, Bieber transitioned from a teenage idol to a bad role model within a year.
However, Bieber is now back on the scene and trying to clean up his act, both personally and with his fans. From appearing on a Comedy Central Roast to multiple interviews on "Ellen," Bieber has used the media to help his rebranding. This includes his interview with "Complex Magazine" for their October/November feature.
This interview contained a whirlwind of facts about Bieber's life, revealing a lot about his renewed faith in Jesus Christ as well as his current philosophy. During this interview, Bieber said, "You don't need to go to church to be a Christian. If you go to Taco Bell, that doesn't make you a taco."
Despite this ambiguous metaphor, the rest of the article explains how his faith is changing his perspective on life. After experiencing many relationships with people who were not 100 percent genuine, Bieber is learning how to build healthy relationships, love others and trust in God's control.
"I feel invincible," Bieber said, "Like, nothing is bigger than God. If God's for me, who can be against me?"
Who can be against him? People of the church can. A flurry of opinions ranging from "Amen! Jesus has transformed another life!" to "This is clearly a publicity stunt to better his image" have bounced among Christians. It would be amazing to have a famous public figure live his life for Jesus but sad if the whole thing is a scam.
But who are we to determine one or the other? We can't know what is going on at the heart of the matter. When Jesus talked to the Pharisees in Luke 16:15 about what they highly valued, he said, "You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts." We so quickly want to judge the reality of Bieber's situation, even when we can't truly see his heart. We forget the most important thing we should be doing: encouraging him.
Looking at my own relationship with Jesus, I see it's not always a pretty story. I mess up everything. If those mistakes were made known through the media to all 319 million people in the United States, my life would suck.
Instead of bashing Bieber's faith, we should be praying that he can live it out in a way that touches his millions of fans, including his 68.3 million Twitter followers. If he is faking it, we should start praying a whole lot harder.
Let's be the Church that embraces the Christian-even the ones we wonder about. Let's be the Taco Bell that embraces the taco.
(Nope, sorry Justin. No matter how we use it, that metaphor still doesn't make any sense.)
