Lessons About Belief and Acceptance from Glee

I have watched about five episodes of the T.V show Glee and I must admit that I am a fan. I have not officially called myself a "Gleek" yet but we will see after I watch a complete season. Glee is a musical comedy-drama television series that focuses on the high school Glee Club.Glee club participates in show choir competitions while its members deal high school drama and relationship issues. In the five episodes I watched, I have seen a variety of teen issues covered including teen pregnancy, homosexuality, divorce, drugs, sexting, and questions about musical appropriateness/lyrics. As a youth minister, I also enjoy watching a show that focuses on the lives of teenagers and what they are going through. Does this mean the show accurately describes every teen's life? Absolutely not! An episode I watched recently called "Grill Cheesus" brought God into the series. I thought this episode was just going to be another T.V show that mocks Jesus or depicts Christians as arrogant or foolish. Most T.V shows leave God out of the picture completely or act like spirituality has no relevance.This episode did not ignore God, and instead embraced spirituality in a variety of ways. I appreciate that. I don't agree with all the messages but neither did the character's on the show. I really admire a show that doesn't ignore difficult issues and chooses to face them without forcing an opinion on the viewer.

What I liked about the show:

As mentioned above it embraced God instead of ignoring God. Let's face it. There are so many different opinions about religion and wars fought over the differences that it is much easier to just ignore God and religion all together. Right? Maybe it's a sad truth but that doesn't make it right.


Kurt, one of the characters, does not believe in God and he makes that very clear when his peers try to pray for him after finding out Kurt's father is in a coma from a serious heart attack. Kurt gets mad at everyone around him for offering prayer and talking about their faith. He tries to shut everyone out. Yet, some of his friends (particularly Mercedes his Christian friend) from Glee club remain gracious and loving through out Kurt's anger. The show could have portrayed the Christians in a role where they told Kurt he was going to hell after he confessed he didn't believe in God publicly to his whole class. Or the Christians could have been portrayed as hating Kurt for being gay. Instead his closest friend Mercedies, who is Christian, shows nothing but acceptance and love to him. That doesn't mean she agrees with Kurt's beliefs, but she loves him anyway and accepts who he is. She ends up lovingly inviting him to church and she dedicated the church prayer service to Kurt's father. Mercedies motivation was out of love for her friend, not because she wanted to fix him.



I hit the stop button on the remote and thought to myself, "Why does Glee get it and not the Church?" What I mean by this is, Glee portrayed a group of teenagers of different faiths and backgrounds disagreeing with one another and yet at the end of the day they were still friends. They felt free to openly express their beliefs to one another and be accepted. Acceptance does not mean you have to agree. But acceptance means if Muslims want to build a mosque in Murfreesboro, TN we don't start fires and riots over it!


I wish as a Church, we could be more accepting by listening first, not judging, and choose to disagree with love and still remain friends.


Then there is Finn. He makes a grill cheese sandwich and the burned marking looks like Jesus. So he starts praying extremely selfish prayers and he believes God is answering them. It doesn't make sense and it seems so stupid. But seriously? Finn is on a spiritual journey and he is trying to figure out what he believes and he is figuring that out in the context of what others believe and don't believe around him. It's part of life and it's part of teenager's lives. They aren't perfect, they are on a journey and instead of telling them they are ridiculous we need to help them on this journey because everything else is giving messages about who God is or isn't.


What I don't like about this episode:

I feel as though the main message of the show was "it doesn't matter what you beleive in, as long as you believe in something." For Kurt, that meant he didn't have to believe in God, he put his faith in humanity as he whispers to his dad on the hospital bed, "I don't believe in God, but I believe in you dad." Kurt is a humanist. I feel bad for Kurt because I wish he knew the truth that there is a God who loves him and wants a relationship with him.I wish he lived his life with God instead of without.


It does matter what and who we believe in. If Glee was real and I was in Glee club I would accept Kurt and love him as a friend and this is what I would tell Kurt...


"You can believe in anything you want. But that doesn't mean that belief is true. There is one ultimate truth and that truth is that there is a God who loves you and knows you intimately. Unlike any other religion, this God came down to humanity and put on human flesh as Jesus Christ. And then God, the ruler and creator of all, chose willingly to die on the cross for your sin and on the third day Christ was resurrected so that we may have eternal glory with Him."


Then Kurt would probably tell me that he disagreed and maybe even that he hated God. He then would probably tell me all the reasons why I am wrong. Then I would put my arm around him and say... "That's OK because I love you any way and you don't have to believe that in order to be my friend."


That's tolerance. That's acceptance. We don't have to agree, we don't have to hide our beliefs, and we don't have to get so flippen angry all the time.

Comments

  1. David BeldenOctober 29, 2010 at 3:04 PM

    Sam ... Barb and I also watch "Glee" and I have been impressed with many of the same themes. I think the show is a perfect "discussion starter" if parents and youth watch it together. When our son (now 27) was growing up, we watched "Seinfeld" together. My mother was quite disapproving, noting how inappropriate some episodes were. However, it was exactly the inappropriate (and humorous) things that we laughed at together that opened the door for many discussions about values. He turned out pretty good and we continue to have good open dialogues ... and I still watch Seinfeld reruns almost daily.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Home Run Prayer

Image
I was reading a book about adolescent development today and there was a section about sports. It caused me to heavily reflect upon my time as a high school and college athlete. I remember training harder than ever in high school so I could be a starter on the Varsity team. My defense skills as a catcher were very strong. My hitting was consistent, but I was not a power hitter. I was a decent single hitter and great a moving my team-mates around the bases. My greatest strength was bunting. Yet, every player longs to hit a home run. I had been trying to hit a home run ever since I could play ball. It was never accomplished. In high school I spent much of my time trying to make my swing more powerful. I remember after one of my best rounds of hitting in the cage every ball was a solid line drive to the back of the net. Hitting the ball like that felt so good! I hit almost an entire bucket of frozen ropes. When I was done I quickly ran over to pick up all the balls and I smi
Read more

From Arrogant Pride to LGBTQ Pride - A Transformation Story

Image
There is no better time than pride month to talk about my own transformation story surrounding those in LGBTQ community.  But what's a transformation story without showing the hideous before picture when I once thought I knew everything. So embarrassing! Once upon a time in elementary school, if anyone did anything I didn't like, the first thing I called them was "gay".  In fact anything at all that I hated or thought was dumb was labeled, "gay". My stomach turns over again and again as I now realize how damaging this was for those who actually were gay. Once a upon a time in high school I wrote a paper on why homosexual couples shouldn't be allowed to adopt. I still have this paper and now I want nothing more than to burn the evidence. Yet, I am holding onto it as a reminder that if someone as opinionated and stubborn as myself can change there is hope for others. Once upon a time in college, I was royally ticked off when I found out there was som
Read more

What I Learned About Marriage from my Big Brother

Image
Here is the Wedding Message I gave during my brother's wedding Oct 22, 2011...  I have only lived with my brother for 16 years. And today Wendy you are committing the rest of your life to Jason! Now that I have been married for 3 years myself, as I reflect on the 16 years of living with my brother I realized that God had used Jason to prepare me for my own marriage. I learned 3 key important ingredients that have helped me in my own marriage and I hope will help you in yours as well. INGREDIENT # 1 -  Open Communication Thanks to Jason, I learned in my own marriage that it’s somewhat healthy to wear your emotions on your sleeve. My brother and I always spoke freely with very honest feedback about how we were feeling. Even though it could be hurtful at times I could always trust with Jason that there were no surprises since communication was so open. For example; even though we disagreed in high school and had very different lifestyles; there’s a part of me that always
Read more