Great question! How should followers of Jesus respond to a celebrity obsessed culture? What role do celebrities play for us? They seem to serve as convenient scapegoats. We build them up into idols of our own making only to enjoy casting them aside and putting our collective obsessions/sins upon them.

It is a familiar pattern--make someone into a demi-god and then demote them the moment they display their humanity. We, as the Us magazine reading, Perez Hilton blogging consumers of celebrity culture are actually to blame for much of Britney's demise. She has offered up her life to us, we've paid her well for her sacrifice, but when she no longer serves our purposes we banish her to the wilderness.

We have a major role model gap. We've forgotten that fame was originally connected to good deeds, to actually making positive contributions to society. Perhaps a recovery of the notion of sainthood/virtue/role models will help us reframe our celebrity obsession.

I wrote an entire chapter on CELEBRITY in my book, A MATRIX OF MEANINGS: FINDING GOD IN POP CULTURE. So read my more detailed response there....