Ellen

We are coming close to finishing up the series of faith in pop culture! After this entry we will have only two more, so if you have any suggestions feel free to comment. With that said, I noticed that I have only discussed men in the prior blog posts. If you know me I do not pretend to be a chauvinist or anything of the sort. The reason for me only writing about men these past few weeks is because I have gravitated towards what I like, so it is time to break the cycle and write about someone who deserves and needs to be written about. For the decade of the 1990s we will look at Ellen DeGeneres.

Ellen started her career as a stand up comic working her way through clubs and coffeehouses eventually performing on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in 1986. She also has had a few unsuccessful sitcoms, has been in a few movies (most notably Finding Nemo), but has had the most success with her own daytime talk show. She currently captures roughly 2.74 million viewers per episode! The Ellen show is quirky and fun with a lot of audience participation, dancing, hilarious sketches, and heart warming acts of generous giving.

And yet, this does not capture who Ellen DeGeneres is for most people. Many need to qualify her as a lesbian celebrity. And she makes no efforts to hide her sexual orientation because she is not ashamed of who she is. Robert Putnam describes her as an "Aunt Susan." Barry Taylor describes this as, "...someone who holds different views than we might but is someone who we know and love" (Don't Stop Believin', 136). We all know an Aunt Susan don't we? It seems to me that as a church community we all have different opinions and views on how things should be done, different views of God, different views of social and political issues, yet we come together as a community of faith.

Ellen could be considered the Aunt Susan of America. She is showing many people that the LGBT community is not scary, they are not weird, they should not be avoided, they are normal people! They are part of God's good creation, no different than any other person! Ellen's big personality in various TV and movie mediums make her a household name and a celebrity that everyone can relate to. And it is her ability to be herself that connects us to a woman who identifies as a lesbian and makes many others embrace her for who she is simply because we care about her and not just her sexual orientation.

I foresee this post being a hot topic for quite a few people, but I invite you all to meditate and pray over whatever may bother you. If it brings you any solace, look to the sacrament of Holy Communion. Everyone is invited to the table to share in the rich feast of God's blessing and grace, no one is left out. That's the God we believe in, a radical God who showers mercy and grace upon all! So why can't we welcome those of all sexual orientations? Perhaps we need to let go of our own personal prejudices and simply do what God asked us to do and displayed for us on the cross...love.

In Christ,
Tom