Tag: miley cyrus

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Facing Forward, Looking Back

If you’re anything like me, you hear the name of Miley Cyrus and cringe a little bit. When her name is invoked in public, there are often looks of scorn and flashbacks to a Spandex-clad, hammer-licking past that none of us wish to relive (including, it seems, Miley herself). So I’m sure you can imagine my surprise when I got a notification from Spotify telling me that Miley had a new album out. I was apprehensive. Still, as a college student who is always looking for ways to procrastinate, I clicked the play button. Wow, am I glad I did.

If I could describe her new album “Younger Now” in one word, it would be “mature.” It’s miles and miles ahead of Miley’s older songs, all dripping with pop star dreams and the monster that fame makes of us all. In her new album, Miley revisits her roots in the Memphis country music scene, borrowing from influences like Elvis, Dolly Parton (who makes an appearance in the track “Rainbowland”), and her father, Billy Ray Cyrus. The album has the reflectiveness that is often evident in these kinds of songs.

It’s not hard to see why, either. This album is a statement from Miley herself that she isn’t the same person she was. The album’s title track, “Younger Now,” is a ballad to both the past and the future. She explains that, while she is a completely different person now, she doesn’t necessarily regret where she’s been. As a junior in college, it is easy to relate to her sentiment: I’m both the same person and a completely different person than I was two years ago.

Other tracks on the album deal with topics in a similarly mature way. “Malibu,” which has risen to the top as one of the most popular tracks on the album, has a soft guitar riff that lulls the listener to consider their significant other under the lens of the California sky. “Rainbowland,” in which Dolly Parton makes a guest appearance, sings about unity and harmony in the homey, grassroots style that Parton herself is known so well for. “Week Without You” borrows its style from Elvis, with its opening electric guitar rhythm that is meant to get our hips swinging and our thoughts rolling.

Then there are other songs where Miley’s individual voice comes out, which further proves how mature she has become. “Bad Mood” is a rock and roll ballad that anyone who has ever “woken up in a bad mood” can relate to. “Inspired,” the final track on the album, describes her songwriting process, and where she draws her inspiration from.

Just in time for fall, with everything around us starting to change, Miley’s newest album rings true to the adult in us all. Just like this is a season for reflection on where we’ve been, and looking forward to where we’re going, Younger Now is an anthem for those who are in a different place than they were before. As college students, we look at our middle and high school photos and feel the things she’s feeling. Even those of us who are juniors and seniors can look back to our freshman selves and realize just how far we’ve come. After listening, I am reflective and optimistic, looking forward to what else Miley has in store for us.

 

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SPOT Falls Short of Houghton Standards

Crowds filled the Houghton chapel on Homecoming Saturday night for the SPOT talent show. Students stood in line for hours, waiting until the doors opened and the rushing mob could inundate the room and fill every cushioned seat. Excitement and anticipation were tangible as students waited for the lights to dim and the show to begin.

Towards the end of the night, two tall, plaid-shirted guys climbed on stage with their guitars and microphones. The lights shone on them and the crowd sat in hushed shadow. Strum. Strum. Strum. The guitar echoed in the dark room.

“Yeah, yeah, when I walk on by, girls be looking like d*mn he fly.” The words continued to wash over the audience as they sang, “I’ve got passion in my pants, and I ain’t afraid to show it. I’m sexy and I know it.” They swayed. They grinned. They sang, “Check it out,” taunting, inviting the girls to stare as they rocked their hips back and forth, singing, “Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle.” The audience joined the chant, and my heart ached.

My friend’s parents and eleven year old brother sat next to her. I sat in one of the chapel’s back rows, and I watched over twenty alumni get up and leave after that song, looks of horror and disgust on their faces.

And it wasn’t just that song. It was the pictures of Miley Cyrus half naked, the rap about breaking all the rules, and the closing “Yeah” Usher song. And sexually showing off our bodies didn’t just begin this fall 2013 SPOT.

As I sat in the darkness and the audience clapped, I couldn’t help but wonder, How did this become okay at Houghton? Yes, we’re Houghton students, and we all know it’s a bubble. There’s a real world out there where songs and acts like this seem harmless. And yes, SPOT is a fun night, a night of student voice and freedom, and yes that is important.

Yet when did so blatantly glorifying sin become so okay? We all knew what we were getting into when we packed our bags and took out loans to come here. Most of us chose Houghton because God and the Bible meant something to us. We wanted to grow, be different. And the Bible has a whole lot to say about sex, sin, righteousness, and what we’re filling our minds with.

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During “Sexy and I Know It,” I longed to see people storming the stage and pulling the guys off, just as Jesus overturned tables in the temple. As I left the chapel I felt an ache to tell the students I passed, “God is calling you to a higher standard! He’s calling you to be men and women of justice and righteousness, people after His own heart, men and women of courage who will stand up for the truth! What you saw tonight was not that! God is calling you!”

Houghton junior Olivia Neveu says, “Christians are called to be holy and set apart. This is obvious all over Scripture. SPOT can and should be fun, but it simultaneously can and should be honoring to God.” 1 Peter 2:9 calls us to this holiness: “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light.” It’s an invitation to love God. As Alicia Ucciferri says, “Having fun and loving Jesus are not mutually exclusive.”

SPOT comes around every year with kids, parents, and college-donor alumni attending. Perhaps the document outlining SPOT moral guidelines could start being followed. Perhaps there could be more moral voice in the audition reviewing board. Perhaps students could create acts that are fun, but also pure. And, perhaps, Houghton as a whole could begin to care. We could begin to care more about purity, about following God, and, as Dr. Jordan’s been sharing, about worship. SPOT is just the tip of the iceberg.

This is not a call to kill fun or student voice. It’s a call to holiness.

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The Passion of Miley Cyrus

Miley

I am very sure that you are tired of hearing people talk about Miley Cyrus.  In the aftermath of the VMAs (the MTV Video Music Awards, a live performance in which Miley twerked on Robin Thicke (for the definition of twerking, please resort to your local Google machine (or not)), there was an outpouring of public response, both Christian and non-Christian.  The Christian responses were comprised mainly of tender claims of tears on Miley’s behalf, praying that she find her true self and cast off her sinful ways.  Her “true self,” they claim, can only be found in her eventual salvation. Blogger Rihanna Teixeira penned “A Letter to Miley Cyrus” that went viral soon after the VMAs.  Teixeira felt “sad” for Miley, expressing concern for her continuing rebellion and encouraging her, “I know that there is something deeper in that little heart of yours and that’s what the world wants to see.”  The prevailing sentiment in Christian reactions has been the poor Miley clearly has no idea what she is doing, she is not being true to herself, and some kind of dark outside force is pressuring her to do the things that she is doing.

But, according to Miley, she has never been more herself than she is now.  In interviews surrounding the release of her upcoming album, Miley has stated numerous times that she finally feels able to express herself artistically.  She told Billboard Magazine, “I want to start as a new artist… I actually found out more about who I am by making this music.”  Like it or not, Miley is not being anything but herself.  It is surprisingly hard news to conceptualize for many.  Miley used to be so innocent and no one can believe that she really turned out this way.  Christians in particular want to believe that if she came to follow Jesus, she would become a different person.

When Saul became Paul, he was in the midst of a Christian-slaying rampage.  He was angry, passionate, and stubborn.  Christians everywhere had heard of his rage and spoke the name Saul with fear.  He was a dangerous person and I am sure they all wished that his craze would cease.  He was quite literally on the warpath when he was stopped in his tracks and spoken to by Jesus, and came to follow Christ.  Thus he became the Paul that we know: prolific, articulate, confident, and, yes, angry, passionate, and stubborn.  Paul, in essence, did not change.  He stopped killing Christians.  But he himself did not change.

Miley Cyrus does not need to be saved.  That is, no more than anyone else.  Her actions may be grandiose, but her motives are no more so than any other average human being.  Saul did not need to be saved any more than anyone else either.  Saul was and Miley is on the same level of metaphysical priority as every other soul.  And I think it is safe to say that if Miley were to start following Jesus tomorrow, she would not change.  She would stop twerking, and posing nude, and singing about drugs, but she herself would not change.  Her personality would remain very much the same.

We were created with unique personalities.  The same characteristics that made Saul a great persecutor also made Paul a great evangelizer.  He believed in himself.  He had strong convictions.  He was convincing and powerful and a hard worker.  Those character traits were an intrinsic part of his self and his personality, and after he began following Jesus, those same traits that caused him to voraciously hunt Christians then caused him to be one of the greatest Christians in history, and the writer of a hefty chunk of the texts on which we base our faith.

Miley’s empire spreads far and wide.  Starting with Hannah Montana and continuing on through Party in the USA, her haircut, twerking, the VMAs, and Wrecking Ball, she has been one of the most talked-about celebrities in history.  Her personality is a large part of what has made that possible.  She is a workaholic; she told Sunday People, “I work so much, I’m always on the road so I eat healthily. I have to give my body what it needs to keep going.”  She’s passionate about what she does.  “I have just put this music first,” she told Billboard Magazine, and to MTV News, “I have had to fight for what I want on this record.”  Hard working, passionate, ambitious, prolific—Miley’s personality is something to be valued and not overlooked.   It is thoughtless to assume that everything Miley has strived for and thrown her energy into is but a façade and some kind of leftover scrap of teenage rebellion.  Yes, her actions are irresponsible and often in poor taste.  Saul’s actions could have been described as irresponsible (if slaughtering human beings can be described so lightly), but no one would ever doubt that he was doing them intentionally and of his own volition.

It is a fine distinction between thinking of being saved as a transformation and thinking of it as a repurposing, but it is an important distinction.  Talking about coming to Christ as being completely changed devalues the strengths and passions that we were born with and probably sounds, to those who are hearing the message of salvation for the first time, as if we must give up being ourselves in order to know Christ.  Salvation is not an erasure of the self.  Salvation is an acknowledgement of self-worth, and a strengthening of the natural personalities and gifts that God blessed us with in a way that brings glory to God.