By Susan Campbell
If the apocalypse is upon us, I believe it is being delivered by people who purport to follow Jesus, but are taking the most circuitous route imaginable. The Defendant-In-Chief is facing a jury of his peers, the Middle East is balancing on the head of a pin, and I am asking you to spare a prayer for Sis, Taylor Swift’s army of self-appointed spiritual advisors.
Yuck it up, Christians, but this comes because a rumor has bubbled up (again) that Swift has been performing satanic rituals at her concerts and in her videos, right in front of our (unexpecting) eyes.
Ms. Swift, who says she is a Christian, has expressed her support for the Democratic candidate for president. Plus she dates a professional football player. And her latest release, “The Tortured Poets Department,” the double album she announced while picking up yet another Grammy, is creating all kinds of buzz. Each of these events, I believe, has helped moved her into the bull’s-eye for Christians devoted less to Jesus-like acts, and more to theological quality control.
Last year, a self-described “Christian activist” suggested Swift and her boyfriend should be prosecuted and “hung” for “pushing the vaccines.” She later back away from “hung,” but continued to talk about the couple “selling their souls,” which Real Christians Simply Do Not Do.
Can you be a Christian and still enjoy Swift’s music, asked another article last February, and in that one, there was mention of the artist casting spells.
Is Taylor Swift really a Christian? asked another piece, and the answer is it’s complicated, but super-probably yes. But then again, no. Gosh, this is hard.
The theological arguments against Swift on social media generally start with “you don’t even know the extent of her sins,” followed by comments from a multitude of believers raising their swords to fight against Satan’s latest spawn. Onward, Christian conspiracy theorists!
As best I can tell, this latest accusation (and this is not a new accusation to be leveled against Ms. Swift) came from a self-described Christian artist because of course it would. If you call yourself a Christian, that pretty much makes you as an expert on satanic rituals.
I’m lying, of course, as was this particular Christian artist — as are, too, the people who’ve spread this and other such nonsense on social media and beyond.
For non-Christians, this all tracks, because our Christians mostly make the news when they’re behaving badly — acting decidedly unchristian, in other words. That means this goes beyond a bunch of yahoos swapping nonsense of Xwitter. From a public relations view, non-Christians see a headline that trumpets “Christian artist accuses star of worshipping the Devil,” and they walk away thinking even less of the faith. By revving up the (fake) outrage machine in these (fake) theological discussions, branches of Christianity desperate for relevance render themselves anything but, and they take down with them Christians who are actually trying to live by the Book. I would gently encourage them to stop talking. They’re hurting the brand.
Such discussion is made more dangerous with social media, where a lie can, according to a classic MIT study, can spread 10 times faster than real news. We saw how that happened leading up to Jan. 6, 2021, when by the time the day arrived, the crowds had already been whipped into a frenzy and the day would have to play itself out pretty much as it did.
A discussion about Taylor Swift’s soul seems entirely beside the point for what Christians should be doing with their faith, but there is something terribly familiar about this. A century ago, when I was in high school, a rumor circulated that the rock band that went by the acronym, KISS, sometimes spelled K.I.S.S., actually stood for Kings (or Knights) In Satan’s Service. So if you listened to the Kings’ (or Knights’) music — then big on Top 40 radio stations — you were a Satan worshiper. Even to someone sitting firmly in a fundamentalist pew — like me — that smelled off. There also floated at the time rumors that played backward, certain Beatles songs (Allman Brothers, Simon & Garfunkel, your results may vary) revealed hateful anti-Christian messages. I did not have the technology to play albums backward, so I let that one go, too, and felt a little sorry for the elders at church who kept trying to warn us away from the radio.
Today’s theological fear-mongering is equally silly, and I suggest believers have bigger fish to fry. I also suggest people who start and/or spread this nonsense instead devote their time to following the tenets of their faith, regardless of what that faith may be. Read your Book, and pay special attention to instructions about feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, and leaving Taylor Swift out of it.
Susan Campbell is the author of “Frog Hollow: Stories from an American Neighborhood,” “Tempest-Tossed: The Spirit of Isabella Beecher Hooker” and “Dating Jesus: A Story of Fundamentalism, Feminism and the American Girl.”
