Katy Perry’s intimate conversation about her religious upbringing shows the desperate need for apologetics in the church.
Perry, while promoting her newest album, “Witness” — as well as her tour — decided to stage a therapy session and air it on Viceland and Youtube. In the session, she pushed aside “Katy Perry,” which she called a facade, went by the name “Katheryn Hudson,” which she was born with, and addressed several unresolved issues from her past, including her religious upbringing in a Christian household.
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“I grew up with a lot of born-again Christian beliefs around me, and so I had people around me — like-minded people — and I would say it was a bit of a bubble,” Hudson explained. “I was a very curious person, and the curiosity — sometimes it wasn’t allowed because you had to have faith.”
Hudson explained that she was “curious about what was going on in the rest of the world, and how they lived, and what they saw as they were living… I felt like I was missing out.” To learn about other beliefs, she decided to explore her singing career further to “pop [her] own bubble, to get out of [her] own situation.”
“I guess I was just trying to get out of one way of thinking. It was like ‘do as I say, no ifs, ands, or buts. It was based on my religious upbringing… I have so many questions. I ask all the questions in the world, and all the questions in the world have gotten me to where I am at now.”
Hudson’s story showcases the need for relational apologetics within the church. Although she grew up religious, her questions were not answered within the church, so she ventured out to find responses elsewhere; she hoped to find answers from people outside of her “Christian bubble.”
Here’s one problem: should we (the Church) be in a “Christian bubble?” No! Of course we are supposed to have our own individual walks with God, but we are also supposed to, as the church, seek to follow Jesus’ commands in the Great Commission: “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you.”
There should not be a “Christian bubble” to pop because, as Christians, though we are to look different than the rest of the world, we are supposed to engage the culture around us.
The next question: aren’t we called to “always be prepared to give an answer?” Does questioning a person’s faith because they are curious or have doubts meet the qualifications of an answer?
Based on Isaiah 1:18, where the Lord says, “Come now, and let us reason together,” and the Gospel accounts where Jesus says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and with all your mind,” scriptures seem to make it clear that we shouldn’t be issuing a flippant response in these situations.
We are living in a time in which people are leaving the church frequently due, in part, to intellectual questions that are unresolved and doubts they may have, many of which seem to spring up or be nurtured in more secular environments, whether it is a social media or discussions on college campuses.
Mediocrity and laziness in our responses to non-believers and Christians, alike, just aren’t cutting it.
If ever there has been a need for apologetics, it is now. We should not wait for people to leave the church to realize we have a problem. We need to equip ourselves to answer questions, so that we can equip others to grow in their faith as well.