Justin Bieber took to Instagram Live this week to lead a brief prayer with fans, who may be stressing and concerned about COVID-19, and, sadly, in the process demonstrated some severe gaps in his theological knowledge and worldview consistency.
“I’m going to say a quick prayer, and if you guys want to agree with me, cool. If you don’t, it’s also cool, you don’t have to believe anything I believe, we have far more in common than we don’t. We’re all people who are in this together and we’re all just trying to figure this whole thing out so I’m going to say a prayer for the world. Again it doesn’t make me any better because I’m praying, I just…I just think prayer makes people come together, so I’m going to pray here.
God, I thank you so much for this day. I thank you so much that you have everything in control. You know the beginning from the end. And you’re not surprised by this whole thing that’s happening. God, we know these things don’t come from you, that these things are unexplainable, but, God, we trust you in these times, and we just ask, God, that make this go away as soon as possible, God.
And we just thank you so much for who you are, and we just ask that you would give us more answers. In your name we pray, amen.”
Bieber has been around some questionable Christian influences in his life – chiefly “pastor” Carl Lentz – that have influenced him for the negative. Furthermore, his home church, Hillsong Church, is pretty much designed to create unbelievers who don’t know how to put away childish things and who spend their services sipping on and frolicking in large tubs of milk (probably soy) rather than the strong, filling, deep, powerful meat of God’s word.
It’s why Bieber can say in one breath that God has everything in control and knows the beginning from the end (checkmate, Open Theists!) and in another say that these trials and tribulations don’t come from the Lord and that they are “unexplainable,” dismissing the providential will of God and his sovereignty over all things.
We sincerely ask that you continue to pray for Justin Bieber. He openly professes to be a Christian, but his lifestyle choices and his actions have caused many to question whether his conversion is genuine, based on the fruit being produced. Bieber has a long, storied history with saying and doing both encouraging and discouraging things over the years (e.g. this post is ultimately a good thing, but a few weeks ago he posted a semi-nude photograph of himself in his underwear for millions of fans – decidedly not a good thing) and we sincerely desire for him to grow up and become stabilized.
