Taylor Swift is America’s most philanthropic celebrity, according to the charity-minded website dosomething.org. According to the site, the 23-year-old singer/songwriter donated $4 million to the Country Hall of Fame Museum and has worked tirelessly to help youth battling cancer. She’s also the youngest person to ever be named top dog on the site’s annual list. But when you look at the list, it’s pretty clear that she’s not the only young ‘un interested in making a difference.
Miley Cyrus, 20, was No. 2, funding and raising awareness for a huge assortment of causes, from TOMS’ One Day Without Shoes challenge to the Make-A-Wish Foundation to Saving Spot! Rescue, which tries to find homes for dogs in animal shelters. Channing Tatum, 32, came in third, followed by Lady Gaga (26) and Justin Bieber (18). Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato, both 20, were also in dosomething.org’s Top 20.
But even more than the charitable youth brigade we’re seeing on this list, something else strikes me: Lots of these folks have earned one or two raspberries from (among other critics) Plugged In.
Cyrus makes far more headlines for her oft-outrageous party antics than for her music these days. Tatum? All we need mention is Magic Mike. Lady Gaga’s sometimes sleezy getups and videos are gasp-worthy. We’ve even noted that Swift (whom we’ve lavished with praise a time or two) can get pretty nasty when serving up the details of her failed relationships to her millions of fans.
And the list goes on: P!nk (No. 7) is hardly a role model. LeBron James (No. 8) is one of the country’s most despised athletes. Ian Somerhalder (No. 10) seems determined to encourage teenage hanky-panky with his shirtless, vampiric turns in The Vampire Diaries.
So do these stars’ charitable works make us feel bad about what we’ve said about these folks in the past? No, not really. A brassiere made out of Tommy guns is still a brassiere made out of Tommy guns, after all. Only so many ways we at Plugged In can talk about that.
But here’s the thing: While Plugged In may take issue with some of the career choices we’ve seen these people take, it’s a great reminder for us that we’re all walking paradoxes. We struggle with sin and sometimes battle against godly submission, but all of us still have the potential for great goodness embedded within us, thanks to God’s grace.
The parable of the good Samaritan is one of the most familiar stories in the Bible—so much so that even popular culture often dubs charity-minded people “Good Samaritans.” But we sometimes forget why the story was so powerful and shocking in Jesus’ day: Samaritans were pretty disliked by lots of religious Jews in Jesus’ time because they had sidled away from God, intermarrying with others and worshipping foreign gods as their own. They lived hedonistic lifestyles with little regard for holiness. They weren’t thought to be “good” people.
And yet, of course, Jesus’ Samaritan was.
We know that some of these celebrities don’t always set the best example. Some of us, when we’re feeling particularly uncharitable, may hurl out invectives like “godless” to describe one or two. And yet, if we all gave of our resources as they do, the world would probably be a better place. And that’s a good—and humbling—thought to keep in mind.
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