In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. – Jesus
As far as I know and have read, Ellen Degeneres is neither a Christian nor a particularly religious person.
No matter. She’s one of the greatest practical theologians our world has and she doesn’t need a sacred book or a building or an MDiv to do it. Her very life is the sermon, and its one that is changing the planet and pointing toward evidence of God in ways most religious leaders only dream of and all should aspire to.
Watching her sweet exchange with President Obama on her show, I was reminded again just how much this woman has done for so many and how effortless it all seems; how her life so eloquently speaks without requiring actual language to do so. And once more I was struck by how terrible so much of our public Christian testimony is in comparison; how many words our high-profile leaders use to try and say something that their lives and ministries are ultimately not saying anyway. Turns out they are quite often the kind of loud, loveless noise the Bible warns Christians against becoming.
If someone asked me what a life of love looked like I’d point them to Ellen before almost any well-known Evangelical figure and I wouldn’t think twice about it. Her beautiful body of work simply drips with the kind of humility and compassion and benevolence that professed followers of Jesus should be known for but rarely ever are, especially those who garner headlines and lead mega-ministries and influence politics.
As celebrity pastors, Christian leaders, and Presidential candidates daily trip over themselves in one embarrassing attack and one misguided crusade and one hateful diatribe after another, Ellen simply goes about the quiet work of caring for people, of encouraging them, of lifting them. While they divide and demean and angrily dispense damnation in the name of Jesus, she heals and hears and gives—and simply resembles him.
The words Gospel and Evangelism both have their roots in a word meaning “good news”, yet the Christian message to reach the masses is often bereft of exactly that. In truth, Ellen’s life is the very bold, beautiful walk that so many religious leaders only talk and talk and talk of. It is to millions and millions of people from every religious worldview and every faith tradition, such very good news.
While the Christian traditionalist’s rebuttals will come pronouncing Degeneres’ contributions as ultimately counterfeit because they don’t name drop God or “bring people to Christ” or culminate in some spiritual salvation transaction, I’m going to strongly disagree. From where I’m standing, she radiates the kind of inherent goodness that I grew up believing was supposed to mark people of faith, and whether Ellen claims faith or she makes me more hopeful, more joyful, and more committed to following her example. Watching how she treats people inspires me to be a better version of myself and that’s about as holy and sacred a thing as we can have here: a life worth multiplying. It is also the very thing that those who first followed Jesus had: the unmistakable, magnetic testimony of their loving lives that drew people to them. (See the Book of Acts). And when I look at so much of the American Evangelical experience—it’s what is all but nonexistent.
Ellen Degeneres models life as organic evangelism. Her message resonates with so many because it contains the essence of what religion at its best is supposed to be; a source of peace and decency and respect that points people upward and elevates their aspirations. For all the Evangelical Right’s raw-throated proclamations and flowery invocations, they are so often devoid of anything people deem worth emulating. This is the reason the Church is finding itself more and more abandoned by the culture: not because the culture is corrupt or immoral or lost, but because it has looked intently at the Church’s leaders and found their venom and bigotry and hypocrisy of no value—and it has taken a pass.
People aren’t stupid. They recognize phony religion when they see it. They can spot hatred and bitterness and bullying from a mile away, even when it is covered in a shiny veneer of preachy rhetoric. They can also recognize a person of genuine integrity and warmth when they see one without needing them to label it.
Ellen Degeneres in this way is beautifully transparent. Her heart shines through without fanfare or bombast. It doesn’t need to scream from a bullhorn or pound a pulpit to be seen, and it doesn’t come at the expense of someone else’s humanity either. She is living a practical theology of Love that makes this place better than it was before her presence. The planet is lighter, funnier, more kind, and more compassionate because of her. It’s a pity more celebrity preachers and partisan Christian mouthpieces can’t say the same.
At the end of the day, the truest test of a person’s practical spirituality is whether or not their lives point people toward the reality of God: Do we look at the sum total of who they are and sense the possibility of something greater behind it, regardless of their words? I’ve come away from witnessing Ellen with great assurance of this truth far more consistently than I have the celebrity evangelists supposing to be about this very work; those who have so often made me question my faith, rather than confirm it.
The simple truth, is that there is a stronger and more believable testimony from a “faithless” person who lives a Christlike life, than from a jerk in Jesus’ name.
If more self-proclaimed Christians simply shut-up and lived such a radical theology of Love, more people might be inspired to follow suit.
The Church might see a true revival.
Goodness might have a holy Renaissance.
The Kingdom might actually come.
Ellen Degeneres doesn’t have to ever speak to Divinity in what she does.
I recognize it when I look at her life. It gives me hope and it encourages me to keep going.
That, is some really good news.
Preach on, Ellen.
