Marilyn Manson Will Neither Confirm Nor Deny That He’s Christian Now
Gang, I know I’m usually grumpy about everything. But I truly believe that what we’re witnessing with Marilyn Manson right now may be the schadenfreude comedy event of the decade.
To be clear: there’s nothing funny about Manson’s alleged crimes against a cadre of former romantic partners.
But now it looks like after 25 years of making his name as the Antichrist Superstar, the shock rocker is making an earnest bid to get in good with Jesus. And, assuming this to be the case, that is funny, because it’s SUCH a transparent bid to save his own ass.
To quickly review: the only person who seems to wanna be friends with Manson (né Brian Warner) right now, the vocalist’s wife and the people on his payroll notwithstanding, is Kanye West. West is Christian and has been promoting his faith recently with a series of Sunday Services performances; at the most recent of these events, Manson was spotted participating in a prayer circle with West and pop star Justin Bieber. Which was, y’know, confounding, because it’s hard to imagine West having a sense of humor about his faith, and it’s equally hard to imagine Manson taking that faith seriously.
So now People has done some investigating and come up with two interesting pieces of intel.
The first is that Bieber is immediately distancing himself from Manson, as evidenced by this statement from a source within Camp Bieber:
“Justin didn’t know Manson was going to be there prior to the event. He wasn’t aware that he was a part of it.”
The second is that is appears as though Manson is really going for it:
“A spokesperson for Manson tells PEOPLE that Manson was an ‘integral part’ of the Sunday Service. When asked if [Manson] had turned to Christianity, the spokesperson said, ‘That’s nobody’s business.’”
Some people might read that non-committal statement as evidence that Manson is not born again. But the thing about being non-committal is, it goes both ways — maybe Manson’s rep didn’t confirm that the singer is now Christian, but he didn’t deny it, either.
That is, in and of itself, nucking futs! This is Marilyn Manson! Church groups protest him, they don’t invite him over for a guest sermon. His entire career is predicated on being very aggressively anti-religion. Just a few years ago, he made a video in which he tears up a Bible and decapitates Kanye’s friend Donald Trump!
And yet here we are, and he’d rather risk alienating longtime fans than risk alienating Christians. Even the mere fact that he won’t commit one way or the way other seems uncharacteristically timid for this guy.
Look. Maybe Manson will try to double back later and say this was all part of some larger artistic experiment or something stupid and pretentious like that. But as of this moment, he appears to be selling off the ideals for which he is supposed to have stood in a last-ditch effort to save his career (and very possibly his freedom, should criminal charges emerge).
And yes. THAT is pretty goddamn funny.
[via The PRP]
