Race to the Bottom

I keep checking on the Prince story, because it’s so interesting.

Someone has told The National Enquirer Prince had AIDS, and that it caused his death. They say he refused treatment because he was depending on prayer.

A lot of people have suddenly decided Prince was tight with God. The Washington Post ran a ridiculous story labeling Prince a “conservative Christian.”

When he died, Prince was not a Christian. Early in his life, he was a Seventh-Day Adventist, and later on, he became a Jehovah’s Witness. Seventh-Day Adventists are Christians with some strange but probably harmless beliefs thrown in. Jehovah’s Witnesses are not Christians, so in becoming one, Prince exited the faith.

Christians believe Jesus is God. Jehovah’s Witnesses do not. They think he’s the archangel Gabriel. They also believe you have to belong to their organization in order to be saved. They burden people with various “essential” works. You can’t have beliefs like that and be a Christian.

The Washington Post is a liberal publication which is biased against God, so you wouldn’t expect them to be all that knowledgeable about Christianity, but it’s a little surprising that they think JW’s are part of the crew. The staff of the paper probably contains a large number of lapsed Catholics; the Pope’s followers and former followers are represented pretty heavily among the ranks of leftists. They should know a few things. The error still got out.

Prince was a tireless and extremely effective promoter of sexual sin and rebellion. Maybe he hated high taxes. Maybe he was against destructive social programs. Maybe he was a conservative, and maybe he prayed a lot. But you would have to be nuts to think he served God or was anything but a spiritual disaster. If you think he was a Christian, go stand in front of a mirror and slap your own face; you’re in a coma.

The AIDS story got me thinking. All the entourage members who clung to him are treading water right now; their life preserver was snatched away. They need food and shelter. What do they have to exchange for it? Skills? Probably not. Appealing resumes? Doubtful. But they have one valuable asset: information. Surely they’re trading it now, if only to put groceries on the table.

Prince was not a planner. He didn’t have to be. He had tons of money, and he was surrounded by eager lickspittles, so he did as he pleased. What are the odds he made any provision for this time? He has no will, so there’s a clue for you. If a person worth tens of millions of dollars dies intestate, you can pretty well bet he never thought about nondisclosure agreements or postmortem benefits for his minions.

The entourage members probably had to wrestle with themselves as they watched the food on the compound shelves disappear, each trying to decide whether he should betray Prince before one of the others got in ahead of him and devalued the information they held in common. TMZ or The Enquirer will pay a lot to the first person who tells them Robin Williams hanged himself; the second person, not so much.

The AIDS story may or may not be true, but anyone trying to find out where it came from knows a good place to start.

Prince was supposedly against homosexuality. On the other hand, he was about as effeminate as a man can get without spontaneously combusting. If, for some reason, you had to entice another man to violate you, and you didn’t know what to do, imitating Prince would be a good strategy.

If the drug-hater who overdosed twice in one week was also a homosexuality opponent who got AIDS from another man, it wouldn’t be the biggest shock ever to hit the airwaves.

It’s not that easy for a man to get AIDS from a woman. Only about 6% of straight men who get AIDS get it from sex with women. If the AIDS story is true, I would be a little surprised if it turned out a woman gave him the disease.

To get back to the issue of his religious status, plenty of Christians use drugs. Plenty of us get AIDS. Not many are world-famous, unrepentant, gender-boundary-smashing, crusading icons in the battle to promote promiscuity. If you can behave that way and expect God to save you from hell, it’s news to me, because it’s willful, systematic, public rebellion.

If the people around Prince aren’t handled and pacified, and unless they are truly loyal, we can expect a rash of hurriedly-published tell-all books in the near future, and I would expect a sensational movie within two years.

My guess is that the AIDS story is false. At least, I don’t think it killed him. Right now, a lot of people have motivation to say crazy things for money, and I don’t think a person who is about to die from AIDS would feel well enough to pace around a drugstore parking lot on the eve of his demise. The drug story appears to be gaining strength, however. The DEA is now investigating.

When so-called “Christians” all across America get on their high horses and self-righteously vilify anyone who suggests Prince was not a servant of God, you know our country has marched off a cliff. Anyone can be wrong, but to believe something so patently stupid is a new kind of crazy. We used to be smarter than this. Sixty years ago, we were highly suspicious of anyone who got divorced. Now we have homosexuals leading churches. Lunacy.

The facts will get progressively weirder as they unfold, and so will the irrational responses.

I don’t know where it will lead, but I know this: if I were Madonna or Lady Gaga, I would be hiding in a closet begging God to change me. This has not been a great year for secular worship leaders.