Taylor Swift called, and people responded.

Formerly nonpolitical superstar Taylor Swift recently got political. After posting her support on Instagram for two Democratic candidates, she urged her followers to register to vote: 65,000 of them did, within 24 hours. But since then, Phil Bredesen, the candidate she endorsed for senator, fell behind double digits in the polls to Marsha Blackburn, whom she opposed.

What’s the lesson here? Politics is—most often—downstream from culture, and that celebrities are the new heroes and the new experts in our time and place.

If we don’t want our kids to be swept up by a culture of celebrity-ism, especially when it comes to politics, we’ll need to take their influence seriously. We must analyze what celebrities say, reveal their ignorance and acknowledge the truth.

But if we fail to communicate that with compassion and respect, which we’re tempted to do with celebrities on the other side of our politics, we’ll just sound like clanging cymbals to the next generation.

For more on faith and culture, come to BreakPoint.org.

Image: Google Images