Every time the Super Bowl rolls around, there’s a familiar ritual.
Someone is announced for the halftime show, social media erupts, and half the country is suddenly convinced that this performance represents either the triumph or collapse of Western civilization.
This year is no different.
Part of me shrugs and says, fine. Air it. I probably won’t watch it anyway. I’ve skipped halftime shows before, and I’ll skip them again. Changing the channel is easy.
But another part of me looks at the larger picture and thinks: how far down the road have we gone that this even feels normal?
And that’s where the real issue begins — because the problem is not the halftime show.
It’s not the artist.
It’s not the genre.
It’s not even the explicit content argument, since the NFL is still bound by broadcast standards and sanitizes every second of what goes on the air.
Those debates are surface-level. They miss the point.
The deeper issue is that what once lived at the cultural margins now sits comfortably at the center — not quietly, not reluctantly, but proudly. Things that would have shocked previous generations barely register today. Not because people are worse than they used to be, but because the cultural guardrails are gone.
And when a society stops blushing, it’s not because it has become enlightened. It’s because something inside it has grown numb.
That said, I don’t believe censorship is the answer. In fact, history teaches the opposite lesson. External restraint without internal conviction doesn’t produce virtue — it produces rebellion. You can force compliance for a while, but you can’t manufacture repentance. You can regulate behavior, but you cannot regenerate a soul.
Censorship may suppress symptoms, but it never heals the disease.
The truth is, culture doesn’t change because the right rules are imposed. Culture changes because people change. And people don’t change because they’re scolded, silenced, or managed — they change because their hearts are transformed.
That’s why no amount of outrage over a halftime show will fix what’s broken.
What we’re witnessing isn’t primarily an entertainment problem. It’s not even a morality problem in the narrow sense. It’s a spiritual problem. A nation that has lost its moral center will inevitably celebrate things that once would have caused pause. The drift always shows up in art long after it’s already taken root in belief.
And that brings me to the only conclusion that actually holds up under scrutiny.
We don’t need better halftime shows.
We don’t need stricter speech codes.
We don’t need cultural referees policing every performance.
We need God.
And more specifically, we need Jesus Christ — because lasting change has always moved from the inside out.
Christianity didn’t transform the ancient world by censoring the Colosseum. It transformed it one heart at a time. Quietly. Patiently. Inconveniently. Through repentance, grace, and truth.
So yes, I may change the channel. But I won’t pretend that changing the channel changes the culture. Only changed hearts do that.
The problem is not the halftime show.
The problem is who — or what — we’re worshiping.
And the solution has never been found on a stage.
I’m Wayne – and that’s my world view. What’s yours?
