Some folks are pretty excited today over the fact that Matthew McConaughey, in his acceptance speech for the Best Actor award at the Oscars last night, thanked God. I didn't watch the Oscars - I would rather watch a documentary on toenail clipping than an awards show of any kind - but I saw enough comments about it on Facebook that I thought the clip would be worth checking out.
It was, and not just for what McConaughey says.
What he says about why he likes God is fine with me. I suppose a doctrinaire purist would be horrified that he didn't mention Jesus and all that, but giving glory to God is always better than not giving it as far as I'm concerned. So good on Matthew McConaughey. I don't know anything about his spiritual life but I love that he used this moment in the spotlight to give glory to the King.
But it doesn't sound from the reaction of the crowd that very many other people did. Could the response to the mention of God have been any more tepid?
Now I will say this in fairness: Since I don't watch award shows I am not entirely familiar with the etiquette. Maybe people don't cheer during acceptance speeches no matter what is said. Maybe some of you can educate me. But I have to believe that if McConaughey had said something in favor of a trendy left-wing cause, the audience would have roared with approval.
And apparently the intelligensia found McConaughey's speech quite confounding.
At any rate, God deserves applause even if the etiquette calls for no one else to get any. But this is Hollywood, I know, and Hollywood doesn't think like that. Yet.
