I was listening to Brandon Flowers' new album, Thrasher, and a phrase in the last song stopped me: "God and glitter." Fittingly, the song is called "An American Dream."
The phrase named something I feel. On one side is a faith that runs deep in my bones. On the other is all the shimmering glitter of life that competes for my heart. I believe biblical truth is true and eternal, but I live in a world that sparkles and draws me away from God. Honestly, the more wealth I accrue, the more I feel that pull. Maybe it's an American thing. That dream is deep inside me too.
Flowers has fronted The Killers for over twenty years. He has filled stadiums, made a lot of money, and built a career out of Las Vegas, one of the most glittering places on Earth. Yet he has never hidden his faith; it shows up in his songs again and again. I need to be clear about one thing: Flowers is Mormon. He talks about Jesus a lot, but his faith is not historic Christianity, and as a Christian, that difference matters to me. He is still a great artist, and he speaks to this tension in a compelling way.
In other songs and interviews, Flowers has talked about the moment you decide whether the faith you were raised in is yours or your parents'. That decision point comes for all of us at some point in the journey. He decided his faith mattered, and you can tell it runs deeper than the fame. In the song, he dreams about the end of his life and runs into Elvis, another performer raised in church and caught between the sacred and the spectacular. What Flowers walks away with is simple: lean on Jesus. That's what grabs me. Not that he escaped the glitter. He didn't. The glitter doesn't get the final word.
I've driven through Vegas many times, and the Strip's glow starkly contrasts with the dry wasteland around it. That's where the lyric takes me: the glitter's empty offer, surrounded by dead, bare Nevada. The desert outside Vegas was considered so empty that during the Cold War, the government chose it as the place to test nuclear bombs. I had to sneak in a post-WWII fact as a dad.
How do you keep money and success from pulling you away from God?
I'm not a rock star, but I feel the pull too. My faith isn't a performance. I chose it at thirteen, and I haven't turned away. Still, there are days I want to be known. Days I want to be liked. Days I want more money, more success, more recognition. More books sold. The glitter appeals to me just like the lights on the Strip.
But glitter isn't always evil. Sometimes it's just shiny enough to distract me from what life is really about. Having stuff isn't bad. It's when the stuff becomes the objective of your life that it can take all of your heart.
That's one reason being active in a local church matters so much. It keeps you rooted in Christ instead of being conformed to the pattern of this world.
"Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will." - Romans 12:2
Church isn't just a place we show up on Sunday. It's a community that keeps reminding us what is true when everything else is loud. The danger is that church can become just another nice routine: good music, familiar faces, a comfortable rhythm. But it's much more than a nice thing you do on the weekend. That's why Paul spends so much of his writing correcting churches that were drifting (1 Corinthians 1:10, 3:1–3, 11:17; Galatians 1:6, 3:1; 2 Corinthians 7:8–10). It’s important we do church right to God.
I feel this even more working at a megachurch. Big stages, bright lights, big numbers, big budgets. Glitter is practically built into the building (not literally, to be clear). It's easy to start measuring faith by attendance, applause, and how good the worship set sounded.
And before my friends at smaller churches feel too good about themselves and start throwing stones: I've seen the same dilemma in your places of worship. Instead of being about mega, it's about being a holy huddle club, the glitter of being known and having influence in your small circle. Glitter comes in every size.
How do you pass on a deep faith to your kids, not an inherited one?
This is where it really hits home. I think a lot about the faith I'm passing on to my three kids, two of whom are full-blown teenagers, and it keeps me on high alert. I don't want their faith to be an outward ritual they perform on Sundays. I don't want it to be something they simply inherit from my wife and me.
They will be tempted. They will be lured away, just like I am and you are. The world they're growing up in offers plenty of glitter, and some of it will look amazing. I want them to enjoy some of it, but I don't want it to consume them. "The Word became flesh" (John 1:14) shows us our physical bodies aren't bad, but our desires can take control.
"But each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death." - James 1:14–15
I don't want my kids to be controlled by the glitter. I want their faith to be deep. In their bones, not just on the surface. Not something they do once a week to make Mom and Dad happy, but something that holds when the lights get bright, and the applause gets loud. I can't force that decision on them. But I can live out my faith honestly while they're in my home, talk openly about my struggles, and let them see me wrestle with the same pull they'll feel.
I won't pretend the glitter is all fake; some of it is good to enjoy, but within the context of God's way. I can help them understand the good and bad of making money, and why making fame (or becoming a YouTuber, as they'd say) your only target in life is a mistake. These things aren't evil by themselves, but if they become your idol, they'll leave you empty in the end.
"He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income; this also is vanity." - Ecclesiastes 5:10
What does it mean for God to go deeper than the glitter?
The goal isn't to avoid the glitter completely. The goal is to make sure God goes deeper, so when the pull comes (and it will), something underneath is more real. The beauty is that the Bible says a great deal about this, from the perspective of kings and servants alike. I can teach those verses to my kids so they're rooted in their faith and not so easily swayed by more views, likes, subscribers, and dollars. They can lean on Jesus too when those moments come.
That's why this lyric resonates with me. It names the tension I live in every day, and it reminds me what I want to pass on: not a faith that competes with the glitter, but one that outlasts it because it’s better.
I do wish I could sing like Mr. Flowers. My kids love to harass me about my singing voice. But "Gold and silver, God and glitter" is something I've been muttering too much lately. Such a great lyric.
