Norwegian Girls 'Convert to Islam' for Justin Bieber Tickets

TV Norway aired a comedy show last night that featured Norwegian teen girls converting to Islam (sort of) for the chance to win tickets to a Justin Bieber concert.

The Norwegian Christian news website Dagen says the program “Anne-Kat” told the girls they needed to remove all make-up, put on hijabs and read an Islamic creed in Arabic. They also had to read an Arabic text aloud that said Justin Bieber is “unclean and probably gay."

The program host Anne-Kat Hærland said, “We wanted to find out how far Norwegian “beliebers” are willing to go for tickets to one of (Bieber’s) concerts.”

Bishop Halvor Northug of the Norwegian Lutheran Church said the episode “testifies to Hærlands’s lack of understanding of how much faith means for a lot of people,” according to Dagen.

Yes, this was first and foremost about teenagers doing anything for tickets and, yes, I snickered a little. Okay, a couple times. The girls probably crossed their fingers while they read the Islamic creed. But it still shows something of the religious ignorance or the nonchalance about spiritual matters that is so widespread in Western nations now, and which has made Europe a welcoming home for Islam.