Christians and Pop Culture

We have become ensnared by unprecedented material luxury. Advertising constantly convinces us that we need one unnecessary luxury after another. Affluence is the god of the twentieth-century North Americans, and the adman is his prophet.

-Ronald J. Sider, Rich Christians In An Age of Hunger (US: W. Publishing Group, 1997), 191

This quote hits the bulls-eye. North America has become fascinated with wealth and riches, whereas many people around the globe are struggling to survive. We have become fascinated with gadgets, technology, and science. In my opinion, one of the largest evils in North America is the TV. There, we spend countless hours on mindless entertainment. What do we pull away from TV? Of course, only the messages television gives us. These messages consist of what the ‘norm’ is in culture today, including fashion, clothes, technology, brands, and everything else down to the brand of pop we drink; and these can be found in any ‘decent’ television show. As if this was not enough, television commercials give a quick glimpse at what is on the market, and what everyone is buying. I remember being a kid and, after watching a kids television show, I’d proceed to tell my parents about the really cool commercial advertising the newest thing.

I’m not sure whether I can call the ‘adman’ the prophet of this movement in North America… perhaps he is just a mere preacher. To call the adman the prophet of affluence is to shift the blame from our own selfish desires onto someone else’s occupation. Rather, I would suggest that we can rightly each blame ourselves and our own sinful nature; of course, we should not shift the blame to our ‘sinful nature’ either. Instead, we should each take up the responsibility as Christians to shift our ‘god’ from affluence to the one true God.

Doesn't The Bible Teach That Sex Belongs Only In Monogamous Marriage?
Take out your Bible and show us where! Traditional Christian teaching wants you to believe this. But if you search the scriptures and understand the original Hebrew/Greek texts, the history of biblical interpretation and the influence of non-Christian thought on Christian tradition, you will discover you have been sold a lie all these years. We will provide you the historical background and share from scripture what was really taught by God and Christ. We suggest that responsible non-monogamy, loving intimacy and other-centered sexual pleasure sharing is much more in line with Christ's teaching that love is the greatest commandment than the repressive traditional teachings which make rules based on false foundations.

-Liberated Christians, http://www.libchrist.com/ **Note** explicit and erotic language on site, links may lead to erotic images. **

Well, this is just another sick example of someone’s theology gone wrong; this example is probably worse than most, as the website can profess to. Some of Dave’s and Bill’s (co-founders) ideas are good: Christians should not avoid the topic of sex, we should promote better sex education, and doing these things will probably lead to emotionally and spiritually healthier lies. Their conclusions, however, have completely missed the mark. The first sign of bad theology was the quote above. The next sign was an ad featuring “Incredible Orgasms just a few clicks away”. Finally, at the bottom of the site are multiple links leading to “R” rated sites, and descriptions of how to achieve maximum sexual pleasure.

Just because the Bible does not say “Thou shall not have multiple wives” does not mean we are able to have more than one wife. I know for certain the Bible promotes marriage between one man and one woman, with no room for other types of relationships (Sodom and Gomorrah are prime examples). As Christians, however, we must be careful with our theology. Misinterpreting the Scriptures can easily lead to more outrageous websites and ideas like this one. In my opinion, our largest mistake is this: we make the Bible say what we want the Bible to say, without being open-minded and allowing God’s revelation and truth to translate the Bible for us.

What followed had all the trappings of a religious service – songs, testimonies, a sermon. Technically, it was a religious service. But it was overtly commercialized to a greater extent than any religious gathering I had ever observed (and as the son of a Baptist minister, I’ve seen a lot of them). The printed programs, for example, were underwritten by the publisher of Pastor Lee Strobel – he’d preached the sermon – and featured an ad for his many books. The singers at the service were in town to promote their latest CDs to retailers.

-Jeremy Lott, “Jesus Sells”, Reason Online, http://www.reason.com/0302/fe.jl.jesus.shtml

This must have been quite the awkward situation! In an attempt to worship God, Jeremy is caught up in the Christian pop-culture world with the speaker and the singers of the service trying to make some money while they preach and sing. This quote caught my attention because I am a big fan of Lee Strobel. I enjoy his books, as well as how his unbiased opinion converted him to Christianity. However, it does seem completely inappropriate to advertise for your own books or your own CDs in a ‘religious service’.

Of course, it is possible that we are exaggerating in the amount of damage caused here. Does God really care if we advertise Christian products in church bulletins? Is it our own passing of judgment that sheds Lee Strobel in a bad light? How are Christians to get anything accomplished if we judge each other so much? Instead, we should lovingly attempt to discover the truth on what God cares about, and what he does not care about. If the Bible comes to the conclusion that advertising for your own self in a religious service is wrong, we should speak this truth to Lee Strobel in truth. If the Bible does not speak on it, perhaps we should ask forgiveness for the judgment we have passed on those for the sake of legalism. The first step, of course, is to discover what the Bible has to say on this matter. After that, we can decide what to do with ‘Christian advertising’ and the like.

Call it a case of raise-‘em-up rather than shoot-‘em-up. When the hero with a [sic] in the video game “Catechumen” uses a “sword of the spirit” to vanquish a Roman soldier possessed by demons, a bright light appears and a “Hallelujah” chorus sounds. The soldier falls to his knees and prays. The evangelizing nature of the games tends to be subdued, however, and several have received rave reviews from the secular press for their game play. “My calling is to create high-quality fun games that are alternatives,” Mr. Bagley says. “But anything I put out is not going to be preachy. God has a sense of humor, and He wants people to have fun, too.” Of course, the Christian video-game business isn’t just about money, Mr. Bean says: “You can never have too much of Christ, too much of His word, too much of that influence.”

-Randy Dotinga, “Video games where prayer triumphs over sword.” Christian Science Monitor, http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0826/p16s02-algn.html

Now this case is a little more interesting than the one given above. This is a Christian video game. There are Christian movies, Christian T-Shirts… lets go ahead and make a computer game for Christians! I have to admit… there were some times in my childhood that I thought it was an excellent idea; I even saw this same game in a Christian bookstore once! But are Christians taking pop-culture a little too far? Forget Christian pop-culture for a second… Isn’t a video game with the player performing exorcisms taking it a little too far??

Another thing; if Mr. Bagley wants to call his games ‘high-quality’, he’s going to have to back that up. Most game reviews I’ve looked at for this game just about failed the game, which is usually impossible to do. If we ARE going to evangelize at all, we can not give our ‘worst effort’. Of course, the whole industry of Christian video-games seems to be another way for Christians to dig into their wallets for Christian alternatives to the things we really enjoy. If we’re going to waste our money on video games, we may as well save our souls while we’re at it! In my opinion, there should be no such thing as a ‘Christian video-game’ industry unless those making the game actually know what they’re doing, they’re doing it for the right motives, they have the right theology, and they use the profits for God’s kingdom; which is what any Christian should do in anything they do.