pop culture
On Monday I went to a local Christian conference in town with two friends. I was excited about having the opportunity to spend some time with them and engage in pretty deep theological conversation. I love that stuff!
One of the workshops we went to was the 9:30 workshop on “A Christian View of Entertainment.” It was really interesting. The speaker talked about the differences between folk cultures, school cultures, and pop cultures, and specifically how pop culture influences us, Christians, negatively.
This is how he defined these three cultures. Folk culture “arises out of deeply-held beliefs about right and wrong, good and bad, has a view of truth, nobility, justice, beauty, purity and excellence (think of community here). School culture “arises out of schools or classrooms, utilizes complex techniques, develops complicated forms, may take folk forms and use them as the basis for more ‘sophisticated’ art (think of studying here). Pop culture “arises out of the arts done solely for commercial purposes (think of whatever sells).
One of the main thoughts that I left with on Monday is many churches appeal to the people by using pop culture (i.e. movie clips, songs, etc.), but actually want the people to participate in folk (i.e. be in community, etc.) and school culture (i.e. read the Bible, etc.). The speakers point was if we attract people with popular culture then we are actually advocating pop culture at homes and in a way helping it develop in our communities and ultimately hurt our families. Instead, churches should be more organic in nature and challenge Christians to invest in folk and school culture by spending time with one another, reading, etc.
I can definitely say that I walked away thinking about how much TV Alyson and I watch each week. We may decide to limit some of it, but I don’t think we are ready to get rid of it entirely from our lives. My week just doesn’t seem complete without watching Jack Bauer slap someone…
Good question, Matt. This is something that I have thought about often. I get that pop culture has a lot of negative influence, but if we’re trying to reach lost people who are invested in pop culture shouldn’t we at least have a working knowledge of it? I am not advocating that we trust and believe in all that is pop culture, but it just seems to me that it would be very difficult for me to establish a relationship with someone if we have very little in common and I don’t at least understand part of the world they live in. Does that make sense?
Never thought of it that way before.
But I see that point bright and clear.
I wrote a post a while back about this idea of culture taking over the church that kind of talked about the same thing. So here are my thoughts on what you are talking about:
I called it the wow factor and it came after I went and saw Avatar:
http://thoughtsaboutnothing.com/the-wow-factor/
http://thoughtsaboutnothing.com/the-wow-factor-part-2/
cool. i’ll check it out and leave a comment.
Yes it is a very negative influence. We are subconciously being influenced away from God and towards ‘modern thought’. Dont pray in school, allow other gods in your neighborhoods, and its ok if theres a couple of homo men living next door. In time, the decay will grow and grow and grow. The worst part? Christians contribute to the decay by turning a blind eye. Ever seen Harry Potter? Or Twilight? The witch cannot be the good guy come on folks! Wake up! Puzzio started this mess with the Godfather. He wanted to prove what a powerful writer he was so he took something dark, and ugly and immoral and wrote so romantically —and why do readers always miss the obivious? He set the story up! Thats what writers do! Every element is created to feed the plot and lead to the kind of ending the writer wants! It is not reality its fiction! Fiction that reads such that it COULD maybe have happened….its a setup. That is the purpose of a story–to set the reader up to buy the ending…so why do so many young men want to be gangsters now? Because the Godfather series made it look like a good thing. That writer took a horror and covered it with roses and perfumes. And people are so lost that they fell for it. Good job Puzzio; guess what? Culture does the same thing. We are always under influences. I myself do not watch tv. I will on occassion watch a few shows on the health channel or an old comedy on the BBC. I watched Space Cowboys a few weeks ago and I might watch Grand Torino in a week or two. I might go rent 2012 just because I would like to see the special effects. But over all I donot watch tv. It has a purpose and that purpose is to influence us to buy what they are selling and folks it aint always Oscar Meyer.
Interesting, that I just wrote a blog yesterday http://patsycostner.blogspot.com/2010/03/child-sacrifice-going-on.html. touching upon the idea of culture. Never though about the difference in pop and folk culture but it all makes sense . Instead of passing the things we see through the our belief sieve (Bible) we pass them through the pop culture sieve. Titus 2 tells us how to live our life and Ezekiel 23 points our how when we forget God decide to offer our sacrifice to false idols, we will bear the consequences. So, Matthew and friends, what is the answer for our churches of today? How does this relate to what we call “contemporary” church. Where is the fine line that separates folk and pop, or is is “fine”?
mom, i definitely think we have to get better at explaining the Scriptures. I don’t think entertainment is evil as such, but I do think we can carry it to the extreme. I’m not opposed to looking like the world, just acting like it…
hey mary, i don’t know if puzzio started it all, but i definitely believe we can take something like entertainment and give it greater worth than what it was intended.
Does “we have to get better mean, you think I got on the wrong track” or that we as the church needs to get better? Either way, I am working on it.
mom. the church is what i meant, but actually all of us a whole…