Salt in the Pop (Culture) March 12, 2008
Posted by Anya in : I won't keep things purposely vague , 8commentsDo you have any thoughts on this quandary I’ve been feeling lately about raising children who are prepared for the times we live in? In a nutshell - when we were growing up pop culture was not Christian, but at the same time was generally not offensive. There were tv shows a family could watch together, you could find music that had good lyrics, etc. Now, not only is pop culture not Christian, it is (IMHO) offensive as well. So we (our family) basically live in the world of “Christian pop culture” - VeggieTales movies, Clubhouse magazine, CCM music - which is on the one hand (I hope) responsible and proper parenting. But is that preparing them for what they will face in 10-15 years? And if it isn’t, how do we do that, given the times we live in? Maybe your blogbuddies have some thoughts.
That is the question from my Uncle Bob aka Ferris. Mom is posting about it as well, so please read both posts (oh, c’mon, do you really have something else to do than read our posts??)
I think, in addition to what Mom says, I’ve been well equipped through the schooling which I’ve received. If you really have a lot of time, and I have somehow fallen behind on giving you reading assignments, read The Fabric of Faithfulness by Steve Garber. Preferably about five times. Because the first time your eyes will just glaze over. As they will the second time. But things may start to make sense by the third time… and… yes. You get the picture.
I’m going to insert here that I don’t object to all CCM. Some of it is very good. Some of it — Derek Webb’s album She Must and Shall Go Free comes to mind — has lasting value.
But the pop culture is all around, and, as Mom points out, what promotes itself as “Christian” culture really just tries to paint the decaying face of sin. Joost Nixon made that point beautifully in this article.
I know a lot of the moments that have prepared me were totally unscheduled. In fact, I’ve tried to keep a notebook of some of them since the summer of 2005. Steve Garber obviously was influential there, too, as I have written in the front cover
Learning to care
Only connect
Thank you to Steve Garber [he contributed those two lines, which summed things up nicely] and in an immeasurable way to those who taught me how to care.
Would it set me free
If I dared to let you see
The truth behind the person
That you imagine me to be? [Casting Crowns, Stained Glass Masquerade]
It must be different through your eyes, cause you look at me like it’s the first time that you’ve ever seen my face… [Sanctus Real, Eloquent]
The notebook itself is telling, of some of the moments in my life that have most caused my heart to ache. It’s me trying to work out, in some cases, what was happening. In other cases I was looking back at what had happened and seeing how it had made sense. (Yes, I always write a lot.)
“How do you speak? What do you say? How do you witness?” I wrote, trying to figure out what I had just been told. Because I couldn’t comprehend it. Not coming from someone I’d known almost all my life. No. Not someone I had trusted. Not someone who I had joked around with. I wrote, that time, about the shock, the desire to yell (words which some people would probably die if they found out that I knew), relief, a sense of God’s holiness… all at the same time. That’s the difficulty. We — like the Ringbearer — are called to live torn. More like Samwise, I guess. Both being in the world and not belonging.
Another day I wrote, “It’s broken, and I don’t know how to fix it. I don’t know the answers.” Maybe that’s a difference. Even when I don’t know the answer, I know that there is an answer. One right answer. Not “whatever”. Not “well this is true for me and maybe not true for you”.
So I guess it is the same way with the question I started with. I don’t know exactly how to prepare anyone for what the world will be like in ten or fifteen years. I think, though, that we will be prepared if we are prepared to give an answer for the hope that is within us. And that means to Christians as well as non-Christians. It means living the hope. Seeing how God is working in life, enough to be able to look back and say, “Amazing grace”.
Please — really please, not just because I love comments — comment and let me know what you think. How do we live as Christians in a culture which tries to make everything of about as much substance as computer-generated veggies? How are we light and salt?
