I’ve been wrestling with how to fully and faithfully implement a “Christian” approach to popular culture. If you’ve watched my “What I’m Reading” section at all, you’ve probably noticed several books dealing with Christianity and Culture. One book in particular, Eyes Wide Open: Looking For God in Popular Culture by William Romanowski has presented several items for “thinking out blog” and has appeared here several times. It’s sad, but I know that as I set out to right this, I have to state that that’s exactly what I’m doing; “thinking out loud”. I’m not arguing a position as much as looking for feedback.

Cultivating a Christian approach to popular culture can be a very difficult thing. As we’ve discussed, many simply place an entire segment of popular culture “off limits“. Others simply try to argue that anything done by a Christian must have an explicit Gospel message and turn all forms of artistic expression into propaganda. I’m not sure that either approach is the answer, or that either approach is actually helpful. Neither approach takes positive steps towards wrestling with the deeper issues surrounding just what it means for a Believer to be “in the world but not of the world”.

The sad truth is that many Christians simply offer knee-jerk reactions to popular culture. That is to say, many times, we don’t actually think through all of the implications, we simply react to society. Rather than thinking through what might be some helpful criteria for the music that we listen to, it’s much easier simply to ban entire segments. Christians (particularly in America, which is all I can speak for) are very reactionary. We wait until presented with a problem and then we fly into action. This simply won’t do when the question at hand deals with our interaction with popular culture, particularly our intake of the popular arts (music, television, movie, print media, etc.).

Another issue is that many Christians fail to recognize the inter-connectedness of our ideas regarding life and how to live it. For example, Christianity rightly places a heavy emphasis on the family; it’s structure, its function and its role in life. But, we often fail to recognize how this emphasis on family (particularly children) might impact other areas of our life, namely media intake.

Christians often strive to intake only “family friendly” forms of entertainment. Without questioning the validity of this, I must point out that the result is often unintentional and probably unrecognized. For many, the criteria for “family friendliness” is whether or not the material in question is appropriate to view, listen to or what have you, with our children. While this is a good question to ask, we must be reminded that it is not the only question to ask.

The unintended result of this approach is that many well-intentioned Christians have lowered the level of all intellectual stimulation from the popular arts to that of a child. Thus, many are rarely if ever actually challenged by the popular arts, because everything the intake is set at the intellectual (and spiritual) level of a child.

Having made that argument, I can just hear someone snidely questioning then that an increase in spiritual maturity also brings with it an increase of influence from the world? Well no, but it should increase the level at which you are able to interact with the world. Romanowski gives the example of a “Christian” response that he read to two movies dealing with the Holocaust. Schindler’s List was deemed unacceptable to Christians because of portrayals of violence and brief nudity while Life Is Beautiful was recommended because it skirts these visual representations. However, as Romanowski points out, Life is Beautiful also minimizes the brutality of the truth by using an extreme juxtaposition of genres to the point that the viewer is left not knowing how to respond. Romanowski notes that “One could easily conclude from these reviews that a Christian critical approach is one that supports obscuring the harsh and painful realities of the past in order to make movies that are appropriate for today’s family market”.

Many Christians have limited their critique of popular art to simply examine gratuitous profanity, sex and violence. While I am not defending these elements, I must point out that there are deeper philosophical issues that we miss by limiting our examination and only asking whether or not material is appropriate for children. Of course some material is not going to be appropriate for children and is not meant to be, but does that mean it’s also automatically banned from adult intake?

I discussed the movie To End All Wars here some time ago and more recently the movie Hotel Rwanda. I would call neither movie “family friendly” but I would say that Christians could be rightly challenged by each movie, not only for the artistic merits of each, but also for the content, which is exactly what prohibits them from being suitable for young children. Adults ought to be challenged in ways that children are not. Therefore, the criteria of family friendliness ought not to be the only criteria Christians use to judge their media intake.

Read Eyes Wide Open: Looking For God in Popular Culture by William Romanowski.
Read excerpts from a PBS interview with William Romanowski.