Have we turned Christian authors and pastors into celebrities? How can we tell?
Listen as Jo visits with author and poet Steve Turner. They talk about his book Popcultured: Thinking Christianly about style, media and entertainment, and how we can reverse the flow of ‘celebrity culture’ into our churches and book clubs. How can we gather and live in the world without being of it? There are three basic approaches: complete separation from the culture and non-Christians, becoming involved in culture with no discernment or foresight, and what we call ‘thoughtful engagement.’ Steve is a big proponent of “thinking Christianly” about culture and media and offers some tools for how to approach it. We can use Philippians 4:8 as a guideline when interacting with culture, both inside and outside the church.Â
Steve calls us to actively engage celebrity culture by looking at these things:
- Is there a truth I can affirm here?
- Are there biblical themes to this presentation? Are there biblical parallels I can see?
- What is the heart of the message in this song, television show, movie, etc?
Steve cautions us against viewing culture as a whole as “sinful.” In his words, “culture is a result of us being made in the image of God… We’re gonna make up songs. We’re gonna tell stories. It’s just how we’re made.” Steve goes on to say that many times, the death of a culture is heralded by the death of music and stories. He invites Christians to keep telling stories and seek to create culture in addition to critiquing it.
Image: Flickr
