Christianity and American Culture

American popular culture may be one of the most beautiful yet perverted things in existence. Beautiful in the sense of the emotional narratives and creativity it can express. Take the television program LOST for instance. The show masterfully displayed fully human, emotional experiences and stories in a new and imaginative setting. The audience was transported to a unique world where they could dare to dream. Yet this unique world still had deep emotional resonance as viewers could relate to the show’s characters’ feelings and stories. Unfortunately though, this free expression isn’t always put into practice by much of popular culture. Instead, we see human creativity stifled and marred by some of the terrible ideologies and ethics that our society and culture hold.

While it may be easy to talk about the various ideological systems that have seeped their way into American popular culture, it’s harder to actively identify said systems, analyzing the impact they have on our cultural expression. This course has greatly helped me to better diagnose and become increasingly aware of the problems that exist in popular culture today. In particular, after taking this course I have become more aware of the struggle for equality in American culture. Although equality is a core American value, close inspection of American culture uncovers an underlying power imbalance that should generate concern in American Christians.

One area where this power imbalance manifests itself is in the area of gender representation. In an astounding number of cultural texts patriarchal language and images perpetuate inequality through language and images that denigrate females, silencing women by denying them a voice, and by portraying women as lacking. In a country where men and women are supposedly equal, we see a systematic representation in popular culture that suggests just the opposite. Judging by media representations of gender normalizations, it would seem that gender inequality is not a problem of the past; rather, it is a major problem still plaguing our society today.

Race is another area where the power imbalance facing popular culture is abundantly clear. A claim that Americans often make is that everyone has a voice in this country. However, popular culture fails to express this as minorities are often portrayed in harmful stereotypes. Instead of coming across as unique, engaging characters, minorities often seem to be silenced by being placed in a comedic role or in a role that exists to serve as a means for white characters to use to achieve an end. In American popular culture one can see hegemonic whiteness in action as white value systems and ideals are attempted to be passed off as the values that all individuals in America should strive towards.

Perhaps the most disturbing way that inequality attempts to hide itself within American culture is through the perpetuation of the “American dream.” Despite all of the areas that contribute to the power imbalance in culture, many people fail to see and understand them due to the myth that “anyone can shake free of the limiting past in a struggling ascent toward the realization of promise in a gracious future” (Benre and Hefner). With this idea firmly implanted into many Americans’ consciousnesses, it becomes extremely hard for them to recognize and respond to the power imbalance that American culture faces.

With these ideas and observations in mind how do Christians respond to the challenges that American culture presents them with? One of the best ways to overcome any problem is through awareness and questioning. Individuals are often simply content with drinking in the messages culture sends without being fully aware of what messages mean and the implications that they carry. Many individuals will sit down in their nice, comfy, lazy-boy recliners after a hard day’s work and simply “veg out” while watching television or a movie. People don’t comprehend that various texts such as commercials and television shows that they are being bombarded with are drawing them into the systematic ideology that American culture holds. Individuals don’t take the time to examine and discuss with others the texts that they are being subjected to. They don’t question or critically examine the information presented to them. Instead, they allow themselves to fall into a state of slothfulness, letting American culture shape the interactions they have with it. If Christians want to break free of the ethic provided by American culture and truly serve the kingdom of heaven, they need to actively examine pop-culture as a whole and purposefully discuss it and their findings with other Christians, striving for God-honoring conversations, insightful knowledge, and potential paths of effective action. In this manner, humans can begin to subdue the popular culture’s influence and promote a Christian ethic.

After this questioning and examination, there is still more work for Christians left to do. If they stop short and only identify and spread awareness about the problems that exist within culture today, then no progress will have been made. If somebody goes to the doctor and is diagnosed with diabetes and doesn’t seek any sort of treatment, then nothing will change and they won’t get better. In fact, it is very likely that things will only get much worse. This is why Christians need to have a proactive response to the problems that they identify in popular culture.

Two of the best ways to do this are through creation and cultivation. If Christians are to create culture then they must find creative ways to do so that can be consumed by a broad audience. The option of creation isn’t available to most Christians. Few will find themselves in positions such as directors or writers that can do so. If Christians can’t create positive texts that fight against the problems that plague our culture then they need to cultivate culture. This means preserving or spreading existing texts that capture or portray certain positive elements that fight against the harmful generalizations perpetuated by culture. By creating and cultivating, Christians can muster an appropriate response that begins to combat the existing problems in American culture.

God’s Great Gifts to Humanity – Creativity and Imagination

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light” (Gen. 1.1-3). How does one imagine an entire world and all of its minute details? In the recent film Avatar, James Cameron did bring his own imagination of a unique world, know as Pandora, alive; however, his ideas were shaped by this world and the ideas that already existed within it. At the very start of history, as we can comprehend it, God not only amazingly imagined the planet we call Earth, He also created it out of absolutely nothing, proving that He is indeed a powerful God.

As creation progressed, He eventually created humans who were made in the image of God. This meant that humans had been given an amazing ability to mimic God’s own creativity. While humans can’t necessarily think up brand new ideas, they can, and are, constantly creating “mash ups” of what God made in the first place. It is through their own creativity that they can honor God, diversely expressing themselves, and bringing Him glory, through what they create (Plantinga, p. 39-40). This process calls to attention a specific question: “Exactly what are humans called to create?” God not only created the world physically - He also came up with a biblical story for the world. This story can be broken up into a six act drama with the acts centering on “Creation,” “The Fall,” “Israel,” “Jesus,” “The Church,” and “The Second Coming.” With four of these acts complete, humans now understand themselves to be living in the penultimate, fifth act. While God “wrote the scripts” for the final and previous four acts, He has only partially revealed the script for this fifth act humans are currently living in. Humanity has been tasked with “faithfully improvising” the remainder of the current act they live in until God comes to finish the play (Walsh and Keesmaat, p. 133-134). This “faithful improvisation” can be described as humans creating a story that follows the example shown by God and existing within the framework He has given them. So, answering the question of “what are humans called to create,” humanity is called to create stories that are faithful to the kingdom, fitting into the overall drama that God has created.

Everything humans do fits into and becomes a story within itself. While these stories are “acted out” by humans under God’s supervision, they are strongly influenced by either the kingdom – best described as the characteristics and qualities found in God– or the empire – best described as the characteristics and qualities not found in God. The kingdom and the empire are two polar opposites that are constantly fighting in the battle for control over an individual’s imagination. The imagination is the ultimate prize of this particular fight because if an imagination is influenced strictly by the empire, it will be stifled, suffocating under an authority that controls the will of those under its power.

A good way of thinking about the empire’s control is to examine the species known as the “Borg” in the fictional Star Trek universe. The Borg is a race of cybernetic organisms, organized into a collective that has its decisions made by a hive-mind that it is ultimately controlled by the Borg Queen. Just as the queen has complete control of the drones who are part of the collective, the empire has complete control of the imagination of those who are under its influence. Both would have those fighting against them believe that “resistance is futile.” However, those who serve the kingdom should come to the realization that resistance is absolutely necessary.

If the empire has monopolized an individual’s imagination, then the individual becomes a mindless drone, responding to the challenges, problems, and events of life within the mindset of the empire. Instead of questioning the practices of companies that use sweatshops and attempting to find an alternative solution for fixing this problem, an individual will fall in line with the empire by either deciding that while sweatshops are a problem, there isn’t a feasible alternative solution, or ignoring the problem altogether. This is precisely why the loss of our God-given creativity and imagination is such a problem. Christians living under the kingdom are called to engage in life and the human response to it (pop-culture), examining the themes presented, identifying problems within these themes, convincing others of these problems’ existences, and finding solutions to the problems. Without creativity and imagination, none of these things can be accomplished. If we can’t think outside of the empire’s mindset, then we are bound to its pattern of thinking and the consequences that this type of thinking brings (the temporary subduement of the kingdom - meaning the constraint of “good”). So, how exactly does one actively fight against the empire’s attempts to control imagination?

The best way to overcome any problem is through awareness and questioning. Yes, this may sound ridiculously obvious – of course a person needs to know about a problem to confront it – but far too often humans are simply content with drinking in the empire’s messages without being aware that the empire even exists or is sending us messages. Many individuals will sit down in their nice, comfy, lazy-boy recliners after a hard day’s work and simply “veg out” while watching television. People don’t comprehend that the advertisements they are being bombarded with are drawing them into the empire’s web of consumerism. They don’t take the time to examine the many moral, philosophical, and spiritual questions that a show like LOST throws at them. They don’t question the information presented in front of them. Instead, they allow themselves to fall into a state of slothfulness, letting the empire think or, in this case, not think for them. If people want to break free of the empire’s oppression and truly serve the kingdom, they need to actively examine pop-culture as a whole (and its elements which include advertising, food, fashion, music, and film), and purposefully discuss it and their findings with other human-beings, striving for God-honoring conversations, insightful knowledge, and potential paths of effective action. In this manner, humans can subdue the empire’s influence and promote the kingdom.

As humans continue to “faithfully improvise” the fifth act of the biblical drama, we need not despair at the apparent strength and influence of the empire. God created us with the tools to fight against it and we can do so by using our God given gifts and by trusting in Him. The struggle with the empire has been raging on ever since the fall. However, we have recently seen humanity’s hope, Jesus Christ. In Him, we can fully place our longing and desire for a world made perfect by God.

Works Cited:
- Plantinga, Cornelius. Engaging God's World. 1st ed. Grand Rapids, MI, 2002. 39-40. Print.
- Walsh, Brian, and Sylvia Keesmaat. Colossians Remixed. 1st ed. Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2004. 133-134. Print.