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This is a seminar I gave at this year’s SITC. It’s an update on some previous ones I gave and heavily influenced by Ted Turnau…
I am going to assume that all of you in some way interact with culture, and more likely than not ‘popular culture’, whether you listen to music, watch films, TV, read books, newpapers, magazines, use the internet, travel in lifts…
It is very difficult to live in Western society and not come across ‘culture’ in some form every day, especially if you live in a city.
There are 2 ways Christians have classically reacted to popular culture.
1.Some Christians reject culture outright. If it is something produced by non-Christians then it must be bad. It is inevitably going to be tainted by sin, and so to avoid ourselves being tainted we must avoid popular culture. Anything with sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll can’t be godly, therefore avoid it.
2.Others don’t really consider engaging with culture from a Christian perspective in any way. It could be that they have a compartmentalised view of life, Christianity and church over here, entertainment and culture over there. Or they just have never considered it. This approach more or less soaks up uncritically what culture tells them.
My guess is that most of us would fall into category 2, if any, whereas previous generations would more likely be category 1 (see ‘Son of Ranbow’).
However I hope we’ll see that neither approach is biblical. Read the rest of this entry »
