Culture, Compassion, and Compass: Responding to Anti-Christian Media

In a current Christianity Today article titled "When the Media Became a Nuisance," New Testament professor Darrel Bock offers helpful advice on how Christians can constructively respond to blockbuster books, documentaries, and motion pictures that challenge the truthfulness of the Christian faith. As he points out, a critical necessity is equipping:

Rather than seeing new media reports as conspiracies to rail against, why not see them as opportunities to discuss faith with friends and neighbors who will find them intriguing? Only we mustn't do so with an angry or dismissive tone. Rather, we ought to respectfully explain the historic Christian view. Becoming equipped for such discussions may require seminars organized by local churches. Imagine churches working together to help believers contend for the truth in their communities.

The reason Dr. Bock has to urge us to employ our imaginations to envision this kind of equipping is it happens so rarely. What a contrast this vision is to the several emails I've received urging me to boycott the film The Golden Compass. I'm sure those who circulate such missives mean well but hopefully we will not think that we are satisfying our calling to be redemptive agents in the world by trying to organize mass protests via the Internet. Clicking "forward" and "send" is certainly less time consuming and mentally taxing than the activity Darrel Bock commends but it is not nearly as effective in advancing God's kingdom.


Thinking about our propensity to opt for demonstrations over dialogues reminded me of lines I marked years ago in J. Daryl Charles's book, The Unformed Conscience of Evangelicalism: Recovering the Church's Moral Vision. In it, the author laments American evangelicalism's lack of a mature theology of public life and moral persuasion. Referring to Os Guinness's Fit Bodies, Fat Minds: Why Evangelicals Don't Think and What to Do About It, Charles writes:

Evangelicals, he notes, have frequently concentrated their efforts in domains that are peripheral to society rather than central. Correlatively, they have relied heavily on populist strengths and rhetoric rather than addressing "gatekeepers" of contemporary culture. Moreover, and critical to the viability of an evangelical social ethic, we have sought to change society through political and legal means rather than contending in the marketplace of ideas at the intellectual level. Thus, evangelicals have tended to rely on "a rhetoric of protest, pronouncement, and picketing" rather than on moral persuasion.

Johnson adds:

The relative inattention to winning a person's mind and way of thinking, an inattention that tends to depreciate a long-term strategy of building relationships and addressing moral-philosophical complexities, has lasting results that are counterproductive to evangelicals' mission to the world.

I intend to see The Golden Compass, not only because it looks like a spectacular piece of filmmaking (at least as far as special effects go), but because I want to be able to speak intelligently with the people around me who will see it. I also wish to speak compassionately.

In an excellent article titled "Why We Can Neither Boycott nor Ignore 'The Golden Compass'" (HT: The Pearcey Report), David Dunham addresses this point, drawing lessons from Francis Schaeffer's evangelistic method which involved deconstructing a person's unbiblical worldview (a process Schaeffer referred to as "blowing the roof off"). Dunham notes Schaeffer's insistence that compassion accompany this activity, quoting from The God Who Is There:

These paintings, these poems, and these demonstrations which we have been talking about are the expression of men who are struggling with their appalling lostness. Dare we laugh at such things? Dare we feel superior when we view their tortured expressions in their art? Christians should stop laughing and take such men seriously. Then we shall have the right to speak again to our generation. These men are dying while they live; yet where is our compassion for them? There is nothing more ugly than a Christian orthodoxy without understanding or without compassion.

Dunham adds:

That is probably the greatest lesson we can learn from Dr. Schaeffer. You can never share the gospel with someone whom you do not take seriously as a human being; and they will never want to listen to you if your words are not truth and compassion mixed together. There church, and individual Christians in particular, have over the past several centuries struggled greatly with this kind of evangelism. We have often found ourselves more interested in turning up our noses, mocking, belittling, and boycotting the culture, but Schaeffer would have us to find compassion for the culture. So he says, “As I push a man off his false balance, he must be able to feel that I care about him. Otherwise I will only end up destroying him…” We must have compassion.

Yes I am angry that Philip Pullman wants to “destroy Christianity!” But in his books (which have been adapted into a full length motion picture, released today) I also sense that there is a man who hates God, who is honest about it, and who needs the gospel. I will find in some of his major fans similar feelings of religious disdain. How I share the gospel with them will need to start with recognizing this factor and lovingly tearing down the worldview that supports it as I bring them the gospel. What Schaeffer does so well is to remind us that the culture is part of life, where people’s worldviews are expressed, and though we would often criticize and demean culture it can and should actually be part of how we do evangelism.

Tom Gilson at Thinking Christian is a good example of the kind of action those I've quoted above call for. He recently led discussions of Philip Pullman's trilogy at two local libraries. He has also assembled a list of informative posts he wrote while making his way through the books.


Yes, imagine. Imagine a day when emails calling believers to boycott expressions of unbelief are overwhelmingly outnumbered by invitations to learn how to thoughtfully engage those who produce and consume them. I know, it's a stretch. But imagine.

Salvo on the Media

The third issue of Salvo magazine, the theme of which is "Under the Influence - The Media and Their Messages," is en route to subscribers. You can take a peek at its contents here.

A Cold Compassion

In the aftermath of the Virginia Tech massacre, Peggy Noonan considers the heartlessness of our media and therapy culture:

I wondered about the emptiness of the phrases used by the media and by political figures, and how pro forma and lifeless and cold they are. The formalized language of loss hasn't kept up with the number of tragedies. "A nation mourns." "Our prayers are with you." The latter is both self-complimenting and of dubious believability. Did you really pray? Or is it just a phrase?

And this as opposed to the honest things normal people say: "Oh no." "I am so sorry." "I'm sad." "It's horrible."

With all the therapy in our great therapized nation, with all our devotion to emotions and feelings, one senses we are becoming a colder culture, and a colder country. We purport to be compassionate--we must respect Mr. Cho's privacy rights and personal autonomy--but of course it is cold not to have protected others from him. It is cold not to have protected him from himself.

Disney's Teen Idols and Their Young Worshipers

Parents and youth workers should read this article by Kirsten Scharnberg in yesterday's Chicago Tribune (free registration required) while it's still available. It describes the increase of celebrity obsession among children 15 and younger. The objects of this "worship" (the word is used frequently throughout) are the stars of kids' programs like Disney's "That's So Raven," "Lizzie McGuire," and "The Suite Life of Zach and Cody."

Ms. Scharnberg notes that the existence of overzealous fans is nothing new (she points to the David Cassidy craze in the days of "The Partridge Family"). What is new is a media saturation (Cassidy was only on once a week compared to up to seven daily airings of "That's So Raven") and related cross-marketing strategies that lead many youngsters to believe that they have an actual relationship with their onscreen heroes and heroines.

They can worship their chosen stars nearly round-the-clock, with many youth-geared sitcoms aired nightly and offered for download onto iPods for mobile viewing. Fan clubs offer e-mail alerts that can be sent to children's cell phones should news about their favorite celebrity break. Elementary school kids log on to Web sites where debates center on issues such as whether [Hillary] Duff would ever accept a role that required nudity, whether heartthrob Zac Efron of the Disney TV movie "High School Musical" is gay, whether a Connecticut girl is truthful in her claims that she "made out with" Dylan Sprouse, one of the twin 13-year-olds who star in "The Suite Life of Zack and Cody."

There is a solid reason that Disney--and other networks such as Viacom's Nickelodeon--are working so hard to ensure young viewers are addicted to not just their shows but to their shows' stars. Marketing research indicates that the nation's 26 million children age 9 to 14 have a spending power of $39 billion to $59 billion, so when stars are found to be popular with kids, they are put in as many shows as possible.

The following fact is sorrowful anytime but reading it on Father's Day, as I did, was especially sad: "...one study conducted in England shows that while youngsters a decade ago tended to describe parents or other family members as their heroes, today they are more likely to cite a teenage celebrity."


A sidebar to the article lists tips for parents from the Center on Media and Child Health:

1. Reduce media exposure
2. Co-viewing
3. Remove media from kids' bedrooms
4. Recognize that your media use influences your children
5. Instill critical viewing skills
6. Encourage media production
   

In Recovery

From what I've read, it's customary to begin a post explaining why you've not been blogging for a while with an apology but if I were to do that it would be insincere so I won't. Apologies are appropriate when there has been an infraction of some kind but I don't think that's the case when one takes a hiatus from blogging. Now, when I move over to paid subscriptions and I miss a few days, then I'll apologize. 

Anyway, the demands of ministry as well as the necessity to get more pressing writing done have kept me away from this venue. At first I was slightly anxious about not having anything new to post but I soon got over it. I also didn't miss my regular trips to sitemeter and TTLB to see my ranking. I even fell behind in keeping up with my daily reads of the blogs I subscribe to via Bloglines. 

Overall, the time away was good for me. It helped me refocus on what’s really important and where my priorities should lie (a lesson I am forever in need of being taught). The time away also helped me realize the necessity and benefit of not waiting until life’s pressures force me away from being computer-bound but to take intentional steps to see to it that I do not allow technology to become my master. I took a small step toward this yesterday. I previously had my email program set to check for mail every 15 minutes. I’ve changed that to 45 and may up it to 60. My easily distracted and curious mind has frequently been sidetracked by the notification of new arrivals in my inbox. Too often I stopped what I was doing to read and immediately respond to the new messages, wondering why, at the end of the day, I didn’t get as much accomplished as I had hoped.

Among the blogs I made it a point to catch up with were some interesting posts related to the problem of media saturation:

Milton Stanley humbly articulated what I too have to confess -- “I’ve been spending way too much time on the computer and far too little time in prayer."

Al Mohler commented on this article by Lowell Monke about the adverse consequences of children spending excessive amounts of time on computers:

Computers have their place, and can be great learning tools for certain subjects. But children are now spending far too much time staring at electronic screens and “learning” through digitalized programs of study. Dancing electronic dots have replaced human interaction. Monke understands that education requires far more than this – and that what happens on the playground is important too.

(I shudder to think what I would be like if I had been exposed to computers at such an early age.)

Thanks to Macht for linking to Byron Borger’s impressive bibliography of books “that can help us think Christianly about cyberspace and computer science.”

Finally, in an Outtake item he called “Info Addicts,” Joe Carter cited a Ball State University study that found the average person spends more time using media devices than any other activity while awake. According to one of the researchers:

Television is still the 800-pound gorilla because of how much the average person is exposed to it. However, that is quickly evolving. When we combine time spent on the Web, using e-mail, instant messaging and software such as word processing, the computer eclipses all other media with the single exception of television.

Joe’s reference to information addiction brings to mind a vivid mental image that popped into my head not long ago. I'll set it forth for your consideration in the form of a question. Are bloggers analogous to a room full of bulimics feeding each other?

Bon Appetit!

Worthwhile Reads About Christian Marketing and Media

Murdock at The A-Team Blog conducted an interview with Richard Abanes, author of Rick Warren and the Purpose that Drives Him. He posted Part I today. In it he asks Abanes to respond to the suspicion of some that his book is a part of the Purpose-Driven marketing strategy.
 
Speaking of Purpose-Driven marketing, Tim Challies thinks there's reason to believe that the release of a new book by the marketing genius behind The Purpose-Driven Life is being stalled due to pressure from Rick Warren.

Phil Johnson, the Pyromaniac, says that virtually all of the people on Time Magazine's list of "The 25 Most Influential Evangelicals" are "fadmakers." Phil's answer to why evangelical churches are so prone to jumping on bandwagons? "A few years ago, marketing experts learned how to tap into evangelicals' infatuation with the cheap and tawdry and turn it into cash." (Something tells me Phil could come up with some winning "Pious Products").
Of all Phil says, I found the following most disturbing though not surprising:

When it comes to books, have you noticed how few truly timeless and significant volumes are being published? That's because nowadays, decisions about what to publish are driven by marketeers who have little concern for the spiritual or editorial content of a book. I have sat in meetings with publishers while their marketing experts vetted concepts for new books. "That one's too biblical." (Those are the exact words one of these Christian kitsch-peddlers actually once said in my presence to a roomful of nodding experts from the Christian publishing industry...)

Doug Groothuis explains why he thinks television doesn't lend itself to apologetics (despite Lee Strobel's commendable efforts) and calls for "medium exegesis":

American evangelicals are populists. They have always labored to reach as many people as possible for Christ using every available means and method. This motivation is praiseworthy, but should be tempered with media exegesis. Some media are not well suited for some topics and issues. Television, as I have argued in Truth Decay, favors the image over the word; it also favors certain kinds of personality (the charismatic, simplistic, telegenic, image-oriented communicator) over character and intellectual ability. Television has little patience for carefully developed arguments or nuances.