The Language of Pop Culture

In 1951 Christian ethics professor H. Richard Niebuhr wrote what is considered to be the classic exploration of how Christians should go about engaging the culture around them in their attempts to live the Christian life and accomplish the work of the church. The book, entitled Christ & Culture, offers five possible paradigms for answering the question, with "Christ against culture" and "Christ of culture" at opposite extremes of rejection and acceptance, respectively, and three median paradigms designated "Christ above culture," "Christ and culture in paradox," and "Christ transforming culture" in between. The book is not an easy read but it is definitely a thought-provoking one. In it Niebuhr writes in a systematic fashion about the many varied ways that Christians and their churches choose to react to American culture in general, which, for my purposes, speaks to how they react to American pop culture more specifically.

For me personally I find the median positions to be more satisfying. While I understand the position of separation from secular culture (in as much as one can do so), my fear is that it removes the church too far from the world it is trying to reach, rendering it unable to fully accomplish its mission. Yet, the "full acceptance of culture" position fails to recognize that the followers of Christ are supposed to be different in some very visible ways from the world around them. In as much as cultures are representations of who we are as communities, they almost always contain qualities that represent the very best in us ("image of God" type characteristics), as well as qualities that represent the very worst in us (that "fallen nature" sort of thing). So my preferred position on culture is to engage it somewhere in the middle, celebrating its high points while limiting its influence in my life at its low points, all the while trying to help move it along in more positive directions.

Ever since I was a kid I have always loved stories. I really love good stories, but I'll tolerate just about any story that keeps my attention. Pop culture in America is predominantly about telling stories, in books, film, television, video games, music, etc. And whether the stories are fiction (i.e. Sherlock Holmes), nonfiction (i.e. Duck Dynasty [maybe]), or somewhere in between (i.e. Spielberg's Lincoln film), they all tell stories about us, about who we are as a people, how we think, why we do the things we do. And in each category, for those who look carefully, those stories overlap with the stories we are living within the Christian life. How do we leave a legacy on our world? How do we differentiate good from evil? How do we maintain healthy relationships? What kinds of things lead to happiness? How did we get here and what are we supposed to be doing?

Recognizing fully that all people of faith will set their own boundaries on their interaction with pop culture (as, per their own convictions, they should), we hope to be a people engaging the stories that our culture is reading, watching, and playing, and then drawing out from them the elements of truth about God and life. In that sense, we are then able to speak the language of pop culture with those who see God and faith differently, and hopefully move together with them along the path of discovering truth.

As food for thought, what are some instances where you have come face to face with spiritual truths in the midst of a pop culture medium? Or, how do you go about setting appropriate boundaries in your interaction with the same?

If you'd like a more in depth summary of Niebuhr's book, you might consult the link below.
http://forchristandculture.com/2011/08/19/theology-culture-2-paradigms/

Steve

Thinking About the Future of UBC

This coming Sunday we are going to do something we typically don't. We're going to give the entire message over to talking about some key ideas that will shape the future of who we are as a church. For the past year our membership has been working toward paying off our outstanding debt in the quest to be debt free for the first time in over 35 years. As of this writing our estimated completion date is August of this year, a full year ahead of our original schedule. But paying off the debt was never an end unto itself, but rather a means to the end of freeing us up financially to address other needs we have as a church. And so the oft-asked question has been "What comes next?"

As my tenure at UBC has grown so has my understanding of who we are as a church and where we should be trying to go. And really, the first step in knowing what to do next is knowing who we are trying to be. Churches, like people, have personalities and identities that set them apart. For us, thanks in part to our location and to our history, UBC's identity points toward the personality of a neighborhood / community-driven church. This may not sound significant to some, but when you compare the decisions made by neighborhood churches with those made by larger mega-churches, you can begin to notice some distinctions. 

For example, most church's target demographic is usually those living within a 5-20 minute drive radius. At UBC, where we are not located on or near a major highway or interstate, that radius is smaller than it would be for a church located differently. And while this characteristic may be limiting in some respects, when you consider the number of people living within that drive radius to UBC, you'll see that our location is as much an opportunity as it is a limitation. 

If we identify ourself as a neighborhood church where community life matters greatly, then we need to start asking the question, "Do our facilities enable us to fully realize this facet of who we are?" If you consider worship and Bible study space, the answer is most likely yes, but if you consider gathering space (i.e. foyer, welcome center, hallways, etc.) and recreational space (i.e. outdoor activities or cafe-style space for meeting, visiting, etc.) then the answer is clearly no. And if you then consider how important those latter areas can be for a church that wants to invite its members to spend time together apart from and around the traditional meeting times, as well as invite our neighbors to join us in doing so, the next steps we should take as a church become clear.

I could say more, but I'd like to keep this entry short enough to be readable. So if you want to know some specifics that our church leadership (both staff and laity) have been working on, you'll just have to join us for worship on Sunday. Come with an open mind and an eager heart, both bent on maximizing our influence in reaching the Bay Area community where God has planted us.

Steve

A New Face and a New Place for my Random Musings

Its time to start doing this with more regularity, so I'm setting up shop here instead of just at the home site for our church. These posts will still be linked there, as many thoughts and entries will be directly related to church life at UBC Houston. But I also expect to write about random things both of the spiritual and the not-so-spiritual sorts, as well as open this up to potential interaction with people both of the spiritual and the not-so-spiritual sorts beyond the confines of UBC Houston.

I have resisted blogging consistently and in an open venue for two totally unrelated reasons: first is the often illustrated tendency for public, nameless, and faceless dialogue to devolve into something less than communication and something more like a bunch of people in a crowded room all yelling to be heard; and second, my own laziness toward the task amidst the busyness of my personal and professional schedules. I'm working hard to alleviate the latter, and I invite any of you who choose to be responders instead of just readers to help me work to alleviate the former.

As I am fond of sharing with our church family, consent on all matters should not be the ultimate goal of those within the church, much less with those outside it, but rather movement toward mutual understanding and respect for views that differ from our own. And so the goal of these posts will not be to gather around a bunch of like-minded people who all look and sound the same (in as much as one can look or sound like anything within the blogosphere). Rather, the goal is to learn to listen, then respond, instead of merely listening and then saying whatever you like. I continue to do this, thoughtfully I hope, with fellow bloggers, news stories, pop culture, church members, and random people I encounter along the way, some of which will inevitably find its way into this blog. And if the posts in this forum are, for you, worthy of being considered "fellow blogger" material, or "random person you encounter along the way," then feel free to chime in.

Steven