Redeeming Pop Culture 3 :: Critique and Taste

Jimmy: Part of our approach to pop culture, it seems to me, would be to exercise some critical judgment on the various forms we might choose to enjoy. First, is it OK for Christians to enjoy pop culture?

TM: It is always OK for Christians to take joy, delight, and pleasure in anything God does.

Jimmy: But not all pop culture does that.

TM: Certainly not.

Jimmy: So we need to make judgments. In making those judgments, what standards should we use, and teach parents and students to use?

TM: Scripture speaks in terms of such ideas as beauty, goodness, and truth. The idea of beauty relates to the aesthetic value of something, the ability an artist demonstrates in combining forms, using the various elements of genre, and so forth in ways that reflect the beauty of God and His creation. The idea of goodness relates to the end for which something is created. Can we discern in a pop culture form any kind of end that might, for example, be pleasing to God and beneficial to people? Finally, the notion of truth gets at consistency with the teaching of God’s Word. If we can teach people to discern beauty, identify goodness, and ferret out truth, we’ll be helping to equip them to deal with pop culture effectively.

Jimmy: Can you give us an example?

TM: Let’s take the “Matrix” series of films. These are beautifully made movies, albeit somewhat dark (reminiscent of the film noir productions). I prefer the first move to the others, but that’s usually the case with sequels. They make a good use of characters, dialog (at least in places), plot, and imaginative shooting and settings. Their purpose seems to be to cast doubt on the idea that this material world in which we live is the last word in reality. There must be something more, something beyond this “matrix” of getting and spending (our temporal/material existence) that is determinative of everything else. I would describe that as a good purpose, to get people to think about this as a real possibility. Truth? To some extent the “Matrix” movies touch on issues of truth – good vs. evil, the existence of God, the reality of prophecy, the limits of technology, and so forth. These issues are broached, but not considered very systematically. There’s plenty of room for people discussing such issues to inject their own thoughts and ideas.

Jimmy: All of us have our own “tastes” or personal preferences when it comes to consuming pop culture. I have different tastes than some of the students I work with. Am I wrong to say that some of what tastes good to them is distasteful to me?

TM: No, not at all. The key is to be able to understand both our own tastes and those of others, and to regard one another with deference and respect in talking about our tastes. Taste should be regarded as a kind of spiritual discipline, according to Frank Burch Brown. That is, we can raise the bar of our tastes, broaden our ability to understand and appreciate many different kinds of cultural forms, but we need to work at it. We should look to our Christian past to see what represented good taste in the areas of beauty, goodness, and truth among believers in previous generations. We should also let Scripture guide us, as it teaches us how to direct and develop our affections, for example (Scripture does not, for example, glorify violence the way pop culture does – we should nurture our affections accordingly). And we should look to Christians who are involved in pop culture – as well as to developments in pop culture generally – in order to discern what “new things” God might be doing by His Spirit in that realm.





To be continued...