Christ and Pop Culture

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About the Site

Pop Culture is everywhere. You can attempt to avoid it, but even if you succeeded, those around you are immersed in it. Pop Culture is more than just television, film, music, and the things people indulge themselves with to pass the time. It’s politics. It’s lifestyle. It’s the common knowledge of our age. You could say it’s the common sense of our age.

In recent days, Christians have attempted to ignore such a thing. After struggling for years to keep from being in the world, we have failed, and instead have succeeded only at being of the world.

This is because we have ignored the signs. All around us God has placed signs. Some of them are caution signs, warning us against the wrong path. Others are open signs, showing us the benefits of something we may otherwise have written off. Rather than take notice, we have turned our back on Balaam’s Donkey. “Donkeys can’t talk, and if they could, they would have nothing of import to say.”

But we forget sometimes that God is sovereign even over donkeys and television sets.

Christ and Pop Culture seeks to acknowledge those signs by discussing and demonstrating exactly how we ought to think about and interact with pop culture.

About the Writers

Richard H. Clark (Co-Founder/Editor-in-Chief) has spent his entire life writing, reading, listening, and playing. He abandoned his life-long desire to be in a band when he began to pursue his call to full-time ministry. He went on to get his Bachelors in Theology and is currently pursuing a Masters of Divinity from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary with an emphasis in Christianity and the Arts. He has since become fascinated with the extent to which popular culture influences real people. He and his wife currently live in Louisville, KY.

Email: deadyetliving [at] gmail [dot] com
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Alan Noble (Co-Founder/Editor) is a graduate student at Baylor University pursuing his Ph.D. in Modern American Literature. To feed himself and his wife, he teaches Freshman Composition at the university. In 2006, he graduated from Cal. State Bakersfield with a Master’s degree in English. In addition to studying, teaching, and writing, Alan is 1/2 of the Hip-Hop group SoberMinded, enjoys playing Halo 3 (and other Xbox 360 games) with his wife, and loves Star Wars. While not particularly good at making art of any kind, Alan has an intense interest in the arts and culture and how believers ought to interact with them to the glory of God and edification of others. Alan lives in Waco, Texas with his Math-loving wife and their no-longer-able-to-skateboard-because-of-an-injury English Bulldog Gertrude.

Email: noble.noneuclidean [at] gmail [dot] com
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David R. Dunham (Co-Founder) is a pastor, blogger, and avid fan of pop-culture. He has long been interested in the arts. He received honors for acting throughout high school and college, even being given a scholarship for musical theater to Youngstown State University. He is also an amateur musician, with one album, Get Well Soon, released in 2004. David has a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and in Pre-Theology from Ohio University, and is now completing a Masters of Divinity from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He currently teaches English Composition at Shawnee State University in Portsmouth, OH. David and his wife Krista have one daughter, and they currently live in Lucasville, OH.

Ben Bartlett is a husband, father, obsessive reader, and Master of Divinity student at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He got his degree in Political Theory and Constitutional Democracy from Michigan State University, and has never fully kicked the political bug. He is interested in the way large themes such as pop culture, history, politics, and theology interact with the inner lives of individuals. Few things make him happier than reading, discussing, and recommending books.

Email: blbartlett [at] gmail [dot] com
Humble Beginnings

Bill Reichart is a husband, daddy of two daughters and a pastor at in North Atlanta. Bill received his Masters of Divinity from Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando. Before pastoring a church, he worked with college students in the northeast for over 16 years. He really enjoys movies, science fiction/fantasy writing (yes he’s been to a Star-Trek convention!), the Simpsons and theology books - not necessarily in that order. He has always been fascinated with the intersection of culture and his faith.

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Carissa Turner Smith is a compulsive reader, writer, and Irish dancer. She earned her Ph.D. in English at Penn State and currently teaches writing and American literature at Charleston Southern University. At age three, she announced that all she wanted to do was “sit at a desk and read and write,” and she has been trying to make good on that promise ever since. Fortunately, she is occasionally distracted from this mission by her husband Stephen and their cheese-obsessed cat. A loyal native of Arkansas, she has always loved the fact that Jesus dwelt in an underappreciated corner of Galilee (see John 1:46).