I’ve been fascinated all week by the Discovery Channel’s 21st annual Shark Week, particularly by these amazing creatures and the mysteries of their actions. On one show I recall the amazing display of Great White Shark aerial attacks, as these giants of the deep launched themselves out of the water to feast upon seals swimming on the surface! I’ve been equally amazed at the divers, researchers, and scientists who swim with these incredibly dangerous and unpredictable monsters of the sea.

The most recent show I watched followed one man’s journey as he encountered and “adopted” a Tiger Shark (an animal known as the “man eater”).  In this show the man was amazed at how shy, gentle, and “friendly” the shark was to him. He was traveling in uncharted waters, so to speak, with this encounter.

The whole scenario, however, reminded me of the sad and tragic death of The Crocodile Hunter. Here was a man who had spent his life working with deadly animals only to find himself the victim of a rare and surprising death of the animal kingdom! It is a reminder to me that we do not yet live in the New Kingdom where man has dominion over the animal kingdom. Certainly this is the way God had set it up originally, but sin entered the picture and corrupted even the animals as well as their relationships to humans.

Shark Week stands out to me as a reminder that no matter how safe man may feel, no matter how “controlled” the experiment is, in this sinful world that we live in man is not yet in dominion over the earth, and animals are not yet in submission to him. The time will come, as sure as Christ’s return, when man will have power over even sharks… but the time is not yet!

• “Shark Week” and the Coming of Christ
• Sea-World’s Sentimental Secret
• RetroPost: Sea-World’s Sentimental Secret

So how should we respond when Angela on The Office criticizes the other character’s morals while being in a sexually immoral relationship herself?  What should we think when Ned Flanders from The Simpsons is portrayed as naive and overbearing?  How should we feel about scathing documentaries like Religulous and Jesus Camp?

I propose three appropriate responses to the mocking of Christians:

1.  Learn. What can we learn from what is being said about “Christians” in this film, television show, or video game?  Is there some truth to what they are saying?  Angela is rude, snobbish, and hypocritical.  Was her character pulled out of thin air just to be mean to Christians?  Probably not, whoever wrote her character probably knows some professing Christians who are insufferably rude.  What can we learn from her character?  At the very least, when Christians are made fun of on TV, we are seeing at least someone’s perception of us.  Before we cry foul, we should at least consider whether this perception has some credibility to it.  This may mean we need to examine ourselves and see if there is hypocrisy in us or it could mean that we need to simply determine to be slandered and turn the other cheek–after all Jesus said we are “blessed when others revile” us and “utter all kinds of evil falsely against us” (Matt. 5:11).

In the Angela example, perhaps we need to learn how we are sometimes perceived and determine not to be so rude and insufferable. Even when we are giving reason for the hope that is in us, we are to do so with “gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15-16).  I will admit to only having watched a small number of Simpson’s episodes, but sometimes, Ned Flander’s odd behavior is envied by Homer and generally lauded by the show (Kenneth from 30 Rock is another good example–he is probably the most kind and giving character on the show).  Though we ought to expect the world to hate us (John 15:18), we ought also to avoid the pitfall of assuming the world hates us in every way that they portray us.  Sometimes, believe it or not, Christians are portrayed in a very positive light.

If you feel that Christians are being unfairly caricatured, its pretty simple–by God’s grace, seek to rise above it!

2.  Laugh. If we are truly trying to live above the false stereotypes that the world often has about us, then eventually those stereotypes will become absurd to us and perhaps even funny.  When Angela is asked what book she would want with her if she was stranded on a deserted island, she says The Purpose Driven Life.  Seriously one book and you pick that?  Not the Bible?  To me, the Bible was such an obvious choice that it makes her statement plainly absurd.  Sometimes media blasts aspects of evangelical Christianity that need to be blasted–in this particular instance, I laughed because they are not making fun of Christianity or the Bible, they are making fun of evangelical subculture, much of which isn’t necessarily biblical or explicitly Christian (I am not making any particular statement about The Purpose Driven Life by the way). For maturing Christians many of these things should appear to be absurd–so much so that we can, at times, laugh.

3.  Love. When Christians are made fun of unfairly or out of an attempt to discredit and damage us–we ought to love those people who are making fun of us.  Jesus commands us to “love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.”  If being mocked on TV is persecution of Christians, it is a pretty light form, but nonetheless if we are to love those who persecute us, how should we feel toward those who mock us?  Its pretty simple–we should love them.  We don’t have to agree with them, but we are commanded to love them.

The easiest thing to do when we feel we are misrepresented by pop culture is to boycott whatever we feel is discrediting us.  I would argue that very little good comes from boycotting that which pokes fun at us.  However, great good could come from learning from those who make fun of us and sometimes what is being made fun of is so far from where we are spiritually that we can laugh along.  Finally, in any and every instance, we should love those who mock us–praise the Lord that Jesus did the same for us.

• How ‘The Marriage Ref’ Can Save Your Marriage
• Protecting the Bible Post-Apocalyptic Style: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of The Book of Eli
• Thou Shalt Laugh

First, let’s look at some of the signs: constant references to “levels”, a need for a “level designer” who is essentially a virtual architect, the fighting with numerous faceless enemies, the need to accomplish a specific goal at the end of every level, the selection of weapons taken directly from “Call of Duty,” and the snow level, which depending on who you ask is either a carbon copy of the Nintendo 64 game, Goldeneye’s snow level or the snow level in Modern Warfare 2, complete with snowmobile chase.

These references aren’t mere easter eggs for gamers, but are instead signals that declare the relevancy of the subject at hand. As in most sci-fi films, the premise isn’t merely a fantasy concoction, but an acknowledgment of a current or imminent reality. There is a key scene in which we are introduced to a basement full of about forty old men who we are told spend their lives in the dream world. When asked whether they should be spending their time neglecting reality, the man who orchestrates their dreams responds, “This is their reality. Who are you to say otherwise?”

While the rest of the movie explores the key question of what constitutes reality, and the importance of living within it, it’s that scene that demonstrates the relevance of such a question. The scene brings to mind people who spend most of their time with their World of Warcraft guilds and make claims like “These are my real friends!” when confronted. But the problem isn’t isolated to those people we have deemed to have gone “too far,” or mediums known for a excessive use. Whether it’s immersion in a video game, book, television show, or film, we live in a world saturated with opportunities to escape reality.

Even if we don’t spend most of our day immersed in these worlds, it’s still possible to view them unhealthily. If we merely find safety, refuge and relief in our media – if we prefer false realities to real ones – we risk sinking deeper and deeper into a state of being out of touch with the real world and everything within it. Already, it’s happening. We grow bored easier, not just with boring meetings or hard work but with difficult relationships and mundane tasks. We expect more out of life, not because we require more, but because we are used to observing more in our dream-worlds, which just happen to be displayed on screens and read about in books. We desire profundity around every corner. We want to save the world. We want to know that we matter.

Unlike the world of Inception, the danger we face isn’t so much that we will confuse reality with our dreams. Instead, it’s that we’ll allow our dreams to warp our perception of reality. These stories can be nice. They can be illuminating. They can be convincing. But reality is truth, and it should never be willfully abandoned for the sake of a story. After all, the best way to take in a dream is to stay lucid.

• “Inception” and the Danger of Imagination
• Is ‘Wild Things’ Too Dark, or are Disney Films Too Light?
• The Dangers of Video Games

Annoyed and challenged, I unsuccessfully shoved my shoe underneath the bookcase, trying to move him from his new fortress. Becoming increasingly frustrated, I began to remove all the books from the bookcase. If he would not come out and fight like a real mansect, I would bring the battle to him. Before long the now bare bookshelf was lifted up and moved to the side, exposing my foe once again. Once again, he ran for his life, but there was nowhere close to hide. His desperate escape finally ended from a direct blow, administered with an old history of the French Revolution.

This victory, though significant (in my mind at least), ended up being transient at best. For our entire apartment complex was filled by an invasion of crickets. Every time we opened the door another hopped into our home. The chirping went on day and night. Nothing, it seemed, was stemming the cricket tide. Nothing was keeping them out of the apartment.

In reality, the overflow of crickets has proven to be a minor nuisance. Yet my unsuccessful attempts proved to be a gentle reminder. In our modern world, we sometimes think that we have conquered nature. The world seems like it tries to kill us, with its storms, heat, failing crops, carnivores animals and mortal diseases. In our time, however, we possess storm shelters, international trade, and vaccines. On top of fighting natural elements, we possess many additional trappings of technology, from cars, airplanes, and ipods to the computer on which I type these words. Even air conditioning shows us more than surviving what nature gives us. The world, it seems, has been tamed.

Then I am confronted with crickets. The fact is, no matter how much we think we tame the world, the earth as well as all in it is God’s. God is not to be and cannot be tamed. Nor do our actually small efforts prove successful apart from His almighty hand.  Though we may accept such a statement in the abstract, looking into our lives will invariably show some concrete rejection. We may mask this rejection of God’s power in the most intricate ways. We may call it personal accountability, stewardship or defending God against claims of injustice.  We may see it in the way we depend too much on our toys, our comforts, and in our often subconscious belief in progress.

Therefore, often such a lesson of nature’s—and hence God’s—uncontrolled power is made in reference to deadly natural disasters, like a hurricane. Such forces tear through our defenses and confront us with the realities of our autonomy. Yet perhaps the lesson can be learned by occurrences less deadly, less awful in the full sense of that word. Perhaps God’s sovereignty can be taught by the simple chirping of a cricket flying by my couch-potato, air-conditioned ear. Perhaps, for those willing to listen.

• The Online Art Show
• ‘The Road’ Goes Ever On
• “Shark Week” and the Coming of Christ

Every week, Richard Clark and Ben Bartlett acknowledge and respond to the big issues in popular culture. We love feedback! If you’d like to respond you can comment on the website, send an email to christandpopculture@gmail.com, or go to our contact page. We would love to respond to feedback on the show, so do it now! Subscribe to us in iTunes by clicking here. While you’re at it, review us in iTunes! We’ll love you forever!

Click here to listen!

• Podcast #57: Welcome to District 9
• Podcast #74: Love is Messed Up
• Podcast #39: Stewart Versus Cramer

Leonardo DiCaprio plays Cobb, a man skilled at entering dreams and extracting what whoever is paying him desires to know. Yet more than anything Cobb desires to return to his two young children, neither of whom he can visit because he is suspected of murdering his wife. Cobb is offered a chance to return to them if he can complete one more, audacious job. Instead of infiltrating dreams to find out ideas already there, he is asked to do inception:  planting an idea in the mind of the dreamer. Though this is claimed to be impossible, Cobb takes the job with the hope of seeing his children again. Putting together a team to work with him, Cobb embarks on an intense journey into another man’s subconscious dream-world, one that includes gunfights, paradoxes, and dreams-within-dreams.

“Inception” continues to showcase Nolan’s exceptional skills as a filmmaker. Witty, intense, emotional, thoughtful—this movie deftly combines car chases and explosions with deep investigations into the dreaming human subconscious. Nolan creates multiple dream worlds with surprising depth and consistency. The consistency and detail make such a far-out concept increasingly believable as the story unfolds, leaving you remembering afterward how many of its rules align with your own dreaming experiences.

With great art, Nolan presents numerous themes that should only multiply and deepen with repeated viewings. Idolatry is held up for ruthless examination. The world of dreams presents the possibility of human desire restrained by little more than the imagination. One can create homes, cities, and entire lives in accordance with one’s own wishes. Rejecting God’s world, these human dreamers seek an even more complete separation from God and entrenchment in their own man-made Edens. Such worlds soon become preferable to the real world. In fact, for many these become their reality.

The idol-making subconscious has an even darker side. Cobb is haunted by the death of his wife and secretly harbors deep guilt regarding it. He tries to keep his wife alive in the prison of his self-conscious. In the attempt, his efforts mixed with his guilt turn her into little more than a destructive monster. Such creations lay bare the dehumanizing effects of selfishness. How often do we re-create others into our desired image within the confines of our mind? Such re-creations can take the form of unspoken expectations or fantasies played out and secretly preferred over the real, God-created person. In doing so, we trade the created image of God for that made in our own likeness.

Cobbs’ guilt further exposes the depths of bondage to which sin can force its captive. He is haunted and losing his grip on reality. His created world soon begins to define and change him. In other words, the freedom that dreams give has turned into slavery. Ultimately, Cobb is a being in need of forgiveness. But forgiveness seems to require atonement and redemption, neither of which seems possible. All he really has is necessity and forgetfulness.

The film also confronts technology’s affect on the lines between public and private. Today Twitter accounts, Myspace, and Facebook trumpet our every thought and movement. Cameras watch us in stores, restaurants, gas stations, schools, even parking lots. For the famous, the paparazzi or reality shows peal off additional layers of privacy. Yet one place still seems inviolable—the mind. Our thoughts if we choose can remain our own, unshared and unknown to the rest of the world. But is it inviolable for no other reason than it is impenetrable? If technology could reach the inner recesses of thought, would it, too, be endangered by theft and held up for public ridicule?

In the end, “Inception” shows the depths of human desperation and depravity. Seeking not just to control but to create our own world, the results are often despair and regret. The film is keenly aware of the danger we present both to other others as well as ourselves. In its unflinching portrayal of these issues, the movie raises filmmaking to the level of true, thoughtful, lasting art. Nolan has taken summer blockbusters and given them an intellectual and beautiful quality otherwise unheard of in a season of mindless action and stale sequels.

• Inception: Reality Is Not a Game
• Podcast #90: Inception & The “Mind-Blowing” Genre
• God-Clause: Reflections on Santa and Theology Proper

When we last discussed Lebron James and his impending decision as to where he would end up next, we had no idea what sort of incredible craziness would ensue after our podcast. Now that it’s happened, we’re left a little bit stunned at all of the theatrics and the resulting fallout.

Also, on the heels of a landmark Friday Night Lights episode in which the issue of abortion is dealt with head-on, we discuss popular culture’s treatment of the subject, as well as what sort of treatment Christians ought to appreciate most. Is there such thing as pro-life art? What does it look like? Is it a good idea?

Every week, Richard Clark and Ben Bartlett acknowledge and respond to the big issues in popular culture. We love feedback! If you’d like to respond you can comment on the website, send an email to christandpopculture@gmail.com, or go to our contact page. We would love to respond to feedback on the show, so do it now! Subscribe to us in iTunes by clicking here. While you’re at it, review us in iTunes! We’ll love you forever!

Click here to listen!

• Podcast #85: A Funeral for Print
• Podcast #66: A Thanksgiving Debriefing
• Podcast #30: Rich and Ben “Bond”

For those of us who believe the latter, this state of affairs seems on the face of it to be alright with us. As long as popular culture refuses to take the practice seriously as an option, they are prevented from making any flippant or trivial arguments in its’ favor. The truth of the matter, though, is that abortion doesn’t need arguments in its’ favor. For those who find themselves or their significant other pregnant against their will, the option of abortion when separated from its’ inherent cultural and moral stigma  is virtually magical. Like sex itself, abortion doesn’t need popular culture’s support because in an age where reversing a pregnancy is possible, it seems like the only logical choice.

This is why it’s such a brave and crucial thing for Friday Night Lights to commit to addressing the subject without a blatant agenda and without leaving out any crucial steps along the way. When Becky finds herself pregnant with a football player’s baby, she finds herself at a loss as to any other way to handle the situation. Her boyfriend, while good-natured and caring, is relatively passive when it comes to the decision. They both know not to challenge what their culture tells them: that this decision is purely the woman’s decision, and no man – even the father – has the right to any input.

Implicit in the episode is the unsettling truth that Becky’s mom is anxious for her to go through with the abortion out of experience: if Becky had never been born, it would have been better for her mom. This only serves to complicate the already complex decision Becky is trying to make. Interestingly, it’s her mom’s “pro-choice” values that seem to be pushed on her during this critical time of decision making. When a doctor appears to merely be sharing some important information about what abortion is, and Becky seems to be interested, her mother sees it as most pro-choice advocates would: a pointless result of a brutally political law. As her mom rails against the doctor, all Becky knows is that her mom must really want her to go through with this abortion.

The most heartbreaking moment of the episode is when Becky goes to visit Coach Taylor’s wife for some advice. She visits them not because she knows them and trusts them, but because she has no where else to go. It’s clear Becky would like to go through with the pregnancy. She speculates on how she would defy all odds and make the baby feel loved and cared for – exactly the things she is not. But she simply doesn’t see a way to make it happen. She tells Tami Taylor what she believes to be the inevitable truth, through tears: “I can’t take care of a baby.”

Obviously, if abortion is what we say it is, this is hardly a good excuse for going through with it. On the other hand, it does draw attention to one of the key reasons many scared teenagers do seek out an abortion: they feel totally and utterly alone. Becky has been failed by her family, her community, and her friends. Of all the people who are faced with this predicament, none of them says to her, “If you do want to have this baby, we will help you.”

…until it’s too late. When her boyfriend calls and says that he is willing to make it work, that he’ll do anything within his power to make it work, and makes an actual appealing case for raising a child, all she’s able to say is that she “took care of it.” If this were a lesser show, the emotions on display would be relief, but this is Friday Night Lights, and they know that regret is inevitable here. For a while, at least, those two teenagers will be dwelling on what could have been, and what’s been lost.

What this, the first realistic and honest look at the issue I’ve seen on television, demonstrates is that in a culture where abortion is far off from being inaccessible or illegal, it becomes even more inevitable in the face of what is for many teenagers an utter lack of community and companionship. In every town or city, there are countless girls who are starved for the love and affection that a boyfriend will give them, but who lack the guidance of a good parent. What our culture lacks in connectedness and shared community, Christians can make up for, simply by making ourselves available.

• Dear Third Way: You Just Don’t Get It.
• Podcast #89: Two Very Different Decisions
• 3 Ways to Watch Film and Build Community

Americans tend to have a notorious international reputation of being extremely self-absorbed, ethnocentric and globally ignorant. We have a tendency to love only what’s American, and to belittle other cultures, practices, and, yes, even sports. This of course makes little sense for Americans, considering our history is one of ethnic and cultural diversity. It also makes very little sense for Christians who believe, as the Bible teaches, that God is the creator and lover of all peoples and nations, and that he has in fact redeemed a people for himself from among every tribe, and tongue. Yet this perception, and sadly all too often reality, remains with Americans. We are cultural elitists! But soccer has the potential to change some of that.

Any soccer lover, even a novice, will tell you that when it comes to the sport’s best Americans don’t stack up. The best players usually come from Europe and South America. Theirs are the stars and heroes of the game. To teams like Brazil and Germany, France and Italy, belong the championships. To truly invest in the game and to adopt a genuine love for it you must follow the international teams. You must watch England’s Premier League, and Germany’s Bunda Slinga. As you do you will see players from all over the world, you will learn about new cultures, and locate cities and countries that you never even knew about. This is all good for us (especially when we consider that the average American can’t even identify the European continent on a map!). What the World Cup offers to us is a chance to open up our minds, to embrace people everywhere and to share in a common, global, love affair that transcends races, cultures, continents, and labels. This game, in many ways, helps us to become better people…possibly even better Christians.

I say all this with a bit of tongue-in-cheek, but I can’t help but wonder if it isn’t, on some level, true. So, Americans, watch the World Cup and let soccer help you become a better person…and to start maybe we should stop calling it soccer and join the rest of the world in calling it by its real name: football!

• What Can We Learn From a “Blind” Referee?
• Some Soccer Love
• From the People Who Brought You Flower

After watching the live-action film The Last Airbender, I’ve decided to induct writer-director M. Night Shyamalan into the Ember Island Players Hall of Fame. Aang was not played by a woman, but that’s about the best I can say. In addition to being a travesty of the show, The Last Airbender is genuinely bad on its own merit.

I first encountered the TV show Avatar three years ago—and, as many before and since have, I fell in love. The show combines an Asian-inspired setting and characters with a Western storytelling style (which tends to make it more immediately accessible to Americans than most anime). I have to admit that the cute hybrid animals—turtle seals, badger moles, and penguin otters—are a big part of the draw for me, too, and their almost complete absence from the film (Aang’s flying bison Appa and his winged lemur Momo make token appearances from time to time, though Momo’s name is never mentioned) is just one way in which the fleshed-out world of the TV show is flattened for the big 3-D screen.

As in the Ember Island production within the TV show, The Last Airbender movie makes Aang’s character one-dimensional, though in the opposite direction. The film’s Aang is completely humorless, lacking the playfulness that makes Aang’s gradual acceptance of his role as Avatar—the one person who can keep any one of the four nations of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water from becoming too powerful and dominating the others—all the more poignant. (Also, oddly, the film pronounces Aang’s name to rhyme with “gong” rather than “gang,” and Sokka—“Sock -a”—is pronounced “Soak-a” or, occasionally, “Souk-a.”)

Shyamalan does at least deserve credit for giving Aang a distinct character arc in the movie, though his choice of arcs makes Aang less believable as a little boy. In a bizarre twist, in the film, Aang’s reason for running away when he’s first told that he’s the Avatar is that it means that he “can’t ever have a family.” What twelve-year-old boy would mourn over that? It’s much more plausible that the TV show’s Aang runs away both because he rebels against the discipline that being Avatar would impose on his fun-loving spirit and also because he truly fears bearing the weight of so much responsibility.

Besides accepting his role as Avatar, the other character arc the movie assigns to Aang is learning to grieve over, without the desire for revenge, the genocide of his people by the Fire Nation (who, in a rather Herodian move, slaughtered all the monk-like Air Nomads because they knew the Avatar would be born among them). This arc could work—with a better script and better acting/directing—but we would also need to see the potential consequences of Aang’s uncontrolled anger in order to understand why he would want to avoid it. The TV show addresses this issue through what’s known as the “Avatar state,” when Aang’s arrow tattoos begin glowing and he gains tremendous power. The Avatar state, which, in Book 1 of the show, is triggered by anger or fear on Aang’s part, is of course useful in a tight spot, but also dangerous, because Aang has no control over it. He fears that he could hurt those he loves while in it. In the movie, however, we don’t really see the dangerous side of the Avatar state—it mostly seems to come in handy for defeating otherwise unbeatable enemies. (As the Ember Island version of Aang perkily says, “Avatar state! Yip yip!”)

The other main characters in the movie—Katara and Sokka, the brother and sister who find Aang trapped in an iceberg and help him on his journey, and Zuko, the disgraced prince of the Fire Nation who is trying to capture Aang and thus restore his honor—don’t really have much in the way of character development. The film is like a series of condensed plot points from the TV show—we’re rushed through each point simply because we have to hit it, and not because we’re driven by characters’ motivations.

The writing has major pacing issues. Granted, Shyamalan faced a daunting task in transforming 20 half-hour episodes of a TV show into a two-hour film. Obviously, the plot needed to be streamlined. Characters and events needed to be left out. However, streamlining is not generally accomplished by having a voiceover tell you what happened, and then watching the actors act out what the voiceover already told you had happened. On the micro-level of writing, the movie’s lines are painfully tinny; Shyamalan seems to have realized that the movie couldn’t be in cartoon-speak register, but he chose to go for unnatural-sounding, inconsistently and awkwardly contraction-less “I am in an epic” speech.

Given the writing, it’s hard to know how much blame to place on the actors. Many of them seem to favor the William Shatner style of delivery (though this could be due to poor editing and/or directing), with pauses in extremely odd and unpredictable places. Having seen Dev Patel in Slumdog Millionaire, I know that he can actually act, even if it’s not particularly evident in his portrayal of Zuko in this film; I’m not sure I extend the same confidence to Jackson Rathbone (Sokka), who has previously impressed me as being the worst of the actors in the Twilight movies. Most of the other young actors are newcomers; if they do have talent, I hope that they get to use it in other films.

Speaking of actors, this seems as good a time as any to address the “race fail” in casting the film’s lead characters. In th TV show Avatar, the characters seem to be drawn from a range of real-world ethnicities and nationalities, including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Inuit. The Last Airbender’s main actors are, with the exception of Dev Patel, Caucasian (and Patel was a late addition to the cast, after Jesse McCartney bowed out—yes, the movie could actually have been worse). Shyamalan did indeed cast people of many ethnicities in minor, mostly non-speaking roles, but, frankly, I’m not sure this made it any better. The Southern Water Tribe members are played by people who appear Inuit, but this only makes the incongruity of the very white actors playing Katara and Sokka all the more noticeable. I can’t pretend to know all the motivations behind the movie’s casting, but, having seen the final film, it seems as problematic as it did when it was announced. So, no, Aang was not played by a woman, but the movie’s casting was almost as strange as the Ember Island production’s.

At the end of the “Ember Island Players” episode, the main characters exit the theater complaining, “That . . . wasn’t a good play,” “Horrible!”, and “You said it!” Sokka, ever the optimist, ends the litany of grievances by saying, “But the effects were decent.” Yes, Sokka, the effects were decent. Mostly.

• Casting Decisions for Shyamalan’s ‘The Last Airbender’
• Poor Jack
• Hamlet 2: Is “Rock Me, Sexy Jesus” Blasphemous?

Since the beginning of the medium, video games have been populated with heroes who must kill hundreds and thousands of people, both “bad” and “good” to reach the end goal. “The ends justify the means,” has been as much the mantra of video games as they have been the mantra of action films. The hero simply must do wrong so that a greater wrong may be avoided.

No game developer has exploited this fact more masterfully than Rockstar, the company responsible for the open-world Grand Theft Auto series. The series may be known for its’ giving the player the ability to run the gamut of criminal acts, but what it really represents is the logical implications of the typical video game hero: here we have a lone vigilante who makes up his own mind about what Must Be Done, and he carries out those acts despite all moral trepidation that may arise as a result.

Between Grand Theft Auto III and Grand Theft Auto IV, there was a shift: while the player was still allowed to harm innocents and villains alike, the way in which that killing was presented felt less fulfilling. The people being harmed just seemed too real, too lifelike, and too scared for the player to ignore the idea of what was being carried out. This was more than mere fun: it was a moral action, if only in a digital world. While we wouldn’t be held responsible for these acts, and shouldn’t be, the character we were playing as would, if only in his digital conscience.

When Rockstar developed a new game set in the wild west, Red Dead Redemption, many referred to it as “Grand Theft Horse,” but this is a misnomer. While the mechanics and open-world approach may be similar, the game’s narrative and gameplay arc manage to enable a unique experience in which the player relates to, converses, and empathizes with the protagonist, John Marston. The relationship between the player and John Marston is a complex one, but one that ultimately aids in the overall efficacy of the story.

As we get to know John, we begin to understand how desperate his situation is, as well as all of the reason he deserves what has been his lot in life. John has been a bad guy in his past, and he deserves every bad thing he gets. But as we guide John through an honorable routine of saving the lives of prostitutes, helping strangers recover their wagons from thieves, and occasionally being taken advantage of because of our naivete, we begin to think that maybe, with our help, John Marston can change.

But Marston fights us every step of the way, accepting jobs without the player’s consent that range from foolish to resolutely evil. Why does he insist on following through with them? Because his mind is focused exclusively on one thing: finding his family and leaving the life he once led for something more peaceful, honorable and simple. What Marston truly wants, but doesn’t quite know how to find, is redemption. He wants to escape the past and live a live of honor and nobility.

The game makes the mistake of making this clear by way of several explicit philosophical conversations between Marston and those he meets along the way, wherein he explains in great detail his motivation and his feelings. However, what the game lacks in subtlety it makes up for in the grand moments of encouraged meditation, signified by the few times Marston’s riding throughout the countryside is accompanied by actual songs, with lyrics intact. It’s in these moments that our motivations begin to sync with Marston’s: you both marvel at the surroundings, you reflect on what Marston has been through and what he’s put others through, and wonder whether any of this will be worth it.

The question at hand in Red Dead Redemption is a simple one: how does a man change? In other words, how can man become a better, “good” version of himself?  It’s clear when playing Red Dead Redemption that such a goal is simply unattainable, and tragically so. Marston strikes us as a man with good intentions: he’s desperate to leave his outlaw life in the past. If he knew that the game of which he is the protagonist had the tag-line “Outlaws to the End,” he would be horrified. All he really wants these days is to be a rancher.

But he can’t escape his past, and those around him serve to remind him of that truth. In the last stage of the game, we see the effect of this on Marston and the way he treats others. As Marston desperately tries to pull up his boot straps and attain redemption for himself, he only makes things harder. Those sins he committed: he’ll never live them down, he’ll never shoot them all dead, and he’ll never be able to bury them all.

The Western genre is known for its loner mentality. It’s an individualist genre, and ultimately humanist. Men do their best to take care of themselves without any help physically, emotionally, and spiritually. With the implications of this worldview played out before us, we see exactly what this entails: In the world of Red Dead Redemption,  redemption itself is ultimately dead.

• “Mommy, what is that alien doing?”
• Video Games are Meaningful, We Promise!
• The GTA 7 Step Program

Also, we discuss whether The Office makes light of adultery.

Every week, Richard Clark and Ben Bartlett acknowledge and respond to the big issues in popular culture. We love feedback! If you’d like to respond you can comment on the website, send an email to christandpopculture@gmail.com, or go to our contact page. We would love to respond to feedback on the show, so do it now! Subscribe to us in iTunes by clicking here. While you’re at it, review us in iTunes! We’ll love you forever!

Click here to listen!

• Podcast #76: War is Madness, But So is March
• Podcast #64: Where Are the Wild Things, Anyway?
• Podcast #68: Tiger, War, Peace, and Climate Change

The Office, unlike most comedies is willing to move in directions that are painfully real and not funny at all–I found this refreshingly appropriate.  Far more common is the comedic tactic of making light of sin.  I did not need to see The Hangover to tell you that the entire premise of the movie is to get us to laugh at the tragic decisions people make when they are drunk.  Perhaps this is funny to the Christian who is far removed from the “party” culture, but drunkenness is a real issue in the real world and it can cost people their lives.  The Hangover seems poised to get us to start thinking that drunkenness is funny.  Another example that comes to mind is Friends and the incessant jokes leveled at Ross’ failed marriages, Joey’s premarital sexual exploits, and the irrational decisions Rachel makes when drunk.

Is it ok to laugh at sin? We shouldn’t take TV too seriously right?  When is sin funny? Does Ephesians 5:4 prohibit laughing at sin?

Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving.

I don’t think Paul is warning against potty humor here, I think he is saying, don’t make jokes about what is shameful, i.e. don’t make jokes about things that damn people.  “Foolish talk” is not a reference to silliness–the fool in scripture is one whose soul is danger because of his lack of wisdom (Psalm 14:1; 53:1; Proverbs 10:8-23; 12:15-16; 13:16).

When media makes light of lust, pride, and greed and our response is to laugh, I fear we reveal that we are deceived by sin in our hearts (Jer. 17:9).  Simply put, sin is no laughing matter–it is destructive, at best it damages people’s earthly lives and at worst damns them for eternity.  When media mocks sin–and show its destructive nature, perhaps it is appropriate for us to laugh and to say along with the media–that is foolishness!  But to laugh at sin as if it is silly is dangerous.

That is the difference in what I saw in the aforementioned episode of The Office–the show mocked adultery and brought out very clearly the pain that it causes.  We see this in Scripture–Elijah mocks the prophets of Baal when their gods fail to light their sacrifice, he even uses “potty humor” by asking if perhaps their gods were “relieving themselves” (1 Kings 18:27).  In the account of the Tower of Babel–God mocks the pride of the builders when the text tells us that God “went down” in order to see the tower that had supposedly been built to reach up to heaven.

My goal here is not to tell you not to watch shows that make light of sin, but rather to beware of making light of sin along with media which does so.  In the rare instance that what we watch, play, or read serves to mock sin, I suppose it’s appropriate for us to laugh, but in either instance the goal is the same to glorify God by what we eat, drink, read and watch (1 Corinthians 10:31).

• Why Vote When You Can Laugh? The Daily Show and Complacency
• Podcast #88: The Court and The Office
• When Pop Culture Mocks Us

Ben and Rich also discuss what dangers Christians will have to consider in the relatively near future when it comes to motion control and pushing the envelope.

Every week, Richard Clark and Ben Bartlett acknowledge and respond to the big issues in popular culture. We love feedback! If you’d like to respond you can comment on the website, send an email to christandpopculture@gmail.com, or go to our contact page. We would love to respond to feedback on the show, so do it now! Subscribe to us in iTunes by clicking here. While you’re at it, review us in iTunes! We’ll love you forever!

Click here to listen!

• Podcast #73: The Games
• Podcast #42: Gaming Choices
• Podcast #50: E3 and Summer Gaming

There were roughly somewhere between 5-10 fouls going on in that penalty box when Landon Donovan whipped a curved ball beautifully onto Edu’s foot which struck it simply but soundly into the back of the net.  It was perhaps the most ironic play I have ever seen in my many years of soccer fandom because Edu and Donovan were the only players moving gracefully in that box–and the match report cites the foul being called on Edu–the one player in that box who wasn’t fouling anyone. What everyone else was doing was more akin to something you might see in a UFC match.  Despite what has been said by many USA fans, there were several fouls being made in the box by both teams, admittedly the most heinous were being committed by Slovenian players, but there were fouls.  It is sad really that the penalty box has become a wrestling match in the modern game which so many still refer to as “the beautiful game,” but nonetheless given where the greater fouls were coming from and the fact that such acts go on in most every penalty box on most every free kick in the modern game–it should have been allowed–the world football community seems agreed on that.

Nonetheless, Koman Coulibaly has indeed made a valuable contribution to US Soccer. As Paul Kennedy aptly pointed out, “He accomplished what no one else could in more than 100 years. He made Americans care passionately about soccer.”  Kennedy’s quote was so well stated that it made the New York Times and was quoted by several ESPN World Cup analysts.   Whether out of  a spirit of national pride or simply natural disdain for being “cheated,” everyone–soccer fans and non-soccer fans alike were talking about Coulibaly’s blunder and the Yanks chances at advancing out of the group stage.

As a long time fan, player, and now a coach of the game, I am thrilled to see the World Cup getting the attention that it deserves in America.  I love watching the Cup but I was never quite so on the edge of my seat as I was last Friday because no matter their fate, I will always cheer hardest when team USA plays.  There is so much that can be learned from the game of soccer–last Friday’s game in particular lends us to a number of lessons if we are willing to hear them.

For one, USA never should have given up the two goals it did in the first half.  The first goal could have been corrected simply by the center midfielder tracking his man and the center defender stepping to the ball.  The fact that 2-0 deficits are rarely overcome in the game of soccer is testimony to the fact that soccer, like so much in our spiritual lives, is a game of continual discipline–knowing your assignments and sticking to them.  One major mental lapse or failure to stick to your assignment and any team in the world can find itself behind and struggle to come back–correlations to the Christian’s fight against sin are myriad.

There are many things that team USA could have done to ensure going away with 3 points–Torres could have passed the ball to feet as everyone expected him to, Altidore could have gotten in position to take some shots on goal, Howard probably could have gotten down quicker on the second goal, Findley could have done something besides just running fast.  We cannot live in the past, which is what made the come back so special. But nonetheless, Referees don’t lose games, team USA did not dominate that game, they only dominated 45 minutes of a 90 minute game and the first 45 were bad enough to force them into desperation mode.

I’ll admit to joining the hate party leveled against Coulibaly immediately after the draw, but as Christians we need to remind ourselves that men make mistakes–I doubt that Couibaly was living out a long planned vendetta against team USA–its fair to say that the call was wrong, but Christian charity is in order here–remember Couilbality is a human being with a family and a job.

Finally, as Christians, team USA’s draw to Slovenia should remind us that our hope cannot be in people–men will always let us down at one point or another–this side of eternity the better team doesn’t always win and the team that earned victory will not always get it.  Until Christ returns or calls us home, not only sports but the world as a whole will continue to fail to satisfy us and often disappoint.  That is why Hebrews speaks of a better hope that cannot be won through human achievement but is the gift of God (Hebrews 7:19) and Paul spoke of a hope that does not disappoint because through Christ, God has “poured out his love in our hearts” (Romans 5:5).

I may be stretching these lessons a little too far, but you can be sure I will be watching today as team USA takes on Algeria and hoping for a lesson that has something to do with winning graciously!

• Nike and God Battle It Out For the Future
• Americans: The World Cup Can Make You A Better Person
• Confidence on the Pitch

The three countries of Sounis, Eddis, and Attolia share a common language, though with different regional accents, and all three were invaded at some time in the past by foreigners, who were ultimately driven away. Sounis and Attolia adopted the invaders’ gods, though, while Eddis retained the old pantheon. In Attolia, the new gods are mostly a formality; the Attolians “did not invest much belief in their religion. They dutifully attended temple festivals and used their gods for cursing and little else.” Eddis, a mountainous country viewed as backwards by its more civilized neighbors, clings to the old-time religion, yet even the more pious Eddisians do not expect their gods to be real and capable of personal encounter. They are far more comfortable relegating the gods to the realm of myth—in fact, for most of The Thief, the gods only surface in Eddisian myths interspersed with the narrative. (In the myths, the gods seem to behave as the Greek and Roman gods did, consorting with mortals and having human children—in the characters’ present-day reality, however, we only hear of the gods making (decidedly more ethereal) appearances to rulers or future rulers. I’m most curious about whether the gods do also appear to common people in Turner’s world, even if we don’t hear about it because the focus isn’t on those characters.)

In the author’s note at the end of each book in the series, Turner includes an explanation that the world she has created is not ancient Greece and points out that certain details—such as firearms and pocket watches—are more reminiscent of a Byzantine time period. Given that the historical Byzantine Empire was, after the conversion of Constantine, at least officially monotheist, the series’ echoes of older Greek polytheism are interesting. When interviewers ask any question about why the deities in her books are written the way they are, Turner generally responds, “I wanted it that way.” Fair enough. Though the gods of Eddis are many, they display some characteristics that strike me as powerfully evocative of God as revealed in the Old Testament as well, whether Turner wanted it that way or not.

To the novels’ characters, the gods most often appear in dreams, giving guidance or warning to the dreamer. One character, isolated and enslaved, dreams of a tutor who comes and instructs him, filling in all the gaps that his earthly tutors have left. He later learns this tutor’s divine identity. The gods even appear in dreams, it seems, to those of other nations who are unfamiliar with this particular pantheon, when the gods want to use foreigners to accomplish their purposes for Sounis, Eddis, and Attolia. To some individuals is given communication from the gods even during waking hours: in one of my favorite scenes from the entire series, one character clearly and distinctly overhears a god saying to another character, “Go to bed.” The recipient of this divine message complains of the gods’ dealings with him, saying, “No ‘Glory shall be your reward’ for me. Oh, no, for me, it is ‘Stop whining’ and ‘Go to bed.’ . . . Never call on them . . . if you don’t really want them to appear.”

At other times, the gods’ interventions are less humorous and more challenging. In fact, in the second volume of the series, The Queen of Attolia, there are some echoes of Job’s despair. A character who has, according to his perspective, lost everything that made his life worthwhile learns that direct intervention by the gods led to this loss. When this character demands to know why the gods have betrayed him, they, like God in Job, do deign to appear and admonish him, “Who are you to speak of rights to the gods?” Because The Queen of Attolia is fiction, the goddess Moira also then goes on to provide a more fulfilling resolution than we have in Job, granting the character a vision of the greater purpose for which he lost everything. (And by saying that it’s more satisfying than Job, I mean from a this-life human perspective: it’s partially because Job does not satisfy me that I believe it as truth. As poet W. H. Auden once said, “I believe because He fulfills none of my dreams, because He is in every respect the opposite of what He would be if I could have made Him in my own image.”)

The first time I read The Queen of Attolia, years ago, I was angry over what the author had chosen to do to this beloved character (and I’m apparently not alone here—Turner reports receiving hate mail over this decision). Now, going back and re-reading The Queen of Attolia in conjunction with its sequels, seeing more pieces of the final pattern for the series fall into place, this scene was so powerful that it reduced me to tears. Grasping the ultimate author’s design, the ultimate divine design, is something we’re so rarely granted in this life that it jars us with both pain and beauty when we encounter it in fiction. (I still question the believability of a romance that Turner introduces within the novel, but that too serves her purpose for the series—once you accept the end goal, you can appreciate the rationale for earlier authorial decisions, even if you wish they were a little more plausible in their development). Turner strikes me as a careful, perhaps even meticulous, writer, spending between three and six years on each volume of the series, and the novels are tightly and consistently plotted. She also credits her readers with sufficient intelligence to grasp the connections between events without being told repeatedly, and she seldom resorts to plot summary—which means that, if you’re reading the books as they are published, some re-reading of previous volumes will probably be necessary, unless you have a far better memory than I do.

When Turner first wrote The Thief, she had no plans for sequels, but it seems clear that, once she began writing The Queen of Attolia, the major details of at least the next two—and possibly the remaining two—books of the series were already in place. Within the novels, it’s clear that the gods’ involvement is intrinsically linked to the future course of events in Eddis, Sounis, and Attolia. I’m eager to see the role the gods continue to play in the remainder of the series, though it will probably be another decade before it’s completed—as in life, in this particular fiction series it takes patience to see the pattern resolved.

• Alan Jacobs’s The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C. S. Lewis
• The Lost Finale: All of This Matters
• Year One: Very Silly, Sometimes Thoughtful

Every week, Richard Clark and Ben Bartlett acknowledge and respond to the big issues in popular culture. We love feedback! If you’d like to respond you can comment on the website, send an email to christandpopculture@gmail.com, or go to our contact page. We would love to respond to feedback on the show, so do it now! Subscribe to us in iTunes by clicking here. While you’re at it, review us in iTunes! We’ll love you forever!

Click here to listen!

• Podcast #64: Where Are the Wild Things, Anyway?
• Podcast #68: Tiger, War, Peace, and Climate Change
• Podcast #69: Brit Hume Lays it On The Line

Reading this passage on the DC metro several summers ago, I immediately thought of my own old friendships. Several of them date back to before high school. I recall summers spent in one friend’s basement watching really bad Adult Swim shows on the Cartoon Network; or going to the local, all-night diner, eating subpar food and watching drunks arrive to sober up before going home. We would debate music, movies, politics, religion, philosophy—really anything and everything we could think to argue.

The intervening years brought increasingly diverging dress, political views, music tastes, hobbies, and moral outlook. To increase the divides, we are now spread across the state of Ohio and, in my case, across the country. In spite of these changes, the bonds between us endure. We still speak with some regularity; we still go out of our way to meet when in the same city. The meetings often become what they were back in high school—debates over anything and everything sprinkled with the storytelling that revives the best (and sometimes worst) of times past. Like Tolstoy’s novel, our friendship contains elements so deep, so secure that while we would likely never become friends were we to meet today, it is even harder to imagine losing such friendship after all this time.

Yet one important divergence between us has not been mentioned. In the last few years two of my friends have become avowed atheists.

The difficulties surrounding this change have been legion. Zealous new converts, their conversations have been consumed with proofs against God’s existence and assaults upon organized religion. In addition, their brand of atheism owes much to Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens, the so-called “New Atheists.” Coming from this polemical lineage, their atheism is not one of sad doubt but intense surety. They do not bewail the death of God in their minds but rejoice, all-the-while heaping up attacks upon the God of Scripture that are nothing short of base, often very lewd blasphemy. These actions have strained our friendship probably more than they realize. The gulf between God and themselves has created distance between us.

I further struggle with the eternity of our discussions. Though I believe God is sovereign over salvation,  that does not preclude the intensely held hope that He will soften even the hardest heart among my friends. I desire that we be united in Christ as we have been united in friendship.

With these personal experiences I have been driven again and again to the question:  what does it look like to love your atheist friend? Not in the abstract; not in the form of some cloudy, benevolent feeling; but loving in real actions that take place in real circumstances. The following ideas form the core of what I have tried, though certainly not always succeeded, to do.

First, I try to show my friends that our friendship is not conditional. They are not my friends because they meet a certain check-list of dos and don’ts. After all, what check-list would we meet for each other, considering our vast differences? I hope that in some way such actions will show them that the essence of Christianity is a relationship, one built not on performance but on eternal faithfulness. The Christianity they attack is nothing like this but a sad tale of self-righteous self-salvation through adhering to rules and degrading those who do not.

Second, I have tried to engage them respectfully on their arguments. Too often they have had family and friends reject them outright as moral horrors because of their lack of belief, persons who then are either unable or unwilling to discuss the merits or weaknesses of their arguments. Such actions have only fueled their belief that religious persons believe blindly and irrationally, that my friends are the enlightened ones who have shed monkish ignorance and bravely stared at the heavens as they are—empty.

Yet while engaging them on this intellectual level, I have tried to remind them that they are human beings, not floating brains. Their atheism comes from the full human spring of the social, emotional, and intellectual just as my Christianity flows from these personal streams.

Third, I have tried to stay friends and not become merely debating partners. Sometimes Christians can turn friendships into one long , explicit evangelistic endeavor. While in one sense we must always be showing others the love of Christ, that does not mean we must always discuss Scriptural proofs. Relationships out of which the Gospel can be seen as well as heard seems the best way.

Fourth and finally, I have tried to be honest with them and with myself. I have tried to own up to wrongs I have done and do so in a manner that truly looks to costly grace and not either legalism or libertinism. Such actions have caused renewed vigor on my part to fight sin and temptation, study God’s Word, and fellowship with other believers for both love, counsel, and correction. God has used this situation to further His work in me.

In the end, I do not know how God will work out this situation. Will my friends come to a redemptive knowledge of Christ or be forever separated from Him and from fellowship with me? Only God knows for only God is sovereign. I pray, though, for faithfulness and patience, much more than I have yet shown, that these friendships may not end but grow in the manner God would have them.  Perhaps by His grace, our childhood friendship would realize the greatest commonality—union with Christ.

• ‘The Last Station’ and the Gospel of Fluff
• Regarding this Adminstration and Before
• “The Audacity of Hope” in God’s Sovereignty

In my role as a pastor I find myself doing several things on a constant basis: responding to e-mails, reading and studying, and planning my week. Now I’ve done all those things for years without an iPad and done them just fine, but what the iPad has allowed me to do is to take on these same tasks from beyond the walls of my office. Without having to lug around a bag full of books, a laptop, and a daily planner I am able to pick up my work and move to the coffee shop up the street and work for several hours. This has opened up so many more opportunities for evangelism.

One of the downfalls of being in pastoral ministry is that you can very easily spend all of your days with Christians and lose sight of the need for pastors to be consistently involved in evangelism. The iPad has allowed me the freedom to do my work and share the gospel (not to mention that every average Joe wants a peek at it, thus opening doors for conversation). With the iPad I have my Greek and Hebrew tools accessible to me anywhere I go, I have countless books at my fingertips, and I can drop an e-mail as quickly as I want. All that being said, however, there is a common language about the iPad and ministry that is beginning to concern me.

The iPad is being hailed as a technological revolution. I am not sure it warrants that title… not yet, anyways. It has certainly opened up a whole new category of products between laptops and smart phones, but the real stretch in my mind are the young tech savy pastors who claim that the iPad will “revolutionize ministry.” This seems not simply a stretch to me, but a dangerous train of thought. Pastoral ministry is about helping people grow in their knowledge of, love for, and obedience to God. It is about ministering to people, pointing them to the gospel, opening God’s Word for them and with them. As great as the iPad is I am not quite sure how it is going to “revolutionize” all of that.

There are some who view technology as the key to successful business and successful ministry (these people obviously haven’t read Jim Collins). Some think that if you’re going to grow, if you’re going to connect with people, if you’re going to maintain relevance then technology is an absolute necessity. I’ll be the first to admit that technology has much untapped potential for the church, but to suggest that ministry in the 21st century can’t be conducted without it is, in my view, ridiculous. The iPad may change many things (reading, web-surfing, etc.), but to suggest that it will drastically transform pastoral ministry may say more about the quality of some pastor’s ministry than about the iPad.

I love my iPad, I really do. But if I need it to love my people then I am not a good pastor. If I can use it to help serve them, then I will, but I, like all Christians, need to be cautious about overly sanctifying my technology. True pastoral ministry can’t be centered around technology, but it can always be done without it.

Sent from my iPad

• Jon and Kate + Date
• Is There Integrity in the Work Place?
• Death By Love: The Gospel as Cultural Engagement

Target? Do we need anything from Target? Maybe we could just, you know, walk around and see if there are any little household items we might need to buy. Did you say you needed socks or something? Or there’s the Mall. We could always just walk around the mall looking at some of the stores. And so we get into the car, drive over to Target, and spend the evening walking around the store talking and shopping.

I wish I could say that we only rarely went window shopping for entertainment, but it’s been a habit of mine for a long time now, one I’ve only just begun to break in the last few years. Shopping centers are, after all, designed to make you feel comfortable, safe, and happy. It is in their best interest to make you feel like shopping is fun, a form of entertainment equal to or greater than the pleasure and entertainment you will receive from the things you buy when you shop. But is window shopping an edifying way for Christians to spend their time?

At Christ and Pop Culture, we try to encourage believers to critically examine the popular culture around them in order to approve of and enjoy what is good and to be more aware of the way our culture shapes us. Just as we must be thoughtful in the way we watch TV or play video games, we also should be conscientious about other cultural activities we do and how they shape our identities. When we view window shopping or hanging out in the mall as a form of entertainment, this can have an affect on how we define ourselves and what we conceive of as the good life.

By making a habit of going to stores in order to hang out with my wife, I am treating the store not as a means to an end–a place to go to get products which I will use to serve some purpose–but as an end to itself. The experience of shopping (walking the aisles, looking at new and interesting products, imagining the potential pleasure of owning these things) becomes the point of shopping. And this can have several implications.

If I conceive of the experience of shopping as the goal of shopping then I am on the way to accepting consumerism. Certainly you can hate shopping and still think of yourself as a consumer, a materialist who views the stockpiling of products as a way to stave off death, sadness, loneliness, and boredom. But if shopping or window shopping becomes a regular activity you enjoy to avoid boredom and to have fun, then you have probably begun to think of the acquisition of goods as a central purpose of your life, as a way to feel content and fulfilled, as a fundamental part of your identity. The critical shift here is that when I view shopping as an end to itself, then it doesn’t really matter what I buy or if I need it or who made it. What gives me pleasure is not the product, but the act of looking at, longing for, and purchasing the product. I’m identifying myself as a consumer by seeing consumption as a form of entertainment.

But as Christians we are not first and foremost shoppers or consumers. It is a good thing to buy and enjoy something that other people have made, but that enjoyment is always tempered by the knowledge that these things are not ultimately permanent or important. Our treasure is not on Earth. If our enjoyment comes from the act of buying and consuming more goods, then we are conceiving of our ultimate peace and security here, rather than in Christ.

Let me be clear here that I am not saying that you should never enjoy shopping or that if you choose to stroll around the mall some summer afternoon that you will fall into covetousness, greed, and consumerism. Even though I’ve come to the place where I believe that it is not edifying for me or my family to regularly practice window shopping as a form of entertainment or an activity, occasionally we still will drop by Target to mull around for a bit. As with nearly everything in our faith, what we do with our family and friends for fun outside the house requires discernment and balance. For our family, what was important was that we stopped making window shopping into a habit. Instead, we’ve tried to make an effort to take walks when it is cool enough, visit the local museum, go to the gym, or invite people to our apartment. It has been our experience that these activities have helped us to grow a greater love for our neighbors and friends and has helped us to stop thinking about buying products as a way to fight boredom.

• Enjoying Culture without Being Consumed, Part 2
• Living the ‘Goode’ Life
• Compartmentalizing My World: iPods and Community.