Download audio file (Podcast_31__Shop_til_You_Love_Jesu.mp3)

This week: Rich and Ben discuss the cultural phenomenon known as Black Friday, argue over a canceled TV show as metaphor for Romans 7, and discuss the implications of living in an iPhone Culture.

Posts discussed in this show:

My Own Worst Enemy: At War With Myself

Retropost: The Revolution Will Have to Call You Back

One Phone to Rule Them All

Every week, Richard Clark and Ben Bartlett sit back and discuss the posts of the previous week on Christ and Pop Culture, acknowledge and respond to the big issues in popular culture, and give a sneak peak at the week ahead.

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, give us some good iTunes feedback! We’ll love you forever!

• Podcast #30: Rich and Ben “Bond”
• Podcast #20: There Will be Blood
• Podcast #26: I Am [Not Using That Stupid] Iron Man [Cliche]

A year ago, I wrote this post, in which I claim that the iPhone is essentially a better phone, and not a revolutionary game-changer. I was convinced that while it would conveniantly integrate two of our day’s oft-used gadgets, it would only make our lives more conveniant, not fundamentally different. And so, the dangers and benefits of the iphone were stated as typical for anything else. 

Well, things have changed.

In fact, two key developments have caused me to reevaluate my opinion of the iPhone’s impact on our culture:

1. Apple introduced the app store, which provided the opportunity for people to use the iPhone’s various innovative functions in any way they can dream up, and the faster 3G internet, which made these functions much more practical.
2. I got one for myself.

• RetroPost: The Revolution Will Have to Call You Back
• The Revolution Will Have to Call You Back
• A Theology of Twitter

Our new weekly feature, RetroPost, will feature a post from at least one year ago (ancient in pop culture time). The post will be featured because it has some relevance to current happenings, because it is timeless and nature and speaks to a relevant issue, or because (as is the case today) we plan on providing a follow-up in an upcoming post.

In this week’s RetroPost from November 9 of last year, we feature Richard Clark’s take on the (not so?) revolutionary on the iPhone. Look tomorrow for another post where he considers what he got wrong and what he got right, as well as the current state of the iPhone.

David blogged recently about the iPhone, examining what Christians should think of such a device. One observation:

“…it has the potential to become a god. Lining up to buy the iPhone may just suggest the worship of materialism that is rampant in our country. It may suggest the reign of Mamon on our “Christian” continent.

Beyond the foundational issue of idolatry is the issue of responsibility. How many people will fork over the hundreds of dollars required to buy this phone, and the thousands it will cost to keep it running every year, and will fail to live up to their other duties? Such scenes remind me of the Apostle Paul’s words, ‘all things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful.’”

Of course, he’s right. These things are dangers, but I wonder why he felt the need to say such a thing now, about this, and not the Wii, or the Playstation 3, or any other Thing People Want. I felt as if there just had to be something more we could say about such a revolutionary device as the iPhone. So I spent a few days thinking about it, and came up with nothing. And then it hit me. The iPhone is really not “revolutionary” at all.

If the iPhone was really revolutionary, wouldn’t it cause us to have to confront new problems? Or better said, wouldn’t it raise the same old problems in new ways? The advent of television and the personal computer caused all sorts of thinkers to identify new issues to deal with. And yet, the iPhone really doesn’t do a whole lot of good or evil. As David says, it’s neutral. But it’s really neutral.

I wanted so badly to have the opportunity to warn you. To tell you to guard yourself against the side-effects of the coming iPhone culture. But the truth is, there’s nothing new to guard against. Take David’s advice: don’t idolize it and don’t pay too much for it. And if anyone asks you what it might be like to live in an iPhone culture, tell them it will be mostly the same - just with pretty buttons.

• The Revolution Will Have to Call You Back
• One Phone to Rule them All
• Do Hard Things…Like Read a Book!

A few weeks ago, while reading reviews on a book dealing with Christianity, I saw a link to a “Customer Discussion” forum with a title that read something like, “Why Catholics are idol worshipers.” Against my better judgment, I visited the thread. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find the thread since then, but from what I can remember, the author of the original post had written a rather lengthy explanation of why Catholicism was a false religion, explaining that he had actually been a Catholic and therefore had first-hand experience with their idolatry. As you would imagine, the thread had grown to a significant length as people from all kinds of religious backgrounds contributed their opinon.

Some were hostile, some were gentle, some were hurt, some probably shouldn’t be allowed on the Internet. As posters began to express their frustration with the original poster’s claims, the ex-Catholic tried to explain his motives. He felt that he had been hurt by the Catholic church, lead astray by false teachers, and wanted to prevent others from making the same mistakes. Despite his apparently loving motives, the dialogue continued to be more rhetorical than anything else, and it didn’t appear that anyone was persuaded one way or another.

Go to nearly any predominate site on the Internet which allows the users to create groups or start discussion forums, and you will find groups devoted to proving the existence of God, threads dealing with the problem of evil, commenters declaring why the Jews need Christ, discussions explaining why atheism leads to immorality and anarchy, and why the Mormons are all going to hell.

Some Christians might see these trends as an example of fundamentalist “Bible thumping,” senselessly throwing Scripture and Christian thought into the pubic square without any regard for tact, kindness, or brotherly love. Others might be encouraged that believers are using the tools they have available to proclaim the Truths of Scripture to a lost generation.

If the technology of the Internet has opened doors for us to share the Gospel in new ways, why would we not use it? Which leads us to the question, if we are called to proclaim the Gospel to all nations, and if message boards, forums, and Internet groups allow us to easily reach people all over the world, how should we use these tools to fulfill the Great Commission?

Perhaps a good place to try to answer this question is Paul’s statement, “I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some” (1 Corinthians 9:22). From this, it seems that Paul would see the Internet as another “means,” another way to reach people for Christ. If this is true, then the use of forums and discussion boards to evanglize and debate profound theological concepts should be encouraged. These are merely more means to fulfill our commission. But it is crucial that we take into account Paul’s final words here, “I might save some.” In other words, Paul uses means that produce fruit, means that really do, “save some.”  With this in mind, we need to ask, does sharing the Gospel on message boards and forums produce fruit?

While it is comfortable and easy to say, “yes, in every place, on every site, proclaim Christ,” or “never use Internet forums to hold meaningful conversations about the Gospel,” I think the proper response is to honestly examine our motives and the probable results. Specifically, we need to ask ourselves some questions and really try to understand what we are doing and why, remembering that we should seek to use all means, like the Internet, to save some, to really produce fruit:

• Will this post I am considering writing lead readers to sincerely consider the Message of the Gospel, or will it make the Gospel seem like yet another topic people debate online?
• If I am going to honor Christ today by sharing the Gospel, is the Customer Discussion forum on Amazon.com (or whatever the site may be) the best venue to share? Is it the most effective use of my time?
• Am I planning on writing this post to honor God, or to honor myself? In other words, is my goal to love my brothers and sisters so that they come to the saving knowledge of Christ, or am I trying to gain confidence in my beliefs by attacking the beliefs of others?
• Why am I choosing this “means” instead of another? Do I really believe that this is the best way to reach people for Christ, or is it simply the easiest?

Sometimes in our zeal to tell the world about Christ, we can allow the Internet to become an easy way to feel like we are doing our part. There is little cost or risk involved in telling people about Christ online. If someone gets offended, or if you cause someone harm, you can simply created a new user name and try again. But if our goal is to walk in a manner worthy of the Gospel, we will think critically about how we use this “means,” so that we might save some.

• The Incarnation and Culture (Part II)
• Tim Keller Discussion Continued
• Trip Lee explains how Reach Records spreads the Gospel

The season and series premieres for the Fall Television season have begun, and so far I have watched all of my favorite shows.  But I’ve done so without having watched one hour of “television”.  How is that possible?  Hulu.

So, what is Hulu? Hulu.com is the brainchild of Fox and NBC and was created to be a “YouTube Killer”. The thought behind this concept was that instead of having YouTube rip off and post all of the networks’ shows, they could post them themselves and make a business model out of it. The great thing about having Fox and NBC behind this endeavor is that you not only have their stable of shows (and links to other networks shows hosted elsewhere) but a deep and rich movie vault (Fox Studios and NBC’s Universal) to draw from as well. All I have to do is log into Hulu and browse through the hundreds of viewing choices.

Hulu has successfully wed television with social media.  I can subscribe to the show RSS feed or add the show to my queue the next time a new episode is available.  I can emded the video in my website or blog.  I can share what I am watching with my friends on Facebook.  But beside the cool functionality of Hulu, watching movies and television when I can and decide to do so has made a significant difference in my life.

There are of course some drawbacks with Hulu, such as how my television and movie watching can become a privatized affair (it is hard to gather the family around the computer screen to watch a show), and I need to be careful that I see Hulu only has a nice convenience and don’t allow watching television to become an idol in my life.

But so far for me the benefits have outweighed these potential pitfalls.

Check out Hulu.com, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

• 4 Ways to Watch Television and Build Community
• Podcast #7: One Incredibly Long and Boring Night
• 10 TV Shows That Changed The World

As of today, Christ and Pop Culture has launched a Twitter account. You can access it and subscribe here. If you like this site at all, I think you’ll really like the twitter feed. Trust us, it will be more than just telling you when we’ve blogged (in fact, we’ll try and refrain from that sort of thing at least for now).

In honor of this new Twitter account, I thought I’d offer up this “Theology of Twitter”. Enjoy, and see you on Twitter.

For many, Twitter is just another sign of the internet’s ability to suck all of the time out of your life, leaving little room for anything of priority. For others, Twitter provides another opportunity to maintain and encourage community amongst people who they would otherwise not have the opportunity to know. I think the truth is something else.

This isn’t meant to be a defense or a condemnation of twitter. In this short blog, I merely want to point out some of the implications of twitter on the whole man. What does twitter say about us, and what can it do for us?

One observation that is foundational to the beginnings of twitter is the state we are in as a culture. If there is one thing that has suffered in our age it is relationships. People have very little time to cultivate relationships, share concerns and hopes, and make their needs known. When we do see one another, it’s hard to know what to say, because we simply don’t know where anyone is coming from. Instead, we spend most of our time hanging out, trying to get to that point where we can find some frame of reference or connection.

Christians and church members already know of one frame of reference in which they can interact: they have experienced the saving grace of the gospel of Christ and are living their lives in light of that truth. This is a great starting point, but we are fooling ourselves if we believe that’s all we need for deep fellowship. How many times can we have meaningful relationships asking the same tired questions that (supposedly) work on every Christian? The danger of such generic questions is that they treat every Christian as the same person with the same struggles and needs and worries. After a while, it’s time to move past questions like “How is work?” and “What have you been reading lately?”

So how did they do it in the early church? It’s safe to say Twitter had nothing to do with it. But it’s also hard to imagine them asking the same standard questions of one another every week before they head out in separate directions to carry on the rest of the work week. No, in that day, everyone had contact with various people throughout the day. You took walks, not car rides. You worked outside, not in cubicles. No one stayed inside and watched television or even read books. People spent time together. It wasn’t just a preference. It was a way of life.

Was that the better way? Probably. Can we simulate such a culture now as the church of God? Almost certainly not. We all have jobs in cubicles, things that have to get done, reasons to stay inside, and we don’t really take walks anymore. If we do, it’s rarely with one another. It’s all fine and good to say rather than watching television we ought to do something with real people, and this is a fine idea for much of the time, but social protocol gives us the real or imagined perception that if we call someone to hang out too often, we’re just annoying them. Because it’s often socially awkward to just say no to people, the perception is often real.

Twitter offers one way among many that we can compensate for these cultural flaws. While we need to acknowledge that a virtual, internet relationship is really no relationship at all, we also need to be honest and acknowledge what can be the real world benefit of knowing, for instance, that I’ve been thinking of doing some freelancing work, playing PS3 a LOT lately, and meditating on the vanity of life. This sort of knowledge makes the conversation a heck of a lot more meaningful and challenging when we come together on the weekend. By knowing what’s happening in one another’s lives, we know how to speak truth to one another, how to pray for one another, and how to serve one another.

Is it a waste of time? That’s your decision. When I get a spare moment, I’ll launch twitter. I’m currently following 20 people, and it usually takes me about 30 seconds maximum to digest whatever may be new. Then it takes another 30 seconds to tell twitter what I’m doing, thinking or feeling. The result? It could mean looking forward to fruitful, insightful conversations with a friend.

Instead of going in depth on other good and bad implications of twitter, I thought I’d share a few of the responses I got on twitter to the question: “Getting ready to blog a Theology of Twitter. Any thoughts on twitter’s theological implications?”

• “Some theology implications could be - narcissism (hey everybody look what I’m eating!) ouch - indictment”
• “Also, connectedness - people argue that it builds a relational tether with people and creates a springboard for relationship”
• “I believe it has great ministry appl.. I am going to twitter my mission trip to give people bursts of info so they can pray”
• “one bad implication may be that it lacks depth. It allows us to remain on the surface in terms of communication.”
• “Since twitter encourages trivial posts, I think it can allow us to revel in the beauty of common events”

• One Phone to Rule them All
• Strike Sadness
• CAPC Behind the Scenes

A short, sweet article by Frank Bures in Poets & Writers (Way, Way Too Much Information) makes the case that problems with creativity, at least in the field of writing, may have something to do with the constant flow of information we face.  Often we have multiple e-mail accounts, dozens of websites we check constantly for updates, cell phones and pagers, news tickers, television (sometimes with multiple information flows happening at one time), newspapers and magazines, radio, snail mail, and advertising that manages to fill nearly every corner of our daily existence.  Oh, right… we have to deal with the real world, too.

I recognized my personal struggles with this problem just the other day.  After working through a, “stack,” of e-mails and clicking through a dozen websites, I attempted to read some poetry.  I found myself impatiently skimming entire lines, checking the clock, and skipping ahead to find out what happens in the poem.  Just for your benefit, I’ll let you in on a secret- that is NOT a helpful way to study poetry.

As Bures points out, using plenty of helpful testimonials from other writers, all of that information can easily waste our time, reduce our memory, and even temporarily decrease our IQ.  Even worse, though (he says), it crowds out some of the most important characteristics of creative thought.  He describes two of the key places where creativity is born; First, time spent doing absolutely nothing, and second, the mental state of forgetting the world around you, which writers call flow.

The article is excellent and I urge you to read it.  The challenge for us as Christians, I think , is that we are generally no better at carving out or prioritizing time for unbroken reverie and creative thought.  We allow our world to become so furiously full that we lose our ability to generate creative articulations of our physical and spiritual lives.  When was the last time your church community worked together to do less of something?  The nearest example I can think of is young couples babysitting kids for a, “parents night out,” but that time is usually spent (rightly!) on relationships rather than writing.

If we desire the Christian community to increase its depth and spirituality, we must begin thinking strategically about how to promote time for reverie, quietness, and unbroken thought.  It’s nice to think of quiet times that way, but too often we only use that time to cram in Bible reading, active prayer, and a book chapter.  If we want Christian art rather than culture-copying swill, we may need some systematic changes in how we disciple church members in the wisdom of building time away from the information flow.  (And frankly, by that I mean systematic changes that go beyond a single Sunday school lesson on how to solve the problem by yourself.  Our individualism is getting out of hand, and it isn’t solving problems.)

But even if we do set aside whether churches should be approaching this systematically (or, as is likely, if your church is not interested in addressing something like this), it’s good to consider how we can implement more time for creative thought and reverie into our lives.  You may think that you don’t need it or that you are more productive without it, but there is a simple test for that- try it!

As I mentioned, I struggle with this issue a lot.  In fact, one of my odd-but-explainable habits is that when I’m trying to solve a problem in my head, I go take a shower.  This gets strange when I might take three showers a day while doing a paper for class, but perhaps I just have not bothered to discover any other place where my thoughts can simply run.  So, I intend to work on carving out some time for reverie in the coming weeks- time uninterrupted by television, e-mail, cell phone, or even (gasp!) books.

My problem is that I let information overwhelm my ability to think creatively about the world God has placed me in.  Is it also a problem for the church?  Is it also a problem for you?

• Submit!
• Why Should The Church Care About Your Art?
• Barack Obama is Not the AntiChrist!

Download audio file (CAPC18_-_Virtual_Communities.mp3)

The concept of spending time with and getting to know people is as old as humanity, but recently that concept has been turned on its head. All of a sudden, it is claimed, we have the ability to relate to one another without even being in the same country. With the advent of various communication devices, most notably the internet and its accompanying breakthroughs, the concept of “virtual community” has become a commonly acceptable notion.

But is it really possible to have quality time, make friends, build relationships or fall in love over the internet? And if not, what is all of this good for, anyway? We’ll address these questions, plus list our top five “virtual communities” in today’s episode of the Christ and Pop Culture Podcast!

Here’s the links to some sites mentioned on our show:

Reformation 21
Ask Metafilter
Facebook
Wikipedia
Blogger
Third Avenue Baptist Church
Dead Yet Living (Now pretty much just dead)

• Podcast #20: There Will be Blood
• Podcast #21: Oprah’s Big Podcast
• Podcast #14: Dumbledore’s Coming Out Party

These concise summaries allow us to believe that we really know someone without having an intimate and personal relationship with them; it’s the kind of illusion of intimacy that allows us to build “relationships” in a increasingly digital world. 

In my home town an older couple committed suicide together in their car this week. The last line of the newspaper article describing the incident is a statement by a homicide detective:

“‘The couple’s home was well-kept,’ Morales said.”

Whoever these people were there had to be something more significant to their lives than a well-kept home. This kind of hopeless attempt at summarizing a person’s life is far from uncommon; most news articles concerning someone’s death end with a similar description. Nearly always these summaries tend to be nothing more than a list of the cultural options the deceased identified themselves with, a set of choices they made as a consumer in the world: “liked model trains, enjoyed playing catch with his grandkids, and was an active member at the Elk’s Lodge.” Notice how similar these are to personal ads or profiles on Facebook or Myspace? Just put everything in the present tense and you have yourself a fine example of a “Man Seeking Woman Age 40-55.”

These concise summaries allow us to believe that we really know someone without having an intimate and personal relationship with them; it’s the kind of illusion of intimacy that allows us to build “relationships” in a increasingly digital world. On Facebook and Myspace these summaries allow us to make “friends” with people quickly, cutting through all the social awkwardness of actual human interaction. With a few clicks we can be chatting on topics and interests we both share. In a personal ad, the summaries let us dive right into exciting, new “relationships” without the attachment and investment of emotional and intellectual intimacy.

And in these newspaper eulogies we are given a chance to acknowledge that a person died without having to pause for reflection that the person was an individual. We can quickly picture them attending their PTA meeting, or gardening, or throwing a football to their son and then move on to the next article. But what does this mean about us as people and the nature of human worth? If all that we are remembered for is compiled in an absurdly short list of our tastes, hobbies, habits, and jobs then we are merely agents of culture–consumers and workers and nothing else.

This is what bothers me so much about these terse statements. They encourage us to think of ourselves and others as important only to our culture. But the Bible tells us that we are made in the image of God. Not that we are gods, but God has imbued us with some of His own characteristics. The image of God does not refer to the set of cultural options that we sign up for in our short lives; it’s not the genres of music we like, our favorite films, our “heroes”, or our hobbies. We are unique individuals before the LORD, able to communicate, love, learn, create, and know Him, all through His grace. If you think about your most precious relationships in life you will find that they are in part built on common tastes and interests, but they are far from the sum of these interests. It’s the way we can communicate, serve each other, and love, it’s the aspects of our lives that are not able to be summarized; they can be shared through stories, but never really summed up.

When we allow ourselves to conflate our tastes, hobbies, purchases, and jobs in life with our value as individuals, then we are embracing a worldview that is materialistic and humanistic. As Believers, may God grant us the grace to love and value one another in the example that Christ gave for us, not the Media.

• Can A Family of Aliens Teach Us To Enjoy Life?
• Thank You For Smoking
• Don’t Judge This Movie By Its Cover

“…it has the potential to become a god. Lining up to buy the iPhone may just suggest the worship of materialism that is rampant in our country. It may suggest the reign of Mamon on our “Christian” continent.

Beyond the foundational issue of idolatry is the issue of responsibility. How many people will fork over the hundreds of dollars required to buy this phone, and the thousands it will cost to keep it running every year, and will fail to live up to their other duties? Such scenes remind me of the Apostle Paul’s words, ‘all things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful.’”

Of course, he’s right. These things are dangers, but I wonder why he felt the need to say such a thing now, about this, and not the Wii, or the Playstation 3, or any other Thing People Want. I felt as if there just had to be something more we could say about such a revolutionary device as the iPhone. So I spent a few days thinking about it, and came up with nothing. And then it hit me. The iPhone is really not “revolutionary” at all.

If the iPhone was really revolutionary, wouldn’t it cause us to have to confront new problems? Or better said, wouldn’t it raise the same old problems in new ways? The advent of television and the personal computer caused all sorts of thinkers to identify new issues to deal with. And yet, the iPhone really doesn’t do a whole lot of good or evil. As David says, it’s neutral. But it’s really neutral.

I wanted so badly to have the opportunity to warn you. To tell you to guard yourself against the side-effects of the coming iPhone culture. But the truth is, there’s nothing new to guard against. Take David’s advice: don’t idolize it and don’t pay too much for it. And if anyone asks you what it might be like to live in an iPhone culture, tell them it will be mostly the same - just with pretty buttons.

• RetroPost: The Revolution Will Have to Call You Back
• One Phone to Rule them All
• Podcast #6: Playing Mario to the Glory of God