christian pop culture: the world knows what we're doing!

I love the podcast To the Best of Our Knowledge. A couple weeks ago they had an episode called 'The World According to Pop Culture'. One of the segments covered Daniel Radosh's book Rapture Ready: Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture.

Radosh divided Christian artists into three groups:

1. Those who create art for Christians, creating a 'parallel universe' to secular culture, with their own music, books, TV shows, etc. Their desire is to convert people not only to belief in the gospel but also to their unique subculture.

2. Christian artists who create Christian music and books that are 'undercover' in some senses. They mentioned Christian songs played on secular radio as "God is my girlfriend" songs. These are songs where it's like "I'm so in love with you," etc. but it's about God. Funny.

3. Those who see themselves as human beings along with the rest of society and culture. They desire to be creative, imitating their God. They are honest about their beliefs and sing songs about being human (pain, loss, love, whatever).

Radosh, being interviewed by Jim Fleming, said that people should encourage the third type of Christian culture because it promotes openness and isn't the scary brand of fundamental evangelicalism.

I kept on smiling when I was listening to the program. At seminary (as well as at L'Abri), the topic of what good art is comes up a lot. It felt kind of strange to hear an outsider's perspective on a debate I'm so familiar with. Radosh came off as affectionate yet frustrated with Christian subculture. I often feel the same way.