Pop Culture

“The genre is rising in mainstream popularity.” - NPR

“So how should a Christian respond to these ‘imaginings?’ What would you say if someone played that at a funeral, right before you were supposed to speak?” - P&D

“But what strikes me is that characters in novels, movies, and television shows still can’t get away from SOME idea of a transcendent power that has intentions and person-like agency and meddles in their lives.” - Roger Olson

“The question of whether to mention the latest blockbuster from the pulpit requires wisdom. When are pop culture references from the pulpit distracting? When are they appropriate?” - TGC

“Still, like anything, this evangelical movement of pop-culture engagement includes some blind spots—and it may be aging poorly in today’s rapidly changing world.” - TGC

“It raises the perennial question about Christian engagement with pop culture, specifically artifacts like movies, TV shows, and music. How should Christians engage these things? While the Bible doesn’t directly answer these questions, it is sufficient to guide us into holiness, and it gives us the wisdom we need when considering whether to push play.” - LifeWay

“The fact that so many people are willing to lash out so angrily over some random person’s criticism of their favorite pop star suggests to me that we live in a society full of people who are desperate to believe in something. They yearn for someone to put their faith in and to inspire them.

“Why do pastors or service leaders use phrases like these? And what are the most beneficial things for pastors or leaders to say at the beginning of a worship service?” - Challies

“Having lost so many cultural battles, the right has developed a desperate attraction to celebrity ephemera, confusing an epiphenomenon of progressivism’s cultural advantage — the fact that most famous artists and actors are left-wing — with the institutional advantage itself.” NY Times

Doug Wilson: Public discourse today is one throbbing mass of sentimentality … but only of the approved sentiments … Instead we emote wildly in response, and if anyone dares to dissent, or is known to possess dissenting proclivities, they are promptly boiled in cauldrons of molten tolerance outrage.