Author: Jimmy Akin

(Attention: this piece has been Cross-Posted (at Old World Swine) to double your reading pleasure!

Reader Louise has asked in relation to this previous post;

"But what about the Christian pop music, and the hat with IHS on it? Are
these things bad now? So that we have to beg God's forgiveness for this
"rot"?"

A fair question, and one difficult – or rather impossible – to answer directly. I'm certainly not interested in even beginning to say "Well, you shouldn't listen to this, but I think it's okay to listen to that…"
or "wearing Christian symbols on clothing is a compromise with the
consumer culture, and is therefore bad". Everything depends on the
individual's determination (or lack of same) to live a life radically
committed to the Gospel.

It comes down to a matter of
perspective. Is our faith just "part of a well-rounded life", or is it
the organizing principle that gives meaning to everything else? The
question might be framed this way; if not for the ICTHUS emblem on the
car, or the IHS hat, or the bible verse t-shirt, how would your
neighbors, your friends, your community recognize your lifestyle as
especially Christian? If these things didn't exist, what is it about you that would make people know you were a committed follower of Christ?

Keep
in mind that in saying "God forgive us" for these kinds of things, I am
praying mostly for myself, having been in a position to contribute to
the mess by designing Christian t-shirts and other knick-knacks for
several years. The horror, for me, would be that anyone could truly
say, "You can always tell a Christian because they have little bible
verses on their knick-knacks".

Yes, I do think we need to ask
God's forgiveness for the extent of the compromises we have made with
the prevailing consumer culture (mostly without even thinking), and we
need to look hard at our relationship to the wider culture, but much of
the responsibility lies with Christian artisans of every stripe to dig
deeper, reach higher and not settle for mediocrity by merely putting a
Christian spin on a material culture. This might mean having to work a
lot harder, it might mean walking away from a job opportunity. It might
mean lots of things.

Catholic artisans in particular have a rich and ancient tradition of excellence to build on… we should ask ourselves, where is today's Pieta? Chartres Cathedral? Mass in C minor? Crucifixion of St. Peter? If we don't create the masterpieces of our age, who will? (…and again, I'm mainly talking to myself, here)

I
don't want to be guilty of making the perfect the enemy of the good,
but from my perspective it looks much more likely in our culture that
the good has been seriously undermined by the "good enough". Am I being
a little hard-nosed about it? Yeah, maybe.

I was once much more
involved in Christian Retail, which meant getting a good look behind
the scenes at how Christian products are developed for the mass market
(a process which, like the making of laws and sausages, one might not
really want to see). Part of this involved attending a massive
Christian products convention in Dallas one year. I have to say, the
reality of the sheer amount of money flying around, the slick
marketing, the celebrity culture, opportunism, etc… I found
disturbing. I heard a reliable report that one Captain of Christian
Industry took some visiting manufacturers (atheist foreigners, which is
not their fault) out to a strip club. Why? Because they would like him,
they would feel like they were buddies, they would be impressed, they
would be easier to work with.

But for every lap dance proffered
at such a gathering , there are a hundred very expensive steak dinners,
rental limos, pricey gift bags and the like. It is (I believe)
fundamentally a culture of materialism, with a Christian gloss. This is
not to say it is this way in every single case, only to say that I
found a disturbing materialist atmosphere prevalent in that Christian
marketplace. Were there good points, as well? Sure, and I could name
some for which I was grateful. But the overall tenor of the thing
was… creepy.

I tried to imagine Jesus walking the aisles of the
cavernous convention floor, and decided pretty quickly that had he been
there in person, he would have slipped out quietly and would likely as
not have been talking to the homeless guy at the roadside who we passed
on the way in. I, myself, couldn't leave without breaking a lot of
commitments. I consider that I "left" that place over the next several
years.

The Aesthetic Elevator
discusses the problem of a ghetto-ized Christianity that cloaks its
message in jargon and nomenclature, and inspires some thoughts.

The job of the Christian in most cases, it seems to me, is to live a counter-cultural life in the midst of
the prevailing culture. That's what "counter-cultural" means. If we
live off to ourselves in some forgotten corner of the world, we may
live any way we like, but we can't really live counter-culturally
without some culture around us to be counter to.

One can't "swim against the current" in a stock pond.

Some – a few – are
called to withdraw somewhat from the surrounding culture, the better to
cultivate holiness, contemplative prayer and study, but most of us are
not. We are called to live a Christian life (which will always be
counter-cultural, if we're doing it right) as a sign and a light to
those who know us. The problem is, like so many missionaries of times
past, the Church in America has long ago "gone native". We are
influenced by the modern materialist, consumer culture far more than we influence it.

We need to admit that.

The
solution isn't as simple as living like a monk among more jaded and
cosmopolitan peers (though one could do worse, for a start). If we are
to communicate with the culture, we do need to understand the culture
and speak the language, to some extent. I think the Protestant
evangelical churches in America got into in deep trouble when they
failed for a long time to notice that they were trying to express
Norman Rockwell sentiments in King James English to a jaded, post-modern
world that wasn't listening.

One thing I learned from all the
time I spent in school is that a great instructor is one who
understands his subject so thoroughly that he can explain it to almost
anyone, using language that they can understand. Those with a
shallower knowledge of their field, or who just don't care enough to
meet people where they are (by re-casting the fundamentals in common
language) may be competent enough to get by, but they will never be
great teachers.

Of course, sometimes, the cure is worse
than the disease. When the Catholic Church tried to make some
adjustments to contemporary Western culture by making Latin optional
and opening up the liturgy a bit, all post-modern hell broke loose. As
a result, the liturgy in many instances wasn't reformed, but deformed
and made alternately insipid, silly or shocking (or shockingly silly,
etc…). Many Catholic priests, religious, musicians, lay teachers and
others fell all over themselves trying to demonstrate how hip and
current they were, which ironically had the effect of making them
appear desperate and pathetically out of touch, like a middle-aged
chaperone trying to crunk with the kids at the prom.

They might
have done well to remember (if based only on their own experience of
life) that one of the Cardinal Sins of human relationships (whether
wooing a lover or easing into a friendship) is trying too hard.

So
there is a fine line we have to walk. Speaking as an artist who has
(formerly) designed my share of consumer junk for the "Christian
Market", doing the same things the world does and sticking a Bible
verse at the bottom isn't going to cut it. Christian music that is
indistinguishable from pop music (only not quite as interesting and
with tweaked lyrics) isn't the answer.

We need to speak to the culture in precisely the places where the culture fails (which entails not just knowledge of the culture, but understanding of the culture… seeing its strengths and weaknesses). A dull culture needs the bracing blast of real beauty (like the spray
of an ocean wave), not more dullness with an ICTHUS stamped on it. God
forgive his people for peddling such rot in the name of His Son.

A shallow culture longs for depth.
In a consumer culture, people need us to demonstrate the beauty of
living simply. In a frantic and media distracted culture, the world
needs us to model the peace of Christ. An ambitious culture needs
to see what it's like to live in joyful humility. A world of weakened, shallow and
broken relationships needs us to be walking examples of love and
concern for everyone we meet.

All this means making ourselves
vulnerable, and allowing ourselves – setting ourselves up – to be
inconvenienced. It also means not being afraid to be thought a
little… odd (call it eccentric if it makes you feel better). There is
in this kind of life no guarantee of success in an earthly sense. Don't
hold your breath waiting for respect and approval from the broader
culture. As our Lord made clear to those first disciples whom he called
away from their nets, He has bigger fish for us to fry.

(visit Tim Jones' blog Old World Swine)