From Findings Journal Spring 2003

In his outstanding series of lectures titled Bach and the High Baroque (The Teaching Company), Dr. Robert Greenberg shows how the great German composer incorporated the hymn "O Sacred Head Now Wounded" as a ritornello theme throughout his 3.5-hour St. Matthew’s Passion, to function as a kind of spine holding the masterful work together. This great hymn was beloved by German Christians of the eighteenth century as much as it is by Christians today. But what is perhaps most interesting about this hymn is its provenance: As Dr. Greenberg points out, "O Sacred Head" was originally a secular love song expressing the melancholia of unrequited love. That lovely music was first taken over and refined by a sixteenth-century German hymn writer, then brought to even higher perfection in Bach’s incomparable oratorio. The secular lyrics were vacated, and the beautiful melody was liberated in the hands of skillful Christian artists from its original sensual purposes to become a liturgical form of great beauty and delight. Worshippers who intone this hymn today do not for a moment doubt its sublime beauty and profound expressiveness as aids to glorifying God. That its beginnings were in a form of late medieval pop culture apparently does not trouble us at all. Nor should it.

Biblical writers and saints considered the pop culture of their day "fair game" for liberation and takeover in fulfilling their callings from the Lord. From various kinds of musical instrumentation and tunes, storytelling and (perhaps) drama (Song of Songs?), literary genre and devices, to illustrations and analogies by the score, those entrusted with divine revelation borrowed freely and heavily from the pop culture of their day to bring the message of grace to the people of God. The most compelling and memorable teachings of our Lord Jesus are encoded in pop culture forms. Indeed, the very language of the Greek New Testament was a pop culture idiom: The koine Greek of the first century was the language of the streets and of the common man, not the scholastic and philosophical vernacular of poets and academics.

Pop culture has many valid uses—some of which the writers in this issue have explored—and one of its chief virtues is that it provides a treasure trove of powerful forms and media for encoding biblical truth. For this reason alone the Christian’s approach to pop culture ought not to be automatically dismissive; nor should it be uncritically receptive. Rather, the widespread availability—indeed, the inescapability—of pop culture, and the demands of the gospel to take every thought captive and make them obedient to Christ (2 Cor. 10:3-5), demand of Christians a more thoughtful and appreciative approach to pop culture, an approach, that, at least in part, seeks to liberate and redeem pop culture for the purposes of expressing a biblical worldview and advancing the kingdom of God.

However, we must admit that "this way be dragons." Laments and protests abound over some of pop culture’s themes and forms, as well as its banality, ubiquity, insipidness, vulgarity, triviality, brazenness, and (supply your own favorite pejorative). These complaints are not altogether unfounded (although some, particularly some of those arising from evangelical sources, are simply absurd). If believers are to benefit from contemporary pop culture and leave a legacy of expression to rival that of our forebears, they will need some guidelines. In what follows I want to examine some guidelines for liberating the messages of pop culture, guidelines that seem to be implied in Paul’s comment to the Corinthians cited above. By "liberating the messages" I mean simply learning how to extract them from their familiar forms, analyze and assess them, and consider what use might be made of them for the purposes of advancing a biblical worldview. (I will limit my observations to the messages of pop culture only, leaving fuller discussion of how to assess the forms of pop culture, or the making of distinctively Christian pop culture, for another day.) Along the way I will raise some questions suggested by these guidelines to help us think about how to approach pop culture for kingdom purposes.

Guideline 1: Exercise Discernment

In 2 Cor. 10:3-5, Paul warns against the presence, in the intellectual atmosphere of his day, of powerful ideas, persuasive arguments, and lofty intellectual schemes—worldviews—and the powerful effects they can have on people’s thinking and lives. He refers to them as "strongholds" of unbelief, redoubts of intellectual rebellion raised up to challenge the idea and claims of God and the way of life He promises and prescribes. Like the rebellious world rulers of Psalm 2, proponents of these ideas reject the authority of God’s Word, repudiate His rule over their lives, and promote ways of thinking and being that would, if they could, undo the entire divine program.

Contemporary pop culture’s fascination with illicit and unbridled sex, anti-authoritarianism of all kinds, violence and greed, and mere self-indulgence; its promotion of social and cultural practices that defy the teaching of Scripture—such as homosexuality, sex outside marriage, and mere sensuality and materialism; and its reduction of virtually everything in life to simply one more way of having fun would seem to place it in at least one of these strongholds.

At the same time, many pop culture forms express a longing for goodness, a search for transcendence, and even a sense of common decency that members of the Christian community should not fail to observe. Such messages remind us that all people are made in the image of God and can expect to find real satisfaction and purpose in life only through a meaningful personal relationship with Him.

Which is simply to say that we must approach pop culture with a critical eye and a discerning ear. The messages of pop culture are hardly subtle; what is subtle is how those messages work their way into the subconscious via the captivating forms by which they are communicated—music, TV, film, and so forth. Unless we raise questions about pop culture’s messages, and not simply absorb or dismiss them as "just having fun," we may find that we are embracing the assumptions of contemporary pop culture without even knowing it. Those assumptions, uncritically adopted, can work their way into our outlook and opinions, and finally into our lives, leading to casualness and complacency about sin (under, no doubt, the rubric of not wanting to be "judgmental").

Alternately, in the process of "just having fun," we may fail to discern the cry of the heart, the longing for something more than the merely mundane that issues from much pop culture and reminds us of the need of every human being for God.

But what kind of questions should we ask? Allow me to suggest some: What is the basic message of this pop culture form (song, TV program, or film)? How does the form underline, reinforce, or otherwise emphasize its message: Reward a character? Bring the music to crescendo? Treat a situation? Make us laugh at contrary opinions? What specific moral actions does this message encourage? In what ways does this message oppose or support biblical teaching? What can we learn from this message to help us in understanding and feeling compassion for the people around us? How might a Christian begin to formulate a response to this message?

Asking such questions will, at the very least, help to keep us mindful that, in the arena of pop culture, we do not stand on neutral ground. Therefore, we had best have our antennae up and keep our minds girded for action (1 Peter 1:13) lest we be drawn into the mindset of pop culture without even recognizing it.

Guideline 2: Take It Captive

Taking someone or something captive involves three disciplines: disarming, subduing, and offering up. I’ll be brief with each of these.

Disarming the messages of pop culture means we must be able to identify the worldviews being promoted, and to recognize the weaknesses, contradictions, and fallacies in such thinking. We will disarm the message of pop culture—take away its power to affect us negatively—if we have first persuaded ourselves of the ways in which such an outlook on life is untenable and undesirable. Here there is no substitute for "understanding the times" in which we live (1 Chron. 12:32) and disciplining our minds to examine the claims of unbelief on their own terms, where they will always come short of cogency and coherency. Having therefore no power to persuade, they will have no power to harm.

Subduing the messages of pop culture means imposing on them the force of biblical thinking—answering the fool according to his folly, as well as according to the plain teaching of God’s Word (Prov. 26:4-5; Eph. 5:15-17). If a pop culture message glorifies a certain way of life that is contrary to God’s Word, we need to be able to express the biblical alternative. If pop culture issues a cry for help, we need to know how to answer it according to the need being expressed.

Offering up pop culture as a captive to the Lord involves making it a focus of our prayers. We may give thanks to the Lord for pop culture—after all, He gave the gifts making pop culture possible (Ps. 68:18). We should seek wisdom from the Lord in prayer to be able to disarm and subdue the messages of pop culture coming at us and our loved ones (James 1:5-8). But we must also offer up to the Lord in prayer our particular use of pop culture as a part of our "reasonable service" of living for the Lord each day (Rom. 12:1-2). By praying over and for our involvement in pop culture, we will find that the use we make of it will be dramatically changed over time.

What questions might guide us in this important work of taking pop culture captive? Try the following: Is this a message which, if universally applied, would honor God and benefit human beings? Where is this message vulnerable to the charge of inconsistency or self-contradiction? How would I respond to the cry implicit in this message if I could speak with the one presenting it? How would I answer this particular message from the perspective of a biblical worldview? Do I pray about my involvement in pop culture? How do I pray?

Guideline 3: Make It Obey

Here we are tempted to venture beyond the scope of this brief summary. Making pop culture obey means not only using it in our own lives according to the purposes of sanctification and the ends of the gospel, but also creating pop culture forms that can have that same effect on others.

At the very least we might say that a reliable measure of our use of pop culture is the extent to which it helps us to grow in love for God and for our neighbors in the midst of their lostness, rebellion, and searching. We do not make pop culture obedient to the claims of Jesus Christ if all it ever does is entertain us. Indeed, that is to make ourselves slaves to the forms and messages of pop culture. Rather, we seek to enter into pop culture for what we can learn about God, His world, the people in it, and our responsibility for helping them to discover the grace of God. To whatever extent pop culture can serve these ends, we should make good use of it, taking the forms of pop culture captive according to the ideas of a biblical worldview and making them obey the agenda of Christ in spreading His grace to more and more people.

Some questions to ask: Do I know anyone for whom the message of this (or any) particular pop culture form rings true? How can I see that he or she is trying to express these kinds of ideas? How does this pop culture form help me to understand this person better? To want to reach out to him or her in love? How might the forms of pop culture serve as "talking points" for beginning a dialogue with unbelieving friends and associates?

There is no getting away from pop culture. So our options are few: Either give in and indulge in it mindlessly; try (unsuccessfully) to shut it out altogether; or learn to liberate its messages by taking pop culture captive for Christ. This last seems the most sensible approach.

T. M. Moore is pastor of teaching ministries at Cedar Springs Presbyterian Church in Knoxville, Tenn. His most recent books include A Mighty Fortress (Christian Focus) and I Will Be Your God (P&R Publishers). His forthcoming book is Redeeming Popular Culture (P&R Publishers).