Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to engage popular culture.

We do this for the glory of God and for gospel-sharing with your neighbor.

Why? To sum up: Because popular culture reveals God’s creativity, God’s common grace via his image in humans, and the idols we make to corrupt his gifts.¹ Very often (and not just when superhero X dies to save the world) popular cultural works even reflect the gospel of Jesus Christ.

You can engage this stuff via streaming, music, memes, games, comic books, blockbuster film franchises, podcasts, and beyond.

Yes, that’s right, faithful Christian! You needn’t automatically shun these things as evil or suspect these things as worthless.² get to enjoy some of these things. They are not “mindless entertainment.” Rather, they are human heart-reflections that reveal not only Society but the longings and idols of your individual neighbors. You get to discover the good, the beautiful, and the idolatrous and ugly that gets subverted and answered by Jesus Christ himself.

Hurrah! You don’t even need to boycott Disney or cancel Netflix.³ Instead, you can pursue this gospel mission in the real world—a real world in which popular culture was/is God’s idea, and in which your neighbors love popular stories and songs.

Oh, one other thing: Your mission also includes engaging popular culture like this:

Alas. I hear wailings and gnashings of teeth! Some of us, especially younger Christians, claim to favor such blunt approaches in response to badness.

So I must give this approach right back to ourselves:

No.

You. Have. No. Exceptions.⁴ No exceptions.

If you accept the mission of engaging popular culture for the good of your neighbors, then this mission. Includes. Engaging with Trumpism.

And engaging right-wing talk radio.

And engaging conservative websites, TV network(s), and memes.

That means engaging thoughtful stuff, like from David French or Peggy Noonan, and less-thoughtful stuff, like from Sean Hannity or Todd Starnes.

Engaging does not equal condemning. A Christian parent does not “engage” her teen’s heavy-metal albums by burning them in the backyard.

Engagement means more than this, for the glory of God and the good of our neighbors.

"Many Christian movies are too preachy. They use truth as a weapon. They don't engage well. To reach people, you must identify the good in their culture."
—young Christians

"IF YOU VOTE FOR THAT TERRIBLE GUY THEN YOU'RE JUST AN IDOLATER AND A HYPOCRITE."
—some of the same people

— Stephen (The Pop Culture Parent) (@EStephenBurnett) October 8, 2020

To engage right-wing popular culture, you must find and praise God’s ‘fingerprints’ in it.

Yes. This means you might find the good in those memes and shows and cable network(s) that terrible Aunt Marge is obsessed with.

You might find the good in asking about Uncle Bill’s favorite silly right-wing news website, no matter how you wince at those “BUY GOLD!!1!” ads.

One might even need to listen The Rush Limbaugh Show, perhaps even today, to understand the latest trends in Donald Trump-ism.

Call it: The Pop Culture “Parent”-to-Your-Own-Parents (or Your-Parents’-Generation).

This also means you must not act like a stereotypical 1980s dad angered because little Brad has been sneaking peeks at M-TV. You are not called to issue simplistic damnations such as “hypocrite!” and “idolatry!” against your fickle flag-waving voters who (no matter how reluctantly) voted for You Know Who, and then declare, with great sanctimony, your prophetic task well accomplished.

Instead, you’re called away from such separatist, fundamentalist instincts. You must actually engage the thing before you.

To pursue this mission well, you must:

1. Know the “story.” What is the pundit’s “plot”? How do they understand the history/present/future of one nation or Western civilization?
2. Explore the world. What are the stylistic and moral assumptions in the universe(s) of these narratives? For now, just describe. Don’t judge.
3. Praise the good. Ask yourself: What is true and beautiful about Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, or yes, even Trumpism? What can we affirm?
4. Find and subvert the idols. Many younger Christians can do this part very well. But we can’t skip steps 1–3, or step 5. They give vital context.
5. Answer with the gospel. This isn’t just about moral condemnation! How does Jesus fulfill the “story’s” good longings that idols cannot fulfill?

On this theme I may have more to say.

We need specific examples. We need to see this done, not just be taught how to do this. Someone who is more skilled at this approach—though sometime I might try it, if this doesn’t weaken my Fantastical Stories Brand—must give a live demo. This skilled teacher must listen to real, unredacted talk radio, like Rush or someone else. She must lay aside prejudices and irritations with The Church Back Home, and act in genuine fairness.⁵

For now this will suffice as an initial challenge and conversation-opener. It may especially (and I hope kindly) challenge my oft-disillusioned Christian friends, who often fail to apply their own positivity about popular culture, not so much in relationships with their kids, but with their own parents.

This article from Kevin DeYoung is raising some concerns, and some ire, on the Twitters.

DeYoung suggests “It’s Time for a New Culture War Strategy.” Among his most seemingly concerning statements, he writes:

Here’s a culture war strategy conservative Christians should get behind: have more children and disciple them like crazy. Strongly consider having more children than you think you can handle. . . .

Do you want to rebel against the status quo? Do you want people to ask you for a reason for the hope that is in you (1 Peter 3:15)? Tote your brood of children through Target. . . .

The future belongs to the fecund. It’s time for happy warriors who seek to “renew the city” and “win the culture war” by investing in their local church, focusing on the family, and bringing the kingdom to bear on the world, one baby at a time.

Among DeYoung’s readers’ criticisms:

• What if you can’t have kids?¹
• He shouldn’t say “culture war”; it’s combative.²
• But the Church makes marriage and family an idol!
• But the Church makes marriage and family an idol!
• Did we mention the Church makes marriage and family an idol?

So, does the church make marriage and family an idol, or … ?

I jest a little. But those last three salient points keep recurring in some Christian articles and rhetoric. That includes one 2018 article at a website for which I’ve written and that I overall respect. Unfortunately, however, the author had some very wrong ideas, perhaps best summarized by this statement:

Marriage should not be the norm that orients the communal life of the church, and Christians have an opportunity to show the world a better way rather than falling into the same obsessive focus on finding our Prince or Princess Charming.

At the time that article appeared, I replied at length with gentle pushback. This I’ll edit and expand below. But first I must make the pushback not-so-gentle: The writer’s first statement (and much of the article) are flat wrong and even unbiblical. Marriage should be a great norm that orients the communal life of the church.

Abusis non tollit usum: abuse [of a good thing] does not disqualify proper use.

Yes, Christians can certainly show the world a better way. In all our families and churches, we must include single people as they are, image-bearers of God. We must refuse to idolize or obsessively focus on good gifts like marriage and child-bearing. Instead, we must recognize that we live in a groaning world when it is not always possible for everyone to do this. And to be sure, we must reject the simpering romanticisms of the “Prince(ss) Charming” images, which (as no few articles and marriage-retreat hosts have reminded us) come from shallow stories, not the Bible.

However, we cannot insist that “the biblical norm of marriage” = “obsessive focus / idolatry.” This is a false equivalency: treating a biblical idea the same as one’s personal experience with the twisted version, in order to reject both at once. That’s not a biblical approach to any idolized gift, any more than we would reject the goodness of food because some people are gluttonous.

God made gifts like marriage, which are made holy by God’s word and prayer.

Leaders of the early church, faced with the charge that they have idolized marriage, repent and give proof by burning all their devotionals and conference workbooks by Dennis and Barbara Rainey (artist’s conception).

In fact, the apostle Paul makes this very point about abuses of good gifts, such as food and marriage:

Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.

(1 Timothy 4:1–5, emphases added)

This is a sound proof-text when confronting Christians who seem caught between the icon / iconoclast divide about anything, be it:

• Food and feasting,
• Marriage and family,
• Stories and creativity,
• Celebrations of holidays.

Regarding the twisting of marriage, I can’t help seeing the direct clash between the apostle Paul’s correction and some teachers today.

• They say: the Church idolizes marriage; therefore, we should not see marriage as especially holy.³
• Paul says: false teachers forbid marriage; therefore, we must make it holy by God’s word and prayer.

Paul insists that marriage, like all good gifts, is made holy by these actions. He doesn’t feel the need to give an inch toward those false teachers who might have, even then, insisted that earthly things like marriage (and food) were just too important to the early church, and should therefore be forbidden (or at least strictly regulated). Instead, he takes his rebuttal right back to the source: God’s creation and intent for these good gifts.

Bad experiences really hurt, but they can also lead us into legalism.

Did some Christians then, as some Christians now, idolize these good gifts? Sure.

But if we base our response on reacting to the sin—rather than proactive reminders about God’s intentions for the good gifts—then we err. And we may even err in ways that Paul might describe as “deceitful spirits and teachings of demons”!

Even more strangely, we err in ways that we ourselves have seen aplenty, whenever Christians of the past have thrown out gifts like certain music genres, games, visual storytelling (like TV or movies), and even specific foods and drinks. From the outside, we can immediately see that they’re being reactive and not biblical. So it’s time to apply this wisdom more consistently. Yes, we must do this, even if Christians we’ve known in the Church Back Home have annoyed us, or even made us suffer, by idolizing good gifts and frowned on us for being different.

After all, how do you think those anti-movies, anti-recreational-drinking Christians got that way? They didn’t just make up their legalisms to be legalistic. They often had profoundly tragic backstories about bad experiences: a child read Harry Potter and got into witchcraft, or an uncle grew addicted to alcohol and physically abused his wife.

Those stories are real and terrible. But even those abuses do not disqualify proper use of good gifts.

If we disclaim marriage, we must also disclaim Christians making culture.

I direct this part toward Christians who believe in specific cultural redemption work. If we believe these slogans:

• Because the church often makes marriage into an idol, we probably need to stop being so focused on marriage.
• But if the church makes popular culture into an idol, then it’s still good for us to view popular culture in redemptive ways.

This collapses into self-contradiction when you realize this big truth:

The Bible commands both family-making and culture-making all at once in the Cultural Mandate. If you reject one gift as hopelessly idol-corrupted, then you must also reject the other gift.

Here’s what I wrote in 2018 (with some editing).

1. Some popular culture and real-life people (including Christians) make marriage and family into an idol.
2. Marriage is still normative for Christians.
3. So is filling the Earth (with children).
4. So is making and engaging culture (including popular culture). In fact, marriage and family and stewardship and cultural creation are all inexorably tied together in the Creator’s original command (Genesis 1:28).
5. If you can’t do any of these for various reasons—say, because your family keeps you from culture participation or your missions work keeps you from starting a family—that’s a real and genuine exception. You’re no less valuable to our Savior and his Commission!
6. Still, it’s dubious for us to go on about “idols.” We might as well go on at length about how “some Christians” (e.g. “people in my admittedly limited experience with the Church”) are making an idol out of either “cultural engagement” or “engaging popular culture.”
7. Do some Christians make an idol out of popular culture engagement? Yes. I’ve seen it happen a lot. Is this the majority view among Christians? Probably not. Yet in either case, claiming “this isn’t normative”—either about marriage or about making or engaging culture—is simply (at best) a vague statement or (at worst) not a biblically accurate statement.

Final concessions

When we read DeYoung’s article or any other reminders about God’s good gifts, they will certainly raise many questions:

1. What about that Church Back Home that did idolize marriage/children, and treated me as a pariah?
2. How then should Christians address smaller, localized idolatries versus the greater idolatries of our culture?
3. Should we try, in all our articles and materials about good gifts, to address every possible idolatry of those gifts?

The first two questions likely call for general biblical principles, applied in specific ways for specific situations.

However, for that third question, I heartily answer: no. That’s because no article or book or interaction can possibly account for everyone’s experience, struggles, or account of idol-abuses. It might seem easier in the information age to expect all the information at once. But not even a biblical chapter or book can fulfill such an expectation. Rather, we must rely on someone’s whole body of work (past, present, and future) for reassurance that they’re aware of the idolatrous risks, and can and will address them in other articles or interactions.

That’s why, despite DeYoung’s very casual tone and the brevity of his article, I overall trust him to offer balanced perspectives. He seems quite aware of potential abuses. In this exact article, however, he’s simply chosen not to address them. That’s not a failure of biblical teaching. It’s simply a decision to focus on one theme. That’s a creative decision. Other books and articles can offer different focuses.

I think we should show him grace. And let’s show grace to other writers who remind us about God’s good gifts without always giving “equal time” to warnings about the gifts’ corruptions. I’ve asked the same when I write about God’s good gift of imagination, without always devoting similar wordcount (in the same article or post, etc.) to imagination’s misuse. And so I request the same grace here. If necessary, we can have further discussions in the comments sections or on social media. After all, that’s another good gift in the Church, with all our gifts and warnings not to idolize these gifts: graceful interaction and presumed goodwill in all our relationships—marriage and otherwise.