Media experts differ widely on the value of popular culture. Is it today’s “face of Jesus”? Or, does it vitiate spirituality and tear down worthwhile societal values? The article traces concepts of culture and culture formation. The author argues that popular culture both reflects and affects the values people construct for themselves. Popular culture is a meaning-making and religious act. By engaging general revelation, it may express human hungers, anxieties, injustices and sorrows significantly and truly. Yet it may provide an alternate reality and narrative, supplanting the sacred metanarrative for the plot of life once provided by the religious community. This reality often centers on entertainment personalities through whom people can vicariously live their lives. Popular culture’s narrative framework for personal identity formation may produce its own “God,” and miss its God-ordained purpose of providing an insightfully human narrative that may through the Spirit lead ultimately to the Logos, Jesus Christ. The article is followed by two critical responses.
The Institute for Cultural Engagement, an official program of Multnomah University and Biblical Seminary