All God Children and Blue Suede Shoes Christians and Popular Culture (Audible Audio Edition) Kenneth A Myers Jeff Riggenbach Inc Blackstone Audio Books
Download As PDF : All God Children and Blue Suede Shoes Christians and Popular Culture (Audible Audio Edition) Kenneth A Myers Jeff Riggenbach Inc Blackstone Audio Books
Where did popular culture come from? Why is it the way it is? How does it influence Americans in general and Christians in particular? Ken Myers offers fascinating answers. He sees pop culture as a culture of diversion, preventing people from asking questions about their origin and destiny and about the meaning of life. Two aspects stand out a quest for novelty and a desire for instant gratification. In addition, this culture offers something very appealing the illusion that we set our own standards, are the master of our fate, deserve a break, and are worth it.
All God Children and Blue Suede Shoes Christians and Popular Culture (Audible Audio Edition) Kenneth A Myers Jeff Riggenbach Inc Blackstone Audio Books
I filled this book with highlights. Here's one quote that I've seen quoted a lot, one I've thought of many times over the years since I read this excellent book:“It might seem an extreme assertion at first, but I believe that the challenge of living with popular culture may well be as serious for modern Christians as persecution and plagues were for the saints of earlier centuries. Being thrown to the lions or living in the shadow of gruesome death are fairly straightforward if unattractive threats. Enemies that come loudly and visibly are usually much easier to fight than those that are undetectable. Physical affliction (even to the point of death) for the sake of Christ is a heavy cross, but at least it can be readily recognized at the time as a trial of faith. But the erosion of character, the spoiling of innocent pleasures, and the cheapening of life itself that often accompany modern popular culture can occur so subtly that we believe nothing has happened.” (xii=xiii)
Here's another quote, one that really gets to the heart of what Myers is after:
“Christian concern about popular culture should be as much about the sensibilities it encourages as about its content. This book focuses on those sensibilities.” (xiii)
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All God Children and Blue Suede Shoes Christians and Popular Culture (Audible Audio Edition) Kenneth A Myers Jeff Riggenbach Inc Blackstone Audio Books Reviews
All God's Children and Blue Suede Shoes is one of the most thought provoking books I have read in a long time. If you've ever stepped back from modern evangelical culture and stared at it with a confused expression, a strange feeling gnawing at the pit of your stomach, while scratching your head, this just might be the book for you.
Kenneth Myers has some serious concerns with popular culture and what it is doing to our society. More specifically, he has problems with evangelical pop culture and what it is doing to the hearts, minds and spirits of evangelical Christians. Myers issue is not so much with the content of pop culture, but with the form itself. He insists that even the "Christianized" forms of pop culture emphasize the immediate and shallow over the transcendent and deep. It promotes numb mindlessness over deep reflection.
This book is a call for Christians and the Church to stop imitating pop culture with our own versions of celebrity, television, music and magazines (just visit any Christian bookstore to get a sense of the magnitude of Christian pop culture knock off), but to provide a true alternative, as a living example of alternative methods and content.
Myers distinguishes between Folk culture, High culture and Pop culture. He traces the history of Pop culture, a relatively new phenomenon. Basically it is a result of the lowest common denominator. It is a leveling out and smoothing over of high and folk culture to appeal to a mass audience in a global and industrial society. It is designed and marketed not to encourage reflection, but to maintain the status quo.
High culture is designed to elevate the thoughts and emotions and to encourage reflection on the transcendent. It takes an engaged mind and work to understand and appreciate. It doesn't leave a person the same. Folk culture is a product of a place and a community, the product of a worldview. It is a shared tradition and contains shared values. Folk culture holds one accountable to shared community values while pop culture is all about the individual. I think anyone who has listened to much modern worship music will recognize this effect working it's way into Christian culture.
Myers points to Philippians 48, "Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things." For Myers these are definitely exhibited easier and better in folk and high culture and rarely if ever in pop culture.
One of the key issues that Meyer is seeking to address is the wholesale embrace of the methodology of pop culture by the church under the banner of contextualization. He points out that the church has long been the bastion of High culture, elevating minds and hearts and focusing people's attention to the transcendent, and folk culture, instilling communal values and cultural heritage. Now, however, the church is often simply imitating the worst of pop culture and mixing in a little Jesus. A major result of this is that the church has adopted the marketing stance of pop culture, luring people with cool music and advertising rather than the Gospel. Myers believes that this is a direct result of evangelical Christianity's wholesale embrace of popular culture's methodology.
I don't always agree with Myers. I'm not sure that rock music, movies, etc. cannot become high or at least folk culture. I'm thinking here of some great and transcendent films or music with excellent lyrics. Basically I'm saying things aren't always as cut and dried as Myers makes them and he obviously never cared much for rock or television or film to begin with.
I do agree with most of what he says because his point is basically this Christians need to stop selling out to trite and cheap imitations of a trite and cheap world. We need to think about the means as well as the end. We need to think about what our methodology conveys. Instead of asking what people want and giving it to them (pop culture) we need to ask what they need and help them come to understand their need for it and we need to remind them of their great cultural heritage (high and folk culture).
While you may not agree with everything here, I would strongly recommend this book.
Still a classic after all these years, Blue Suede Shoes provides lots of food for thought for Christians but also for those outside the faith who have concerns regarding the shallow thinking that many popular cultural trends encourage. "The aesthetic of immediate and constant entertainment does not prepare the human consciousness well for recognition of a holy, transcendent, omnipotent and eternal God, or to responding to His demands of repentance and obedience." (page 132)
As valuable as this text is, however, the huge cultural changes that have continued since the book was written in 1989, especially the impact of the Internet, iPods, etc., call out for a much-needed update. In addition, the book's arguments are sometimes weakened by Myers' tendency to equate "culture" (versus "pop culture" which he generally pans) with only "classical," European and American music, painting and sculpture. Nonetheless, this remains essential reading for anyone interested in popular culture and its influence on thought and behavior in today's society.
With the need for updating and the less than expected acceptance of culture from other backgrounds, this very good text only earns 3 stars.
I filled this book with highlights. Here's one quote that I've seen quoted a lot, one I've thought of many times over the years since I read this excellent book
“It might seem an extreme assertion at first, but I believe that the challenge of living with popular culture may well be as serious for modern Christians as persecution and plagues were for the saints of earlier centuries. Being thrown to the lions or living in the shadow of gruesome death are fairly straightforward if unattractive threats. Enemies that come loudly and visibly are usually much easier to fight than those that are undetectable. Physical affliction (even to the point of death) for the sake of Christ is a heavy cross, but at least it can be readily recognized at the time as a trial of faith. But the erosion of character, the spoiling of innocent pleasures, and the cheapening of life itself that often accompany modern popular culture can occur so subtly that we believe nothing has happened.” (xii=xiii)
Here's another quote, one that really gets to the heart of what Myers is after
“Christian concern about popular culture should be as much about the sensibilities it encourages as about its content. This book focuses on those sensibilities.” (xiii)
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