What the goal is not
1. The goal is not to be freed from the pollutant of sin.There is an object lesson that illustrates this idea of sin as a pollutant. If we were offered a cup of lemonade with just the tiniest bit of poop in it, we would not knowingly drink it, because even the tiniest bit of poop makes a glass of lemonade worthless. Similarly, we should not watch a tv show or read a book with the tiniest bit of sin it, since that would taint the whole thing. The object lesson is effective, but is it biblical?
I answer “No!” In fact, if sin were a pollutant in this way, we could never read the Bible itself, since it discusses sinners and even details their sin extensively in several places. When it speaks of sins which we would not usually consider dirty, like self-righteousness, the Word uses word pictures to bring an even clearer understanding of God's view of the dirtiness of such sin. Thus, all our righteous deeds are dirty menstrual rags, according to the prophet.
Another problem with this view is that it would exclude all dealing with sinners whatsoever. If the fictional character's sin is a pollutant, then how much more will the tax collector or prostitute's sin “get on me” if I talk to him? At the very least, we would need to make sure any such interactions would take place on the established basis that I am a much holier and cleaner person, one who knows no language but that of handing out Chick Tracks to the dirty sinner. If that sounds like Christlikeness to you, you probably need to spend a little more time in the Gospels.
I should mention that sin is a terrible thing, that it pollutes us, and that we must be constantly aware of its dangers. However, my point is that sin does not so taint the world that we can no longer interact with it. So, if you are watching something that tempts you to sin, turn it off! Don't let yourself be led away into sin! But the mere fact that sin may be involved in a broadcast, book, or blog does not mean that you will be tempted to sin by it. Rather, if we engage these media with our minds and the keep our hearts attuned to the Scriptures, we can enjoy the world around us in these media. To try to exemplify this view of sin in media: if the football game cuts to the cheer-sluts, I will look away, and look back when the shot is over, but I am not going to watch an hour-long program on the cheer-sluts.
2. Learning the culture, so we can reach the culture.
Another false goal in our interactions with media is posited in evangelistic, even missional terms. It is said that we can only reach the culture once we know the culture. In an extreme form, it seems that some folks think that unless we can sprinkle Eminem, Bono, or Oprah quotes (depending on your class) liberally into our conversation about Jesus, people will not understand what we are talking about. It is supposed that the Scriptures themselves are incomprehensible to folks not familiar with what is called “Christianese.” I have two points of contention with this goal for interacting with media.
First, this is a gross underestimation of both the noetic (i.e. mental) effects of sin and the work of the Holy Spirit in overcoming those effects. It is true that the natural man is not capable of understanding the Scriptures, or “receiving the things of God” (1 Cor. 2), but that is not because Christians are not working hard enough to contextualize the Gospel. It is because the mind of the natural man cannot receive the things of God without the Holy Spirit giving him a spiritual mind. While Christians should attempt to bring the Gospel to others as clearly as possible, it is not necessary to force the Scriptures into the mindless drivel of pseudo-psychiatric platitudes popularized on daytime talk shows in order to reach someone watching such shows. What such a sinner needs is a call out of that mindset, to obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ and trust in him for their salvation from sin's penalty and power.
The second point I have is simply that this goal for interacting with media is simply mercenary. The “contextualizing,” “missional,”crowd has been politically active, leftist, rightest, hippie, bourgeois, down-home, suburban, inner city, un-schooled, and academic elitist in its turns. The leaders have been about 31 theological flavors to go with the many different cultures they are trying to reach. All this sounds more like a presidential candidate on the campaign trail than a man with biblical convictions, secure in his identity in Christ, preaching a timeless message to the dying world. Not only does this divide Christians for utterly foolish reasons and tend to ignore theological questions in favor of arguments about political parties, musical styles, or marijuana, but it also shows the world that a great many peoples' “cultural engagement” is in fact a means to trick folks into coming to Church. (That is the Evangelical version of such mercenary culture-mongering; there are many who just want sinners to accept them and say nice things about them and Jesus.) This mercenary-style interaction will look very phoney to unbelievers who are genuinely interested in various media, and it will look very familiar to “posers,” who are trying to look like they are interested in various media because they think people will like them more if they are. That is goal #3, though...
3. Establishing an image.
The final goal I will try to steer around is that we should engage the culture in order to establish our image as, say, tasteful artist-types with a good sense of humor and irony. I will not deal at length with this, because it is not a goal many people would own up to in their interactions with media. I suspect that many people who claim goal #1 or goal #2 would have a degree of this in the back of their minds. The fact is, we all do (and should) want to belong to a diverse, friendly, accepting group of people. The group that we actually hope for is called the Church. Or, if you are a Dispensationalist, then the Church and redeemed Israel. :) In either case, what we really long for is that community pictured in Revelation, who sing together forever the praises of the Lamb, in the united song of every tribe, tongue, and nation. Since this is a real and deeply-felt need, it is not surprising that Satan attempts to invert it. He gets us (especially as unbelievers, but often as Christians too) to establish our fellowship, not on the basis of our universal adoration of the glories of the Lamb, but on just about anything else. This is the importance of our image. If I'm with the rockers, or the hiphop...ists?, or the gangstas, or preacher-boys, or granola homeschoolers, or jocks, or whatevers, then I have my loving community. I define myself by whatever will get me that “fellowship,” in contrast to any other community's dress, music, or other demographics. This is a very tempting goal in interacting with media, but it leads us very easily to break our fellowship over very foolish issues of media taste, and often to a need to accept freely and uncritically anything that comes out from “our” media outlets.
As we attempt to Christianly interact with media, I believe we need to set these goals aside. Rather than any of these goals, I propose we strive after the following: finding media outlets and providers which entertain us; worshiping God; living blamelessly; and learning about God and the world he has made.
