Waxing Poetically: Addressing Culture with a Twist of Poetry

In this Google video, journalist Mark Kelly spends seven days embedded in various evangelical Christian communities. He notes that while many see them as kooky and intolerant zealots, Kelly sees a community of dreamers seemly trapped in the far corners of American culture. Among his subjects: a porn convention evangelist whose slogan is “Jesus loves porn stars!”, a Christian-only movie producer who doesn’t dare to touch the doors of Hollywood, a level-headed Christo-centric rock band and a fantastical Florida theme park called Holyland where “Jesus” can be seen being crucified a 4:15 everyday.

Kelly notes that while he admires believers’ heart and sincerity, he wonders how these people can reach anyone when they seem so off mainstream radar so to speak. To Kelly, they seem isolated from doing any real good for their cause.

After viewing this as a more “liberal” Christ follower, I can only agree that the vast majority of the people documented seem to be preaching to converted and utterly unaware of other cultures, beliefs. When Kelly asks whether people should be willing explore more of popular culture, one teen replies by saying that there is a limit to how much you need to know. This troubles me in that such believers want to effect the larger culture yet are not willing to learn how to navigate though it. Further, those believers who are not familiar with anything outside of their hyper-insular groups never speak well of their own faith in that what they believe is contained within what has always seemed a cult-like isolation which fosters much more indoctrination than any real belief based on any kind of common sense morality.

Watch the video and comment and as per every blog… wax poetically!

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