Subculture
Why is it that as Christians we seem so intent on building our own ghettos? Instead of connecting with out culture and bringing light and influence to it we separate ourselves and build our own little world. We create our own activities and even our own language. All the time we create a huge disconnection between ourselves and the people we are supposed to be reaching. We become so separate that our salt and light affects nobody. We have our own little disneyworld where we just connect with Christian people and do Christian stuff. We wrap our lives up in nice bits of cotton wool and then spend our lives focused on how we live in the ghetto. How we can make the ghetto bigger. Here are a few things that we have created;
Christian bookshops and Christian books
Isn’t it wonderful to be able to have our own bookshops where we can buy books on wholesome Christian living by good Christian writers. All of them very successful at what they do. 20 easy steps to have a bigger church. How to bring revival. The keys to the most amazing prayer life. Have a cell church. Have a mega-church. Live in prosperity. Bias to the poor. Always nicely tucked away down some seedy arcade on the edge of town along with the tattoo artist and the comic store. But these are our books. Some of these writers even write books for evangelistic purposes. Why? How many non-believers just stumble into a Christian bookshop? Not many. And if they do, when they discover where they are they aim for the door as quick as possible. And bookshop workers! I’m not going to say anything in-case you are one reading this (lol). C.S. Lewis is still recognised as one of the world’s greatest writers. I think he would have been horrified to think of his books being sold in ghettos. He was a man who wanted to engage with society. With the people he lived amongst. And Tolkien as well. They used to meet and discuss life and theology in pubs and clubs. C.S. Lewis loved to smoke his pipe. Not good Christian bookshop living. Yet there books continue to impact society and speak Christ into the darkness. The recent brilliant Hollywood films give tribute to this. And today we are seeing a new generation connecting with society and culture; G.P. Taylor, Stephen Lawhead, Cole Moreton, to name but a few. Their books are sold in W.H. Smiths alongside Harry Potter and Katie Price. Surely that is where salt should be.
Christian music and record labels
Yes when I became a Christian I burned them. No not my bra’s, I burned my record collection full of evil Satanic rock. Well I didn’t burn them, I sold them to a second hand music dealer. All my Bee Gee’s stuff was evil, especially with the backwards masking. Those messages made me want to smoke marijuana On Another One Bites the Dust. Now I was a holy person that had to listen to holy music. Being an ex-punk the Gaithers were not quite the same. But it was doing my spirit good. Songs about Jesus and for Jesus. There was one problem to a music lover, Christian music was on the whole a load of crap. Always behind the times and always naff. When I finally found some Christian punk and new wave it was so bad. And that is not bad in a good way!!! Somewhere on the journey I had an awakening. I discovered U2. They were believers but not on a Christian label. They sang about eternity but were also singing about life. Many Christians didn’t like them. Bono swore on some songs and in interviews. That clouded the fact that they were involved in poverty issues and standing with aids victims. That started a road of discovery of bands on a journey with God. The Alarm, Deacon Blue, Lone Justice etc. And today there are many around. Part of the culture, not a subculture. Sometimes their belief statement is a mystery but they bring light. They are sold in HMV and not the aforementioned bookshops. They are played on Radio 1 and 2 not Christian radio. Surely this is where the salt belongs! For some fun delve into people like Mumford and Sons, Over the Rhine, David Bazan, McIntoshRoss, Iain Archer etc. So much light out there.
Christian ministry
Either paid or voluntary or even bullied into. But every Christian is encouraged to discover their work of ministry. Everyone has a gift, a ministry, an ability given by God to minister in the church. Could be preaching and teaching if you are very good, or it could be the music ministry leading worship, it could be something nice and small like flower arranging or making after service tea. Whatever it is you will become such a blessing as you minister to the Body. Don’t forget to do this as well as go to all the meetings. Lack of commitment may mean being asked to step down from your ministry for a season. Your heart is obviously not in the right place. To my shame I have done this to people. Not even taking into consideration what these people are going through in their private lives. No commitment, no ministry. The pinnacle of every Christian life is Christian ministry in the ghetto. Giving to the ghetto. Speaking in tongues and moving mountains, but forgetting to connect and love the world in which we live in. Ministry or service was meant to connect with the whosoever. Ministering to people where we are is key to seeing transformation come. Affecting the culture not building a subculture or even a counter-culture. Being salt wherever we are.
Christian TV
Am I the only one who cannot stomach watching the God channel anymore, or cringes at the quality of Christian channels under religion on sky? I admit the only reason I got Sky was for the Christian channel. I was blessed by the revival meetings and having church in my front room. The chance for unbelievers to stumble across it while looking for the porn channels. They were near each other in those days, so I was told. But over time I got bored. Now I see more of God in normal TV. I would rather sit through Songs of Praise than another American or Australian mega-church meeting. The testimonies on there are still very powerful. Even if we have to put up with Aled Jones. Programmes like the recently shown Rev have been amazing. And I have had more conversations about Christianity because of the murdering vicar Lucas in Eastenders than any message by Kenneth Copeland. People moan about the lack of Christian programming on the TV, but God is everywhere. The recent Bible documentaries were amazing on Channel 4. There is some salt out there. Including my mate Dave on Big Brother.
Connect and affect
It is time for the death of the Christian subculture!!! We are called to be in the world but not of it. We are called to connect with the earth, the dirt, the people. We need to get out of the ghetto and be a part of society. Realise our ministry and service is to people where we live and not towards the church. There is much light creeping through the shadows at the moment. We may need to look closely but it is there. Christian writers and film producers, musicians and artists, actors and health workers, volunteers and teachers, all contributing often without the Jesus badge on or bumper sticker. Just contributing to society. Affecting it with salt and light on a daily basis.
Stop hiding away in ghettos, our culture needs us and all we can contribute. What we can give will transform the world bit by bit, until a shaft of light will be seen. Then communities and lives can be changed.
.
25 Comments
Brilliant.
Thanks Barbara.
Thought provoking and maybe just plain provoking =)
As a couple living out in the Latvian countryside we are stumbling about with the prayer of being salt and light. We are pensioners renewing our little farm while loving our neighbours without benefit of language, most of the time. No ghetto here, no church for us, no place of corporate worship — I miss it! Also no TV no God channel but bits we can get off the internet.
We hope we have heard God to be here, we trust we are obeying and we often feel quite blessed but in general it is no picnic. Just saying.
Hi Kathleen, thanks for the reply. Sounds like you too are on God’s adventure. Sounds amazing what you are doing there in Latvia. You are so right, there is much blessing, and it is no picnic. Can relate to that 100%. All I do know is that there is no going back to how it was before. Bless you guys real good.
Absolutely brilliant! I love it, just right for where I currently am in my journey. No more subculture, christian bubble and stupid pointless meetings! I want a dose of gritty reality rather than pretense that I am ‘in the club!’
Thanks Paul – love this stuff!
Thanks Jonny for the encouraging words. I am right with you there. Bless you good on your journey.
I have only two comments about most of Christian ‘culture’ as seen in the US A and Canada.
It is not interesting. Nor is it Christian.
In other words, it fails the test of cultural imput which is to stimulate us and provide us with new things to see, hear and think about. And it fails the test, most of the time, of living up to the faith it seeks so hard to proclaim. Take a look back over the many years of so-called Christian TV in the States. It makes me shudder and I’ve hardly ever had the misfortune of watching it. The Christian ghetto was something we played with as a way of avoiding real life, and in consequence missed God, who is always involved in real life.
c.
Hi Cheryl. I agree with you 100%. All that money sent and spent on Christian TV and has it really transformed very much? Only creates a brand of Christian self-centredness if you ask me, but nobody did, lol.
Well said Paul, Christians are creating a barrier between themselves and the rest of Gods Creation by congregating in these ghettos.
There are some fantastic people out here with a real need to see Gods’ love in action.
Thanks Geoff. I love the people I daily work and socialise with. Yes there is some pretense, but overall I find more reality and honesty and a clear desire to discover truth. It is great rubbing shoulders with REAL RAW people.
Fascinating stuff, culture. So is sub-culture or a cultural expression that is derived from but different from a parent culture. Trouble is, most of us thought that we were being seriously counter-cultural when we were definitely sub-cultural, in both senses, derived from the parent culture and rather below par as a culture.
Andrew Walker used to say that our big job as church was to model something alternative to the culture of isolated, individualised consumerism… to model community. I always wanted to push that further to model radical outposts of heaven. So we told ourselves stories that helped us believe that this was what we were doing.
We were a club, nonetheless, an affinity group, (and our affinity was and is hugely important), but we were a group that really only talked to itself and listened to itself. Few contradicted us, and if they did it didn’t matter, because we were unlikely to hear what they said. As time went on though, the sense of community hardened into a form of institution, overly concerned with its boundaries. The sense of specialness was never consciously a matter of pride, any more than Israel’s sense of itself was essentially prideful. But it did turn into a sort of conceit, an affectation of our story. And it produced such a false sense of distance between us and those outside. The normal mode of connection within community is conversation, but with those outside, it becomes presentation. We have a message to deliver and if necessary we will shout it until those on the other side of the wall cannot avoid hearing it.
We all know these ideas, and Paul describes them powerfully. But I think there’s a problem with many of them, my own very much included. I think a lot of them are ‘straw men’. The sociological views of new church culture will certainly lead us in this direction of ‘concrete abstraction’. But the reality was that the people always had neighbours and always conversed, always cared, always helped. The people rarely behaved like the institution. Even the leaders of the institution, unless they were true career obsessives, didn’t really behave that way. These things only happened when they were in official mode, in the elders meetings, organising the worship team (what odd phrases these are).
There was a huge gap between people’s lives and hearts and the sub culture of the meetings and the institution. I suspect that it is the growing sense of this disparity that has been so effective in driving many of us out of the system. Those that had been in it for a long time recalled the rhetoric of our beginnings, our passion for community, for egalitarian views of ‘the body of Christ’, and realised painfully that we had become the very thing we used to preach against.
But many who take the step outside find themselves feeling cold and finding it hard to deal with a different sort of isolation. I have had many conversations with other explorers who admit that there probably was more community than we had admitted. Perhaps we grew so familiar with it that we could only see its packaging and mistook this for the reality. For all the talk of our brave new world I see many returning to or seeking softer, less jingoistic forms of congregational community.
The ache for authentic, radical, prophetic community remains, and Paul has warmed us with the descriptions of his new place. And perhaps it is just this that prevents me from seeking that sort of solace. I too am receiving huge support and help from people who are in the half-lands. For convenience we pray together before their meetings at the school hall. But I cannot go through those doors to the meeting. If those meetings were about vulnerable, listening prayer and intercession I might feel differently. But they are not. It would be relatively easy for me to describe this as a cultural thing but it goes much deeper than that. For me it is an aesthetic thing. (This might sound odd for those who imagine that aesthetics is just the style of a culture, but I mean it more in the way that Wittgenstein had it that ‘ethics and aesthetics are much the same thing’)
I cannot, after all this time, be in the same room as that sound, that way of thinking, those platitudes. This has so little to do with the other people who are there. It has everything to do with what that dynamic and its seating arrangements and its patterns and its sound actually mean. These are abstractions, to be sure, and I mean to remain aware that they are. But they are real.
Chris you have shared some fascinating thoughts here on culture and community. Will have to keep readin this to take it all in. Interesting on counter-culture, could find no real definition of this that is much different to sub-culture. We thought we were swimming against the tide but in reality we were creating our own sea. The tide continued unawares of what we were really doing. Isolation outside is a reality, but I think this is improving. Community will grow. Relationships with reality. I think back to before I was a believer I never even thought about creating community but it happened naturally. I had friends and we did stuff together. Often spontaneously. Church life and structure has created a false world where relationships are almost forced upon us on similar beliefs and worship. When the structure goes so does those relationships. Now we need a new day to see new relationships forming in reality. Around interests and places and hope and love. This will take time because the ghetto has so destabilised us. Slowly I am forming new relationships with both believers and non-believers, natural relationships. Not organised by institution. I felt isolated for about two and a half years, now things are beginning to change. All part of this journey of discovery.
Thanks Paul. Reading your blog over the last year has just been so wholesome. I can relate so much to the journey you’re on, and you do seem to be further on the journey than I am, which gives me a lot of encouragement.
I deleted my MP3 collection not long after becoming a Christian. Then slowly discovered that most Christian music was just shallow God-pop. I was always confused as to why no one sang about real life. Went to see Mumford & Sons a couple of weeks back… you’re right, it’s inspirational to see a group of people being so real and authentic.
It’s pretty hard to re-discover truth, authenticity and identity after so much has been squashed under the pressure of conformity and ‘purity’.
Thanks again for sharing all this stuff, it’s a real help to a lot of people I know.
Thanks James for these encouraging words. Jealous that you have seen Mumford and Sons, would love to. The NME just ran an interesting article on them called The Church of Mumford, all about community. Brilliant. The rediscovery is a daily journey and I knwo already that so many are walking a fresh way. Are we making mistakes? Oh yes, but God is being so gracious to us all. Bless you good mate on your journey.
Hey Paul — I think you’ll find the reason most Christian bookshops are stuck in backstreets and out of the way places is the harsh reality of high street rents.
Most of us involved in the Christian book trade are no more interested in serving a Christian sub-culture than you are in being part of one. Yes, we are there to serve the Christian community — but more than that, we’re there to be a Christian presence in our towns & cities, to provide a prophetic presence that stands in contrast to the purely profit-driven presence of most other retailers … and that’s a tough call, believe it or not…
Please don’t spurn us, Paul: stand with us. Do something radical maybe like invest in a Christian bookshop: encourage your readers to get involved, to support us, to break down the ghettoised barriers as you see them; help us to become the kind of light you’d like us to be. And please remember, we’re only human too…
Maybe you’d like to write a guest post for us? Tell us how you see it and how you’d like to see it … and God only knows what might emerge out of that…
Thank you Phil for the comment. I am sure that I like, many readers, are very grateful for the work of those in the Christian book trade, and have watched as many Christian bookstores have closed these past years. The economics of all retail businesses is so under threat. From all of us a very big thank you for the work.
Hi Phil, thanks for your comments. Will write more fully in a couple of days, just about to go away and a quick thought will not do this justice. I never meant to spurn you or the bookstore industry, I have spent many happy hours amongst the books and CD’s of Christian bookstores. Have spent much of my hard earned pay there, at times too much. My challenge is to the subculture that those stores and other Christian things create. As I say will write more on Tuesday. I honour you guys fully as I know many have given much time, energy, finance and much heartache etc. I too thank you for your hard work.
Oh my word thanks for this! I nearly wet myself laughing and then nearly cried at some of the stupid Christian things I have got involved in and for that I am truly sorry.
I like your thinking and I’m with you.
I too was told to burn my marillion records but I secretly sold them to a second hand dealer too. It cost me an arm and a leg to get them back 10 years later. Now they proudly hang on my wall.
Seriously thanks for your wise words. dennis.
Thank you Dennis for your encouraging comments. Those early Marillion covers were artistic genius. Bet they look great on the wall. Bless you mate, Paul
Hi,
I just wanted to say thank you, Paul, for noticing. Vanity brought me here (Googling my own name in an idle moment, which is nothing to be proud of) but I’m glad it did, because your comment was very encouraging. If you or any of your readers and friends would like to see a bit more about what I’m up to then they are welcome to come to http://www.isgodstillanenglishman.com, the blog of the latest book. In the meantime, more power to your pen.
Best wishes,
Cole Moreton
Hi Cole, thanks for the encouraging words. Love the book and hope to catch you at Greenbelt in a few days time. I will be there come (rain) or shine. Paul.
@Martin, @Paul: thank you both. We’re having a fascinating discussion over at the UKCBD blog over the recent announcement by Living Oasis (the guys who took over 20 of the former Wesley Owen shops earlier this year) that they plan to “de-Christianise” the shop windows: For I am ashamed of the Gospel? Concerns raised as Living Oasis declares plans to “de-Christianise” shop windows … wondering what you guys make of that, especially in light of Paul’s more recent post about use of the term ‘Christian’?
Hi Phil, as I have often said I am not giving conclusive answers. There are enough of those given in many sermons, book etc. I am just on a road of discovery, debate, rediscovery and journey and I think it is so important to talk around many issues. I seem to have a ministry that stirs the soul and mind and heart, which is no bad thing surely?
I totally sympathise and feel for Christian bookshop workers. I have spent hours in those places in the past, but more and more feel an uncomfortableness there. The books and CD’s that are sold are good and wholesome and full of positive thinking and teaching, and some of that stuff fills my house much to the annoyance of my wife, because I love reading and listening. There have been many shopping trips where we have to hunt out the Christian bookshop. That is why I know so many of them are in the backstreets, and I fully understand the financial implications of all that. But the more I have felt a shift in my own life ( as well as others who are finding more of a disconnection from constructive church life) I find less and less the resource available in Christian bookshops. They do not want to sell books about failure and doubt and discomfort. Or music by artists that do not throw in the word Jesus every five minutes. Who are struggling with life issues. Here in Wales there are great Welsh artists who are Christians like Martyn Joseph, Skindred, Mal Pope etc. These people get no support from the Christian bookshops at all. Why? Is it because they sometimes sing songs about reality? Have duets with people who are openly homosexual? Not as nice as another Hillsongs album!!! The best Christian bookshop I ever knew was one in Cambridge that introduced me to singers like Bruce Cockburn, The Techno Twins etc. Not afraid to stock mainstream stuff. This openness needs to come to keep the connectivity.
What is the answer? I do not really know. I will continue to purchase the odd book from Christian bookstores. My delirious? album I will buy from HMV. But I really do not want another 101 ways to get a successful church book, sorry.
De-christianising the shop window is not the answer either. Like creating a seeker-sensitive service in church, different packaging but still the same product being sold inside. I long for more writers and musicians to connect with the world at large. We may never buy their books because we might not realise they are believers but their words will speak life into the world in which we live.
At the end of the day the internet is the killer of everything high street anyway. A Christian who wants a Christian book gets it on the net often cheaper and without leaving the house. Who can compete in that environment? Christian bookshops have outlived Woolworths anyway. This is no comfort I know to many whose livelihoods depend on them. I know what this is like after losing my job in church ministry, but there is another way. A difficult but enlivening way.
Bless you Phil and all who work in the industry. Would love to write a guest post for you sometime to continue with this debate. Until then keep up all that good work.
Paul.
Interesting.
I have come here from Phil Grooms blog (The above comment) and am interested in what I see here.
On the one hand, I find myself wanting to agree with what I see here, and on the other, I couldn’t disagree more.
I am the owner of a Christian bookshop, and spent three years with a “Christian Ministry” touring with a christian theatre company, and missions organisation.
At times, I have been to the heart of the “Christian Ghetto” and while there is a lot to dislike, to pretend that it is all bad, I’m just not sure.
I mean, what are you to propose as opposed to these things?
I dream of a day where I can walk into a “Secular” bookshop and see the range, and quality of helpful Christian literature I am able to stock, but the reality is simple. In my biggest local bookshop, Waterstones, a shop nearly five times the floorspace of my own, “Christian” product is, literally, half a shelf of Bibles sandwiched between the Qur’an and Satanic Bible, a few copies of “Purpose Driven Life” and “The Shack” and about a shelf of “christian” self-help books by the likes of Joel Osteen, and Joyce Meyer. What’s more, I quite often hear that not only do they not stock “Christian” books, but they refuse to order them either.
Are we to pretend that the sole aim of Christians is to save others, with no regard for their personal development and discipleship? Are we to assume that there is no place for christian books, and that, St. Paul was wrong when he decided that the written word was an effective way to help build the early Church?
If there is a place for modern Christian writing, both for Christians and unsaved people (and despite what you may think, I know LOTS of people who walked into a “Christian” bookshop before they were saved, brought something,and it played a part in their salvation), and secular bookshops outright refuse to even source these products, then what choice is there but to establish “Christian” ones?
The same thing goes for music. If we believe that worship, and music are important (and there is a lot in the Bible to suggest that there just might be) and “secular” labels are uninterested in them (let’s be fair, U2 are the exception, not the rule) because of their faith, then is it not right that Christians are able to lift up and support one another. To pretend that “bands who are Christian, but not ‘Christian Bands’” and are able to get signed by secular labels are the only ones we should listen to, means we disregard basically all worship music, and brilliant contemporary bands on amazing, well run, labels like Tooth and Nail and many, many more.
I could keep going, but I hope I have made my point.
In reality, the Bible does say to be in the world, but not of it, but it also says
John 15:18-19 “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.”
It is not Ghetto building to create these things, especially when the world hates us, it is, or perhaps should be, the only way to do these things. If the World accepts us, and our faith, if our culture is indistinguishable from that of the world, then maybe, just maybe, our faith isn’t quite what it should be.
I like that you mention U2 as a source of “light”.
I was at the 360 Tour concert at the Millenium Stadium in Wales. It was an amazing night.
A few other Christian friends of mine were also there, or at other concerts on the tour, and each one mentioned how they could “feel” God’s presence there, that when Archbishop Desmond Tutu appeared on the screen, and began speaking of poverty, justice, and the songs Where the Streets have No Name / One played, they were overwhelmed by the power of Christ in the stadium.
Then I spoke to a non-christian friend who was at the same concert. I believe he is on a journey towards faith. I hoped that realising that people like Bono share our faith would be an encouragement to him on his journey, and I mentioned this “feeling” we had all shared, and he laughed at me.
He mentioned how Bono was “pissed drunk” how the speech showed more of the power of people, not the power of God, and how most U2 songs speak more doubt than faith.
It struck me as odd that in fact, when we try to be “in the world” is perhaps when our Ghettos are strongest. We hold up bands like U2 as shining examples of “culrurally relevant” Christians (and I am certainly not saying that they aren’t) from what I have seen, I believe that the only people in that place that night who felt God were the ones who already believe in him, who should feel him whether Bono is singing or not.
On the other hand, in my Christian bookshop, about 1 third of the people who walk through my door are not Christians (we also sell fair trade, and more general interest gifts).
Of those, many will feel comfortable asking for prayer, or advise when times are tough, and lots comment on how it has “a really peaceful atmosphere”. Of those about one in five will eventually buy some kind of Christian literature, a Bible, book or CD.
And of those, since we re-opened in February two, that we know of, have mentioned making a commitment to Christ.
Yes, if these things, Christian Bookshops, TV, Music or Ministry become hiding places for “Christians” then they leave a lot to be desired, and there is lots about them to dislike. But in my experience, that simply isn’t the case a lot of the time, and most of these things serve the Christian community, and spread light to a lost world, in amazing, powerful ways.
No, we are not a Ghetto, and should not hide ourselves away, but we are a community of faith and must serve ourselves as well as the dark world we live in, and the establishment of a lot of these things, provides one way to serve the world, and our own community at the same time.
Hi Luke, thanks for your comments. Really appreciate what you have shared and for entering into the debate, which I think is very healthy.
As I replied earlier I do not have all the answers but find that our language of dualism is key to the thinking here. The secular/sacred divide we often make. What makes a Christian bookshop anymore Christian than a so called secular bookshop? Is it more holy in one than the other? This is where the whole issue of Christian bookshops feed into dualism and then the creation of sub-culture. Are we called to serve ourselves? Or are we called to go into the world and connect with it? What did God do to the church in Jerusalem when it started serving itself? Forgot about the commission? They were dispersed and went sharing their lives and the gospel. Yes at times using letters, but mainly through community living and sharing love and hope and peace. This whole area is massive. We will never reach the conclusion in one debate, but I think it is important to always ask questions.
I want to end by thanking you for the service you have given to others, and myself included. You have displayed a light in many areas. May you rise to the challenges of change that lay ahead for all of us.
Bless you Luke, Paul