Cultural Engagement

My good friend Steve raves about The Walking Dead, AMC's Zombie-fest that's always at the top of the ratings. And he says, "You have to watch it. It's not the zombie stuff. It's the characters that will hook you in and keep you watching."* And I mock him.  'Cause that's what friends do. Zombies? Really?

found here

But the point is taken. The number one show. Or is it number one on cable? Does that matter? I see that sometimes.  "Cable's number one drama. Or comedy. Or cable's number one show with two guys wearing suits. Or whatever..." I dunno. Anyway, the season finale a couple weeks ago got 12+ million viewers.** That seems like a pretty solid number one on TV kind of slot to me.***

So I haven't watched the show. I can't get past the zombie bit. To each his own.****  So, um, not the point.

It occurred to me, however, that being the number one show, while being a pretty big deal, isn't enough to be culturally relevant. Steve is one of two people I know who are watching the show. Even among the big winning demographic according to the ratings in the article mentioned above (a pretty sweeping 18-49 year old demographic - isn't that like 3 demographic categories? Or at least 2?), only two people I know for a fact engaged in the number one show on TV. (Very unscientific, yes - I haven't actually polled every person I know - for example, I haven't asked my 90 year old grandmother - but I'm pretty sure I know the answer. Seriously, I haven't asked that many people, either, so I may actually know 20 Dead fans...who knows... still not my point... heh).

Found online...and modified

Here IS my point. If the number one show for the week got 12 - okay round WAY up - 13 million viewers - and let's be really generous and assume that somehow the fanbase is DOUBLE that - that half of the true fans were, I don't know, at work, in an unexpected coma or, not surprisingly, defending an abandoned prison from a zombie onslaught and couldn't watch the season finale  - and we assume that there are 26 million fans, that's a mere 8% of the US population.

Let that sink in for a minute. Even if we're super generous about the numbers on the most popular show on TV right now, less than 10% of the population of the country is engaged with it.

Now, I know what kind of lies statistics are, and my point wasn't to do some kind of weird statistical analysis. I'm thinking about cultural engagement.  (For a little perspective, I was reading about The Wizard of Oz being broadcast on TV. The very first broadcast, November 3, 1956, "they" estimate 45 million people watched the broadcast - which was about 26.5% of the US population at the time, a time when only about half of US households had TVs). 

When Steve talks about The Walking Dead, I knew what he meant the first time he mentioned it. I had encountered the ads. My wife Lori still has no idea what the show is - and it just finished its third season. Because she doesn't care about it - and as soon as you say zombies, she dismisses it, and discards the information as irrelevant. So when she encounters The Walking Dead again she has a glazed look of non-recognition...  So, talk Walking Dead and my wife checks out.

As does, apparently, a vast majority of the population.

So it intrigues me how many Churches used the Walking Dead as a theme for Easter this year.*****

I really haven't checked out any of those podcasts, sermons online, etc., but I wonder how deeply explained the cultural connection was - or was it just thrown there for those who catch it to catch it and those who don't, well, to not (reminds me of Jesus' reason for speaking in parables...but in a really wrong way, somehow...)

This really came to light last Advent when we did the It's a Wonderful Life series and I asked who hadn't seen the movie...and a BUNCH of people raised their hands. People older than me. Really? How is that possible. It's a classic. It's amazing. I love that movie. It's...my bias. It's MY engagement to culture, and I assume it's universal. And the amazing number of people that haven't seen a Star Wars movie, for example.

But the difference with something like the Star Wars franchise is this: the culture is saturated with references. "May the Force be with you" and Wookies and Darth Vader and whatever. I mean, Disney just bought the franchise and it's all over the Magic Kingdom, so a whole 'nother generation is gonna get indoctrinated marketed thrilled by the imaginary universe. So making a Luke Skywalker or Jabba the Hutt reference is relatively safe (though you might get, "That's from Star Trek, right?"),though Tatooine or Qui Gon Jinn might be too much of a stretch.  And everybody seems to know who Yoda is.  Can't say as much about Rick and Lori Grimes...

So...what do we do? I'm certainly not saying the church doesn't engage the culture. But we have to pay attention to what is surface culture and what is saturated culture. Most songs in the top 40 aren't going to be remembered in 6 months,****** the viral videos that are hysterical/moving/amazing today will be forgotten tomorrow, the HUGE news story of today is yesterday's also ran.

We live in a 24 hour news cycle, viral video, give me something new, disposable culture. Few things saturate. When we (the church) engage the culture, which, I believe we must do, we have to recognize that we do not engage everyone. Sports references, movie references, TV, music, the internet... All fractured and sub-cultured and not everyone gets every reference. But it occurs to me, too, that church-speak - whether it's the big words like sanctification or holiness or the charged words like born-again or baptism or whether it contextual church-speak like being a purpose driven church or seeker friendly or those crazy announcements that say "if you want information see Emil" (who the heck is Emil?) - not everyone gets the reference. Same with stuff like marriage or having kids or talking about virtually any relationship, work, school, home life.

And my point is not (as some would suggest) to throw out the references - whether the culture at large, the church speak or the relational - but we have to unpack what we say.

Here's an example from an interview that Fox News******* did with Corbin Bernsen a while ago:

FOX 411: Are you born again?
Bernsen: No, that's not where I put myself. I consider myself to be Christian. It's the kind of a thing that I struggle with. I have faith, I believe in God. I look at Christ as this magnificent figure. I don't go to the evangelical side of it I suppose. It's hard to describe because this is of late, really trying to express what I am and what a lot of people are, people of faith. 

I don't want to make it sound like I'm different, it's just according to some guidelines I guess I'm different. It's a shame because you feel like you're not part of those other people. All I know is I march to my own drummer these days and true to myself. There's a lot of people who want faith in their life, and I'm more about that than all of it. 

People who I would like to bring into the discussion. I don't want anybody to become anything and I am certainly on a journey of discovery but it's having a conversation about it. These days where there's so much in the world that's not working, somehow we've used faith/religion throughout history, it's sort of been a glue for society and community, it's something that's made things work, not drive things apart, I feel this need to celebrate that for the good of what it is. 

There's an assumption if you have any faith you vote this way, you vote that way or you're this or you're absolutely a conservative and those just aren't all true. There are very cool people out there, very relevant people that have faith in their lives and people who want faith and like I say are afraid to enter the conversation, that's all I care about entering the conversation. 

I have four sons who are basically growing up in a world where they don't believe in sh*t and I know that's not good either. I'm not saying you have to believe in God or Christ or any of that stuff, just come in the conversation for a bit. It's awakening. You don't have to believe like I do, certainly partake in the conversation. 

I have good conversations with wonderful atheist friends and I find that to be fulfilling whether they get to a place that I am or not that's not my job but I do find it, I say to be far more interesting than talking about Lindsay Lohan, you know what I mean? Philosophically it's interesting to me, I just happen to believe, my personal beliefs are, you know, I believe God, I believe in that mystery of what God is, and I place it sort of, I place him if you will, I mean every time they come up with a discovery of something that's great, now before that, I keep on kind of putting God in all of that. I'll never get to the end. None of us will ever reach that place, you know. You can't, that's the whole thing of having faith. 

So I find it to be an enlightening thing, it's ultimately, oddly enough I'm 58 years old, it's almost like the 60's when we talked about love and community and peace and prosperity, I don't know, there is a movement. I see there is people who want to come into the conversation and then there's people who've been a part of it forever. U2. If you listen to a U2 song. It's probably the example of what everyone uses of where it can really be. Poetically and not sort of the hardcore way. 

I tell my friends I've always believed in God and Christ, I don't know, I guess maybe I don't qualify because I didn't do it again. 

I'm also about family and community. Ultimately that's what my films are about. I don't mean sweet kid movies necessarily, I mean movies that talk about family and community as sort of structural building blocks for a strong society, again almost philosophical social engineering if you will. I think we need to re-explore what family and community are. Part of this whole divisiveness in this country, you're on one side and I'm on this side, and you forget we're all working towards a common good. 

Agree or disagree with his theology, he tries to unpack what he says, what he believes. And he is engaging culture with his faith. Now, you may not agree with his faith... but that's a post for another time...

In the world...not of it... Yeah, I think somebody famous said that...















*Steve doesn't really talk like that - I can't remember EXACTLY what he said, but, you know - it's a blog...
**The article says number one for the week. I guess that beats everything on TV all week long? Okay, seems reasonable...
***Still skeptical, since every news show says they're the number one news show...in some slim demographic or another...argh... 
****Yet I watch Dr. Who, Eureka and Warehouse 13. The depths of stupid I will watch may know no bounds....
*****Just a quick Google sampling. Dig for more than five minutes (all I spent, tops) and I bet you could find dozens (hundreds?)...
******Well, except in the top 40 WORSHIP charts - we sing of our love of those forever they are with us, forever they are...wait...stop it... "Shout to the Lord" is still in the the CCLI top 25...20 years and counting...wow...
*******Still number one, eleven years in a row, ok...whatever...