engaging with popular culture: why do it? part 2

In the last post I argued that we should engage with popular culture because Paul sets a precedent for it.

The second reason why I think we should engage with popular culture because it helps us to understand the people around us better.

In pop culture we get to see a snapshot of the human heart – we get to see what people around us today are thinking. People look at the world and interpret it and then display their interpretation for us too see in popular culture. On the back of this, popular culture then feeds what others think about the world: part of the way that people make decisions about how they understand the world is through absorbing the ideas of those around them who've expressed what they think.

I think that's fascinating. In pop culture we see how people in society today - the people who live next door, who we work alongside, who we go to university with - we see how they interpret the world, we see something of their worldview. So, when we have conversations about the gospel with people, if we've read pop culture carefully then when we can know at least a little bit about what some of their presuppositions are going to be. We'll already understand at least some of the values and opinions that they hold, because we'll have seen it represented in the pop culture of our day. Pop culture provides a map of the human heart and what people think today – so examine it!