Imagination, Pop Culture and Ministry with Youth and Young Adults

In this article I raise the question of whether and how Christians can become captive to a kind of constricted imagination, and how this does not serve the church well in its work with youth and young adults. I draw on examples from pop music (Kanye West, U2) to portray the theological logic of ‘che...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Scharen, Christian (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Interlibrary Loan:Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany)
Published: 2008
In: Dialog
Year: 2008, Volume: 47, Issue: 4, Pages: 339-347
Further subjects:B Theology
B Kanye West
B Imagination
B Pop Culture
B C. S. Lewis
B U2
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
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Description
Summary:In this article I raise the question of whether and how Christians can become captive to a kind of constricted imagination, and how this does not serve the church well in its work with youth and young adults. I draw on examples from pop music (Kanye West, U2) to portray the theological logic of ‘check-list Christianity.’ As an alternative, I follow C. S. Lewis in reorienting the perspective from deciding if some cultural object (song, movie, TV show) is good or bad, to asking what sort of people we become by attending to this or that cultural object; specifically, does it enlarge our being-before-God or not? This requires that we also view pop culture as the domain of God's work in Christ, and that we confess that God is already working reconciliation in the midst of the world.
ISSN:1540-6385
Contains:Enthalten in: Dialog
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6385.2008.00413.x