Episode Details
Back to Episodes136. How Did Politics Become King of Evangelical Popular Culture?
Published 3 years, 8 months ago
Description
Once upon a time, evangelical subcultures loved spiritual warfare books and prairie romances. We liked angel figurines and Amish novels. We shared adult coloring books starring small boys who have afterlife visions. Now our subcultures have been overtaken by another trend—politics. When and why did this happen? Should we try to change it? Welcome to Dystopian Doom, our next series of episodes about bad governments and good citizens.
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Quotes and notes
Concession stand
- Happy post-Halloween! Check your kids’ candy, lest they find politics.
- By evangelical popular culture, we mean an entire world of things.
- This includes names, bands, shows, leaders, books, memes, and beyond.
- By politics we mean “matters of public policy,” that is, law and culture.
- Not just people/parties and working/professional/rivalrous relationships.
- We do believe politics do matter a lot to Christians’ witness in the world.
- If you doubt us, check our social feeds. We talk about politics some.
- In fact, I’d specifically disagree with folks who try to minimize politics.
- Usually “public witness”/nuance sorts ignore realities like Sexualityism.
- To ignore crucial, gospel-altering issues like these is to lie to one’s self.
- And we contend that some issues are not political but religious conflicts.
- But. If everything is politics, then nothing is. It’s all work and no rest.
- You may find some old evangelical fandoms making cameos in here.
- We also follow our episode 40, about how stories shape views of politics.
1. How did Christian fads create political obsessions?
- Our memory/research is very generalized, going back to the 1970s.
- 1970s: the Jesus Movement, early Christian rock and roll, early end times.
- 1980s: more end times, CCM, kids’ audio and videos, spiritual warfare.
- 1990s: even more politics, sentimental angels, upgraded end times, Y2K.
- 2000s: more Left Behind, men got to man up!, Prayer of Jabez, Sept. 11.
- 2010s: few trends, coloring books, Jesus Calling, Christian social dramas
- But at this point politics really began taking over even Christian movies