Christian pop culture (or Christian popular culture), is the vernacular Christian culture that prevails in any given society. The content of popular culture is determined by the daily interactions, needs and desires, and cultural 'movements' that make up everyday lives of Christians. It can include any number of practices, including those pertaining to cooking, clothing, mass media and the many facets of entertainment such as sports and literature
Culture, as a way of defining one's self, needs to attract people's interest and persuade them to invest a part of themselves in it. People like to feel a part of a tribe and understand their identity within that tribe. This works well in small communities and people feel needed and special in their small world. Mass culture however lets people define themselves in relation to everybody else in mass society. In a sense it 'makes the ball park a lot bigger' and we have to fight harder to find and keep our identity.
Read more about Christian Pop Culture: Definitions, Origins, Criticism
Famous quotes containing the words pop culture, christian, pop and/or culture:
“There is no comparing the brutality and cynicism of today’s pop culture with that of forty years ago: from High Noon to Robocop is a long descent.”
—Charles Krauthammer (b. 1950)
“What is clear is that Christianity directed increased attention to childhood. For the first time in history it seemed important to decide what the moral status of children was. In the midst of this sometimes excessive concern, a new sympathy for children was promoted. Sometimes this meant criticizing adults. . . . So far as parents were put on the defensive in this way, the beginning of the Christian era marks a revolution in the child’s status.”
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)
“Compare the history of the novel to that of rock ‘n’ roll. Both started out a minority taste, became a mass taste, and then splintered into several subgenres. Both have been the typical cultural expressions of classes and epochs. Both started out aggressively fighting for their share of attention, novels attacking the drama, the tract, and the poem, rock attacking jazz and pop and rolling over classical music.”
—W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. “Material Differences,” Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)
“Both cultures encourage innovation and experimentation, but are likely to reject the innovator if his innovation is not accepted by audiences. High culture experiments that are rejected by audiences in the creator’s lifetime may, however, become classics in another era, whereas popular culture experiments are forgotten if not immediately successful. Even so, in both cultures innovation is rare, although in high culture it is celebrated and in popular culture it is taken for granted.”
—Herbert J. Gans (b. 1927)