I’ve been fascinated all week by the Discovery Channel’s 21st annual Shark Week, particularly by these amazing creatures and the mysteries of their actions. On one show I recall the amazing display of Great White Shark aerial attacks, as these giants of the deep launched themselves out of the water to feast upon seals swimming on the surface! I’ve been equally amazed at the divers, researchers, and scientists who swim with these incredibly dangerous and unpredictable monsters of the sea.

The most recent show I watched followed one man’s journey as he encountered and “adopted” a Tiger Shark (an animal known as the “man eater”).  In this show the man was amazed at how shy, gentle, and “friendly” the shark was to him. He was traveling in uncharted waters, so to speak, with this encounter.

The whole scenario, however, reminded me of the sad and tragic death of The Crocodile Hunter. Here was a man who had spent his life working with deadly animals only to find himself the victim of a rare and surprising death of the animal kingdom! It is a reminder to me that we do not yet live in the New Kingdom where man has dominion over the animal kingdom. Certainly this is the way God had set it up originally, but sin entered the picture and corrupted even the animals as well as their relationships to humans.

Shark Week stands out to me as a reminder that no matter how safe man may feel, no matter how “controlled” the experiment is, in this sinful world that we live in man is not yet in dominion over the earth, and animals are not yet in submission to him. The time will come, as sure as Christ’s return, when man will have power over even sharks… but the time is not yet!

• “Shark Week” and the Coming of Christ
• Sea-World’s Sentimental Secret
• RetroPost: Sea-World’s Sentimental Secret

The change is more than cosmetic, though. We’re changing the way we do things around here. Monday and Wednesdays will be the days you can expect to see brand new featured articles, featuring the same thoughtful and profound popular culture engagement you’ve come to know and love from our brilliant stable of writers. Most Thursdays we’ll publish a new podcast, where we informally dive headfirst into the stuff everyone’s talking about that week. On Fridays we’re bringing back the “RetroPost”, a republished post form our past that has a certain relevance to something that’s happening in popular culture.

Probably the biggest content change, and the one I’m most excited about, is the new focus for our “Of the Moment” section. Rather than constant one-line super-small posts with nothing but links, we’re going to be posting more substantial musings on the issues of the day, as they happen (or at least as they happen to us). We think you’ll find this to be more interesting and helpful than our previous “Of the Moment” posts. If you enjoyed our occasional links, follow us on twitter! We’ll be relegating simple links to our Twitter account. In the meantime, our brilliant writers will have the freedom to brainstorm, share lists, and think out loud about those links right here on the site.

Thanks so much for supporting us so far. We’d love to know what you think of the new design and the new plan going forward, so comment and let us know!

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Not Beyond Belief: How Religion and Games Interact:

Make no mistake, creating a modern video game is a thoroughly complicated affair. Whether those making or playing the games might realize it or not, any games that intend to cause a player feel a certain way, experience an event, or invest in a character is inherently infused with meaning. Because of this, the decisions and dilemmas faced by game developers are more than mere technological or literary diversions. They are, quite often, questions of morality and worldview.

Reviewing Games with Values in Mind:

…every game with a story, plot or realized characters also has an inherent worldview. There is no reason to believe that the people playing those games would merely leave their assumptions elsewhere when playing a video game. If the video game industry wants to have more thoughtful games, those writing about games need to encourage more thoughtful gaming. It’s not that reviewers should concern themselves with every possible stumbling block within a game, that they count cuss words or recount horrible violent acts. A simple solution is to simply acknowledge when and why a game felt inspiring, tasteless, disrespectful, immature, or wonderfully nuanced.

Is Death in Games Cheap?:

What if, as a player, we were forced to come to terms with these implications when those characters around us were to die? What if we had to wonder to ourselves if the death of a character was our fault? What if we were given the time to meditate on that death, rather than being forced by the game itself to forget the whole thing and just have fun fighting more monsters? What if we were encouraged to notice the particular absence of the recently deceased? What if we had gotten to know and love the character so much that we actually missed them after they were gone?

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• In Praise of Video Games
• Why Video Games are Fun to Play

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• Down with Facebook!

So how should we respond when Angela on The Office criticizes the other character’s morals while being in a sexually immoral relationship herself?  What should we think when Ned Flanders from The Simpsons is portrayed as naive and overbearing?  How should we feel about scathing documentaries like Religulous and Jesus Camp?

I propose three appropriate responses to the mocking of Christians:

1.  Learn. What can we learn from what is being said about “Christians” in this film, television show, or video game?  Is there some truth to what they are saying?  Angela is rude, snobbish, and hypocritical.  Was her character pulled out of thin air just to be mean to Christians?  Probably not, whoever wrote her character probably knows some professing Christians who are insufferably rude.  What can we learn from her character?  At the very least, when Christians are made fun of on TV, we are seeing at least someone’s perception of us.  Before we cry foul, we should at least consider whether this perception has some credibility to it.  This may mean we need to examine ourselves and see if there is hypocrisy in us or it could mean that we need to simply determine to be slandered and turn the other cheek–after all Jesus said we are “blessed when others revile” us and “utter all kinds of evil falsely against us” (Matt. 5:11).

In the Angela example, perhaps we need to learn how we are sometimes perceived and determine not to be so rude and insufferable. Even when we are giving reason for the hope that is in us, we are to do so with “gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15-16).  I will admit to only having watched a small number of Simpson’s episodes, but sometimes, Ned Flander’s odd behavior is envied by Homer and generally lauded by the show (Kenneth from 30 Rock is another good example–he is probably the most kind and giving character on the show).  Though we ought to expect the world to hate us (John 15:18), we ought also to avoid the pitfall of assuming the world hates us in every way that they portray us.  Sometimes, believe it or not, Christians are portrayed in a very positive light.

If you feel that Christians are being unfairly caricatured, its pretty simple–by God’s grace, seek to rise above it!

2.  Laugh. If we are truly trying to live above the false stereotypes that the world often has about us, then eventually those stereotypes will become absurd to us and perhaps even funny.  When Angela is asked what book she would want with her if she was stranded on a deserted island, she says The Purpose Driven Life.  Seriously one book and you pick that?  Not the Bible?  To me, the Bible was such an obvious choice that it makes her statement plainly absurd.  Sometimes media blasts aspects of evangelical Christianity that need to be blasted–in this particular instance, I laughed because they are not making fun of Christianity or the Bible, they are making fun of evangelical subculture, much of which isn’t necessarily biblical or explicitly Christian (I am not making any particular statement about The Purpose Driven Life by the way). For maturing Christians many of these things should appear to be absurd–so much so that we can, at times, laugh.

3.  Love. When Christians are made fun of unfairly or out of an attempt to discredit and damage us–we ought to love those people who are making fun of us.  Jesus commands us to “love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.”  If being mocked on TV is persecution of Christians, it is a pretty light form, but nonetheless if we are to love those who persecute us, how should we feel toward those who mock us?  Its pretty simple–we should love them.  We don’t have to agree with them, but we are commanded to love them.

The easiest thing to do when we feel we are misrepresented by pop culture is to boycott whatever we feel is discrediting us.  I would argue that very little good comes from boycotting that which pokes fun at us.  However, great good could come from learning from those who make fun of us and sometimes what is being made fun of is so far from where we are spiritually that we can laugh along.  Finally, in any and every instance, we should love those who mock us–praise the Lord that Jesus did the same for us.

• How ‘The Marriage Ref’ Can Save Your Marriage
• Protecting the Bible Post-Apocalyptic Style: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of The Book of Eli
• Thou Shalt Laugh

First, let’s look at some of the signs: constant references to “levels”, a need for a “level designer” who is essentially a virtual architect, the fighting with numerous faceless enemies, the need to accomplish a specific goal at the end of every level, the selection of weapons taken directly from “Call of Duty,” and the snow level, which depending on who you ask is either a carbon copy of the Nintendo 64 game, Goldeneye’s snow level or the snow level in Modern Warfare 2, complete with snowmobile chase.

These references aren’t mere easter eggs for gamers, but are instead signals that declare the relevancy of the subject at hand. As in most sci-fi films, the premise isn’t merely a fantasy concoction, but an acknowledgment of a current or imminent reality. There is a key scene in which we are introduced to a basement full of about forty old men who we are told spend their lives in the dream world. When asked whether they should be spending their time neglecting reality, the man who orchestrates their dreams responds, “This is their reality. Who are you to say otherwise?”

While the rest of the movie explores the key question of what constitutes reality, and the importance of living within it, it’s that scene that demonstrates the relevance of such a question. The scene brings to mind people who spend most of their time with their World of Warcraft guilds and make claims like “These are my real friends!” when confronted. But the problem isn’t isolated to those people we have deemed to have gone “too far,” or mediums known for a excessive use. Whether it’s immersion in a video game, book, television show, or film, we live in a world saturated with opportunities to escape reality.

Even if we don’t spend most of our day immersed in these worlds, it’s still possible to view them unhealthily. If we merely find safety, refuge and relief in our media – if we prefer false realities to real ones – we risk sinking deeper and deeper into a state of being out of touch with the real world and everything within it. Already, it’s happening. We grow bored easier, not just with boring meetings or hard work but with difficult relationships and mundane tasks. We expect more out of life, not because we require more, but because we are used to observing more in our dream-worlds, which just happen to be displayed on screens and read about in books. We desire profundity around every corner. We want to save the world. We want to know that we matter.

Unlike the world of Inception, the danger we face isn’t so much that we will confuse reality with our dreams. Instead, it’s that we’ll allow our dreams to warp our perception of reality. These stories can be nice. They can be illuminating. They can be convincing. But reality is truth, and it should never be willfully abandoned for the sake of a story. After all, the best way to take in a dream is to stay lucid.

• “Inception” and the Danger of Imagination
• Is ‘Wild Things’ Too Dark, or are Disney Films Too Light?
• The Dangers of Video Games

Annoyed and challenged, I unsuccessfully shoved my shoe underneath the bookcase, trying to move him from his new fortress. Becoming increasingly frustrated, I began to remove all the books from the bookcase. If he would not come out and fight like a real mansect, I would bring the battle to him. Before long the now bare bookshelf was lifted up and moved to the side, exposing my foe once again. Once again, he ran for his life, but there was nowhere close to hide. His desperate escape finally ended from a direct blow, administered with an old history of the French Revolution.

This victory, though significant (in my mind at least), ended up being transient at best. For our entire apartment complex was filled by an invasion of crickets. Every time we opened the door another hopped into our home. The chirping went on day and night. Nothing, it seemed, was stemming the cricket tide. Nothing was keeping them out of the apartment.

In reality, the overflow of crickets has proven to be a minor nuisance. Yet my unsuccessful attempts proved to be a gentle reminder. In our modern world, we sometimes think that we have conquered nature. The world seems like it tries to kill us, with its storms, heat, failing crops, carnivores animals and mortal diseases. In our time, however, we possess storm shelters, international trade, and vaccines. On top of fighting natural elements, we possess many additional trappings of technology, from cars, airplanes, and ipods to the computer on which I type these words. Even air conditioning shows us more than surviving what nature gives us. The world, it seems, has been tamed.

Then I am confronted with crickets. The fact is, no matter how much we think we tame the world, the earth as well as all in it is God’s. God is not to be and cannot be tamed. Nor do our actually small efforts prove successful apart from His almighty hand.  Though we may accept such a statement in the abstract, looking into our lives will invariably show some concrete rejection. We may mask this rejection of God’s power in the most intricate ways. We may call it personal accountability, stewardship or defending God against claims of injustice.  We may see it in the way we depend too much on our toys, our comforts, and in our often subconscious belief in progress.

Therefore, often such a lesson of nature’s—and hence God’s—uncontrolled power is made in reference to deadly natural disasters, like a hurricane. Such forces tear through our defenses and confront us with the realities of our autonomy. Yet perhaps the lesson can be learned by occurrences less deadly, less awful in the full sense of that word. Perhaps God’s sovereignty can be taught by the simple chirping of a cricket flying by my couch-potato, air-conditioned ear. Perhaps, for those willing to listen.

• The Online Art Show
• ‘The Road’ Goes Ever On
• “Shark Week” and the Coming of Christ

• Get Smart: Admit You’re Stupid
• I Remembered, but I Had Forgotten
• Is “The One” Worth Searching For?

Every week, Richard Clark and Ben Bartlett acknowledge and respond to the big issues in popular culture. We love feedback! If you’d like to respond you can comment on the website, send an email to christandpopculture@gmail.com, or go to our contact page. We would love to respond to feedback on the show, so do it now! Subscribe to us in iTunes by clicking here. While you’re at it, review us in iTunes! We’ll love you forever!

Click here to listen!

• Podcast #57: Welcome to District 9
• Podcast #74: Love is Messed Up
• Podcast #39: Stewart Versus Cramer

• What should Christians do with Mel Gibson?
• LOST, Community, and Redemption
• Roger Ebert On Redemption

• Religion as Buffet
• Podcast #90: Inception & The “Mind-Blowing” Genre
• I Know. I’m Shameless.

“Not exactly Modern Warfare, but lit. professors need videogames, too, right? We just have one question, Big Fish: ‘When’s The Anna Karenina Game coming out?’”

Honestly, an Anna Karenina game sounds like more fun.

• There’s fair and balanced, and then there’s Fox News
• The Call of Duty Endowment and Veterans
• Why is there no great game criticism?

• Real faith in a sci-fi world
• How Our Brains “Create” God
• Podcast #61: Science Fiction = Spiritual Non-Fiction?

Leonardo DiCaprio plays Cobb, a man skilled at entering dreams and extracting what whoever is paying him desires to know. Yet more than anything Cobb desires to return to his two young children, neither of whom he can visit because he is suspected of murdering his wife. Cobb is offered a chance to return to them if he can complete one more, audacious job. Instead of infiltrating dreams to find out ideas already there, he is asked to do inception:  planting an idea in the mind of the dreamer. Though this is claimed to be impossible, Cobb takes the job with the hope of seeing his children again. Putting together a team to work with him, Cobb embarks on an intense journey into another man’s subconscious dream-world, one that includes gunfights, paradoxes, and dreams-within-dreams.

“Inception” continues to showcase Nolan’s exceptional skills as a filmmaker. Witty, intense, emotional, thoughtful—this movie deftly combines car chases and explosions with deep investigations into the dreaming human subconscious. Nolan creates multiple dream worlds with surprising depth and consistency. The consistency and detail make such a far-out concept increasingly believable as the story unfolds, leaving you remembering afterward how many of its rules align with your own dreaming experiences.

With great art, Nolan presents numerous themes that should only multiply and deepen with repeated viewings. Idolatry is held up for ruthless examination. The world of dreams presents the possibility of human desire restrained by little more than the imagination. One can create homes, cities, and entire lives in accordance with one’s own wishes. Rejecting God’s world, these human dreamers seek an even more complete separation from God and entrenchment in their own man-made Edens. Such worlds soon become preferable to the real world. In fact, for many these become their reality.

The idol-making subconscious has an even darker side. Cobb is haunted by the death of his wife and secretly harbors deep guilt regarding it. He tries to keep his wife alive in the prison of his self-conscious. In the attempt, his efforts mixed with his guilt turn her into little more than a destructive monster. Such creations lay bare the dehumanizing effects of selfishness. How often do we re-create others into our desired image within the confines of our mind? Such re-creations can take the form of unspoken expectations or fantasies played out and secretly preferred over the real, God-created person. In doing so, we trade the created image of God for that made in our own likeness.

Cobbs’ guilt further exposes the depths of bondage to which sin can force its captive. He is haunted and losing his grip on reality. His created world soon begins to define and change him. In other words, the freedom that dreams give has turned into slavery. Ultimately, Cobb is a being in need of forgiveness. But forgiveness seems to require atonement and redemption, neither of which seems possible. All he really has is necessity and forgetfulness.

The film also confronts technology’s affect on the lines between public and private. Today Twitter accounts, Myspace, and Facebook trumpet our every thought and movement. Cameras watch us in stores, restaurants, gas stations, schools, even parking lots. For the famous, the paparazzi or reality shows peal off additional layers of privacy. Yet one place still seems inviolable—the mind. Our thoughts if we choose can remain our own, unshared and unknown to the rest of the world. But is it inviolable for no other reason than it is impenetrable? If technology could reach the inner recesses of thought, would it, too, be endangered by theft and held up for public ridicule?

In the end, “Inception” shows the depths of human desperation and depravity. Seeking not just to control but to create our own world, the results are often despair and regret. The film is keenly aware of the danger we present both to other others as well as ourselves. In its unflinching portrayal of these issues, the movie raises filmmaking to the level of true, thoughtful, lasting art. Nolan has taken summer blockbusters and given them an intellectual and beautiful quality otherwise unheard of in a season of mindless action and stale sequels.

• Inception: Reality Is Not a Game
• Podcast #90: Inception & The “Mind-Blowing” Genre
• God-Clause: Reflections on Santa and Theology Proper

• Regarding this Adminstration and Before
• Movie studio promotional hijinks
• Podcast #9: Football – America’s Gladitorial Spectal?

• The Problem with Twilight
• Game of the Year?
• Honorable Mention: Ships by Danielson

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• God Save Sarah Palin!
• How Do You Respond When Your Team Loses?

• Could There be Redemption for Mel Gibson?
• Should Christians Go See Movies?
• Intentional Online Dating For Christians

When we last discussed Lebron James and his impending decision as to where he would end up next, we had no idea what sort of incredible craziness would ensue after our podcast. Now that it’s happened, we’re left a little bit stunned at all of the theatrics and the resulting fallout.

Also, on the heels of a landmark Friday Night Lights episode in which the issue of abortion is dealt with head-on, we discuss popular culture’s treatment of the subject, as well as what sort of treatment Christians ought to appreciate most. Is there such thing as pro-life art? What does it look like? Is it a good idea?

Every week, Richard Clark and Ben Bartlett acknowledge and respond to the big issues in popular culture. We love feedback! If you’d like to respond you can comment on the website, send an email to christandpopculture@gmail.com, or go to our contact page. We would love to respond to feedback on the show, so do it now! Subscribe to us in iTunes by clicking here. While you’re at it, review us in iTunes! We’ll love you forever!

Click here to listen!

• Podcast #85: A Funeral for Print
• Podcast #66: A Thanksgiving Debriefing
• Podcast #30: Rich and Ben “Bond”

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