Alternatives to the methods of popular culture…

There is a great deal of wisdom in Marshall McLuhan’s observation that “the medium is the message.” The forms of our popular culture may well have a more significant effect on our perceptions than the content. This is why I do not believe that much would be improved if, all other things being equal, Christians could somehow take over all of the instruments of popular culture, even if they were very talented and orthodox Christians.

Rather than starting our own TV networks, movie production companies, or imitations of People, we would do much better to make the church a living example of alternatives to the methods and messages of popular culture.

— Kenneth Myers, from All God’s Children and Blue Suede Shoes, kindle location 205

Recapture the vision…

We have got to recapture a vision for making culture through the local church.

— James Emery White, from A Mind for God, at 27:45

A stirring historical model to consider…

As a stirring historical model, consider Jonathan Edwards, the Congregational pastor, scholar, and leader of the First Great Awakening. He had a wife, Sarah, reared 11 children; and by the year 1900, the family had 1,400 descendants, among them 13 college presidents, 65 professors, 100 lawyers, 30 judges, 66 physicians, and 80 prominent public officials, including 3 governors, 3 senators, and a vice president of the United States.

— Charles Colson and Nancy Pearcey, from How Now Shall We Live?, p. 326

Christianity is a benefit to culture…

There is benefit to culture derived when Christianity enjoys a status of intellectual credibility. When the faith is relegated to a reservation of personal religion or piety based solely on sentiment, it has difficulty informing the institutions that shape culture. Where Christian truth is established with credibility, it has a salutary effect on culture.

— R. C. Sproul, excerpt taken from Tabletalk magazine, July 1991