Cultural Curiousity

So the other day I watched, online, a 25-minute news feature by CBC reporter Mark Kelley.

The feature is called "Seven", and the premise is that the reporter spends seven days in a particular situation.

This particular episode (Part I, and Part II) featured Kelley spending 7 days with evangelical Christians.

Seven days with evangelical Christians doing anything in particular? Going on a missions trip? Lobbying Washington? Holding news conferences? Not really - just 7 days with evangelical Christians.

Can you believe it? Simply by existing, us evangelicals are a news story! The fact that I woke up in the morning is newsworthy.

This, or course, is great news. What other groups gets that kind of free air time?? This is PR that we can't buy.

And unfortunately we aren't capitalising like we should.

Ok I don't want to just rag on my co-religionists, because of course I love them. But I have to point this out. There is this gloriously beautiful clip in this feature where the reporter asks a couple of young Christians "so what is the one thing you think I should know?"

!!! BA-ZING!! People, this guy (albeit for showbusiness purposes) has just ASKED YOU to present the gospel to him! You cannot ask for a better opportunity! (Actually, in your prayers last night you probably did ask for an opportunity this golden, come to think of it.)

And so these eager, young, intelligent Christians answered his question. The one thing that Mark Kelley and CBC viewers need to know is that . . . media stereotypes about Christians aren't always correct?!?!? Come ON guys! What a terrible answer to give!

And that was the one thing I was left feeling after watching this feature. Kelley highlighted a bunch of Christians (and not crazy out-of-the-mainstream Christians either. He went to ATF, Teen Mania, xxxchurch.com, etc) fighting culture wars. And when an opportunity to evangelise came along they were so busy fighting smut and unwholesome entertainment that they didn't recognise it.

Ok, so I don't want to give them too hard a time. Besides, the guy who plays Jesus at Holy Land Orlando did take the opportunity to make a gospel presentation to Kelley, which was fabulous.

(And just a few days prior I watched a magnificent interview on The Standard with Franklin Graham where Graham, no matter the question, always managed to bring his answer back to the death and resurrection message of Jesus. It was beautiful; whether the interviewer tried to talk about humanitarian aid, politics, or relations with Islam, Graham always managed to end up talking about sin and salvation. It was a great interview.)

All I'm saying is that when the secular world wants to talk about politics, economics, or semantics, we should always be mindful of why we bear the name of Christ. We bear the name to glorify the name, and we should air it as much as we bear it.

Seriously, the fact that we are combatants in the "War on Christmas" is tragic. We should spend a whole lot less time worrying about whether Christ is in our retailers adverts and more time worrying about whether Christ is in our neighbour's hearts.

One thing this amusing CBC feature taught me is that we are a cultural curiousity. Let's engage the culture-watchers, not just amuse them.