By Joel McKerrow
One of my favourite movies is a mid-90’s film called, ‘Pleasantville’. It is the story of a brother and sister who get sucked into their TV screens into the black and white world of a show called, ‘Pleasantville’. Pleasantville is a town that matches its name, everything within the town is…pleasant. By this I mean, plain, mundane, sterilised, straight, routine, dull, monotonous and any other adjective along these lines. The story follows the lives of these two kids as they start to turn the town around by inspiring excitement and life into those around them. As people reach a level of emotional excitement, self-realisation, or just experiencing ‘life’, they suddenly turn into colour. Things around them start doing the same and pretty soon half the town who have explored life and pleasure are coloured and half are still black and white. There is then a profound statement made about humanity as the black and whites start being racist towards the coloureds and the movie goes on from there.
As I watched ‘Pleasantville’ for the first time many years ago I had such a deep experience of God as I saw people break out from ‘black and white pleasantness’ into ‘coloured life,’ into vibrant, brilliant, awe-inspiring colours. It was at this time that I unknowingly dove headfirst into what I now know as and call, ‘Cultural redemption.’
In basic this means, to have and/or communicate a spiritual experience through the mode of popular culture. As Brian Orme says, “It’s easy to get caught up in pointing out all of the depravity in our culture and to forget to look for signs and illustrations that illumine the innate desire for liberation. Redeeming culture has less to do with changing people to act morally and more to do with meeting people where they are and sharing the message of hope in a reference they will connect with.” He goes on to say that it, “means we are willing to connect with the expressions of our culture in order to translate the message of the kingdom: a message of freedom and a new start.
In other words, we need to hurl ourselves into the culture so that we can join God in taking back what he has made good and using it in ways that bring glory to him. Not just participating in it but living for the kingdom amongst it and using that to cultivate it. In this way culture enables the body to use the stories, myths, legends, truths and themes that are throughout it as a familiar bridge for the not-yet Christian to walk across in their searching. Young Christians are now turning away from the older generations need to attack the Godlessness of the culture around them and instead they are seeking to redeem it. As Steve Rabey says, “Unlike older generations of Christian "culture warriors," many younger believers focus less on battling pop culture and spend more time decoding its metaphysical messages.”