I traipsed in through the front door. The hostess glanced up and started to tell me that there would be a wait, but I interrupted her- my friends were already at a table. I was hungry and would apologize for being short with her later. I hadn’t been to this particular restaurant in more than a year, but I knew what I wanted. I’d been thinking about it ever since I bought my plane ticket to D.C.
I saw my crew sitting in the far back part of the restaurant. A waitress stood at the table, scribbling orders. I rushed over, threw myself into a chair and looked at her in anticipation. I didn’t even grab a menu, I knew what I wanted and I was ready to eat. I had to order then, because I was the kind of hungry that makes people mean and crazy. My stomach had consumed my brain forty-five minutes earlier then rampaged all over the metro between Georgetown and where we were on the hill.
My heart may have skipped a beat when she looked at me, “I’ll take the Mexican caesar salad, please.” I smiled and turned to the group of people who I hadn’t even had a chance to greet.
“I’m sorry. We took that off the menu months ago.”
“Why would you do that?” Normally, I’m not so rude, but my stomach isn’t as kind as my brain.
“People just weren’t ordering it. So we took it off. Our special tonight is…”
I stopped listening. I didn’t care about the special. Disappointment teamed with outrageous hunger made me want to cry. I snatched a menu up and started looking. “I’ll take the taquitos, please.”
“Chicken or beef?”
A little piece of me died.
“Beef.”
★ ★ ★
Normally, supply and demand makes sense to me, but that salad was killer. It had some kind of spicy caesar dressing, grilled chicken that was beyond comparison and it all came in a crunchy bread bowl! Tortilla Coast was one of my favorite restaurants in D.C. because of that salad. I also love the floor-to-ceiling windows from which patrons watch the busyness of the hill, but that’s a different story.
When it comes to production, I’m all about not making crap that people won’t buy. It’s a waste of time and effort. Admittedly, I don’t feel that way about creative endeavors, particularly writing, especially words penned by Christians pertaining to our faith. I mentioned pop-christianity to a friend the other day and he cringed. I understood why, but had to laugh because the only music he listens to is top 40 kind of stuff.
Pop culture gets a bad wrap because most (all?) of it is created for the sake of being consumed, for popularity. It’s packaging something in such a way that people will happily hand their money over for it. Clearly, it’s a genre to itself. Any picture could be painted with an impressionistic style, but maybe cubism or expressionism would better suit the idea behind the art. Ideas can manifest in all kinds of forms. We can discriminate on terms of personal taste, but we ought to appreciate quality when we see it.
The assumption against pop culture is that collective taste is poor.
And maybe it sometimes is.
Ke$ha and Lady Gaga have both sold outrageous numbers of albums…
Pop Christianity becomes a little more difficult because most Christian authors or musicians would claim that their words are inspired in one fashion or another- they wrote ______ because Jesus told them to. That puts motive on trial- we have to ask, how many Christian authors, preachers and musicians are penning words that they know people want to hear, rather than what ought to be heard? Did they write because they want to be rich and famous, or because they genuinely did what their faith led them to?
Wrong motives cause the ruin of the Good News and grace, but we can’t throw every brightly colored, trendy-covered, hipster pastor book or album out, because regardless of popularity, there might be something good in there, even if it is the Gospel according to Katy Perry* or someone just as wild.
*Okay, that was too much. There has to be some level of credibility involved.
I’m with you when it comes to having my mood be extremely affected when I’m “Starvin’ like Marvin.” Yeah, I like to say that… It drives my family crazy. Love the writing style, good stuff.
It’s hard to measure the heart. It really is a fine line between doing what we do for God and being self serving. Only He knows for sure and can use us in spite of ourselves. I like this in that it is something we all as Christians need to wrestle with constantly. I think that it’s a good thing.
Oh, and for the record… It’s completely illegal to order salad and then eat a bread bowl with it… I thought everybody knew that? Not that I don’t break the law either, just sayin’…
Floyd, it’s more of a tortilla fried into a bowl, but that didn’t fit into the paragraph too well, so it got cut. IT WAS GLORIOUS. You’re right about doing things for God versus serving ourselves. I cringe at the thought of how often I do something “in Jesus’ name” and I should have said, “In the name of Jake Lee…” BOOOO.
When I went to high school way back in the mid to late nineties I was into things that at that time and at that place were wildly unpopular. I loved Punk rock music, Star Wars and Marvel comics. These things that I loved identified me as a “nerd”…the uncool, unpopular in the high school caste system. Slowly I saw the things I loved stop being culturally shunned and began to celebrated. The same people who had once thrown things at me for wearing a Rancid T-shirt were asking me what I thought about Blink 182.
The thing about popularity is there are people on both sides of the debate. Those that blindly swallow what is popular because it is popular and those that shun whatever is popular because “people are sheep” (these people are also called snobs. I am guilty.) Both sides of this equation are wrong.
Like what you like. Believe what you believe because you feel it’s truth, worthy, right, pure excellent, whatever. There will be times when you’re with the crowd and times you’re swimming up stream. Either way, let truth be truth.
Sorry for the wall of text. I’ve missed ya, Jake.
Friend. I’m all about a wall of text. I need to write more, I’ve just been buried in refugees, weddings and goats. It’s amazing. I can’t help but get hung up on whether or not people are trying to make money off Jesus. I can’t help but think that some of these theologically shallow books that fly off the shelves were written so some pastor could pay off his mansion. And I know that on the other side, people don’t just do that. Going along with that, how often do I tailor my own messages so that people could enjoy reading them? It’s the same deal but I give myself credit for an attempt at depth that I’m not giving others. It’s a terrible, vicious cycle. YOU NEED TO POST!
Wait. You mean to tell me you get grumpy when you’re hungry? Say it ain’t so! lol
I have little respect for pop Christianity. I grew up Catholic and while I don’t hold to many of the beliefs of the Catholic faith anymore, I am grateful for one thing – they taught me how to act in reverence towards God. Pop Christianity seems to me to diminish the beauty and majesty of God, and turn him into some kind of catch phrase. Jesus is NOT my homeboy. The gospel isn’t as easy to follow as a few steps. God is more intricate and overwhelming than anything pop culture puts out.
Jason, I hate pop for the purpose of being popular and raking in a lot of money, but it has become a genre unto itself with particular characteristics, including broad accessibility, which I am NOT against. It’s difficult to discern a man’s intention when he creates something that would land in that category, but I don’t think it’s all bad. But you’re right, God isn’t simple. He’s deep and complicated and can’t be reduced to a formula or a seven-step program. But He’s accessible. Never forget that.