Note:
A great majority of the thoughts and quotes contained in this post are taken from the chapter titled "Screen Time" in the book Adoptive Youth Ministry: Integrating Emerging Generations into the Family of Faith. The article is written by Craig Detweiler.
Concerning youth ministry, pop culture, and digital trends:
Whatever the reason for the students' pop cultural attachments, the roots of their fandom may be far more spiritual than we or they realize. In studying what they watch, we may uncover students' hopes and dreams and nightmares. By engaging in deep, empathetic listening, we may find points of connection for bible studies, sermons, and counseling situations. Pop culture burrows into teens' hearts and minds in ways that sermons or Sunday School may never touch. So I'd rather start from that soft, soulful space than try to work from my agenda to their passions.
Detweiler argues for using the weight of pop culture thrust upon our youth to "help them find God amid the electronic inputs." He states that in the same way that youth might have a hard time unpacking the implications found in what they read in Scripture, they too might not have the tools to unpack narratival poetry found in the stories of our digital culture.
They know when they love a movie or a show, but they may not fully grasp why it pierces their heart or expresses their deepest longings. Seeing, they may not see. Reading, they may not understand.
Concerning roles of pop culture and the inner motives of show watching:
Our pop cultural habits reflect our passions, interests, and needs. Our favorite shows offer something we need- from surrogate friends and a family to a laugh or a cry. When my children were young, Winnie the Pooh served as a calm, comforting friend. In elementary school, The Suite Life of Zach and Cody offered a silly alternative to their constricting classrooms. In adolescence, Supernatural enable my daughter to deal with dark forces she couldn't always name or explain. It exposed her to the scary and wondrous reality of the ineffable.
We turn to pop culture when we cant name our dilemmas. We may go to the movies as a way to buy time. It holds our demons at bay for a couple of hours.
Pop culture invites us to identify with a character. It is an opportunity to see ourselves in someone else's story- both our siblings in God's household and those whom we are called to love - and step into their struggles.
Pop culture often takes us places we haven't been. Film noir like Memento or The Dark Knight may take us to scary places we don't want to dwell in. Horror films like The Exorcism of Emily Rose and Sinister offer a safe way to wrestle with literal demons. From fantasies like Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter to science fiction like Star Wars and Star Trek, movies can open up vistas and possibilities we have never imagine. It can expand our vision.
Television traditionally offers comfort. Sitcoms like Cheers center on a bar where everybody knows your name. The formulaic nature of television formats offers up familiar feelings (and repetitive patterns), from the warmth of Modern Family to the procedures on Law & Order and CSI. As more channels compete for our fragmented attention, reality television often depends on outrageous personalities and behavior. It is a form of shock TV rooted in titillation. Television is increasingly taking us to disturbing places we haven't been, inviting us inside the mind of a serial killer like Dexter or meth dealers like Walt and Jessie on Breaking Bad.
He then suggests when youth ministers attempt to fit the new TV model of titillation and new sensation, they often fail to keep up:
Perhaps we need to recover the comforts and familiarity of beloved television shows; a safe space where everybody knows your name can be a great gift to harried teens.
Many times Television shows actually raise character tension in their stories by subjecting them to wrestling through the huge questions of life. Detweiler brings up a case study from an episode of Glee whereby in the course of an episode the characters wrestle with a range of questions from Homosexuality and Religion to the Problem of Evil.
Why is it that such seemingly passing concerns of fictitious characters can strike so deeply into the hearts of their viewers. We could bring up questions such as "how can God be good and there still be suffering in the world" and discuss it in our bible study, but the reality of such weighty questions is often best understood and most tangibly held by our youth when it is experienced emphatically in the life of another. This is what I find to be the most redeeming quality of our youth: teens don't care for the abstract or the philosophical unless they have a concrete context for it. The difference between a mere discussion of the problem of evil (which often lacks engagement) versus having that same discussion in the context of a someone'smother being tested for cancer is monumental and holds a categorically different impact. The one may tout helpful knowledge, but the other invites understanding.
I don't believe Detweiler is in any way suggesting we refrain from biblical study. Rather I believe him to be challenging youth ministers to be able to help our youth bridge the gap between what they identify with in pop culture and what they are wrestling with in their own lives, as well as calling minsters to be the watchmen for the truth claims that are found in the everyday mundane of our teens and enable them to compare those claims to the truth in the narrative of scripture: to take all thoughts captive to Christ and walk in the midst of a confused and broken people.
