Want to dictate what we talk about on this week’s podcast? Leave a comment with a suggested subject by 8 pm eastern time tonight, and we’ll address it on the show!

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Richard Clark

Richard Clark is the Founding Editor of Christ and Pop Culture. He is also the managing editor of Gamechurch and a freelance writer for Unwinnable, Paste, and other outlets. He lives with his wife in Louisville, KY and has a MA in Theology and the Arts from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
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  3. Here are some ideas then:

    • You could talk about how boring and repetitive Christian design is and why you think that is. I know this subject has been broached in article’s like Alan’s and Scott’s respective smackdowns on Christina hiphop, but seriously: if I see one more Christian video that uses the Hey Let’s Twist Fonts Around for Five Minutes theme, I am just gonna snap. http://vimeo.com/3829682

    • You could each trade off asking the other questions about your favourite book you read in the last year. So if Rich, you simply adored Munro Leaf’s The Story of Ferdinand, Ben would ask you two or three probing questions about the book and your reaction to it. And you would get to quiz him on his adoration of John Christopher’s The White Mountains and how that’s helped to reshape his marriage over the last year.

    And of course, this sort of thing could be done with any medium product. The upshot is that by focusing on the material that you thought was best or affected you most deeply, you have an opportunity to help others see what you found so affecting. Of course, the power of this relies both on the questions of the interviewer and the ability to talk powerfully about your subject. But… the idea does tie in to Ben’s article this week.

    • You could talk about society’s love of year-end lists and award shows and whether such quantifications are healthy engagements for 1) society generally and 2) the believer in particular.

    • You could talk about homeopathic medicine and trends in some Christian circles to fear or distrust established medicine and look to alternative sources whether in homeopathics or eastern remedies and the tendency toward anti-vax in the same circles.

    • Church and State. Is it a bad thing that prayer is not lead by teachers in schools? Is it appropriate to have religious sloganeering on public buildings? What does or should a democratically pluralistic society look like? Quotes from Nephi on public school buses? In Allah we trust on the dollar but hippie Jesus’ face on the quarter?

    • Christian American response to Israel, Palestine, the Middle East, Islam, and Judaism. I don’t know if either of you are dispensationalist or hold to the idea that to fall out of favour with Israel is to fall out of favour with God, but if either of you are, it would be interesting to hear about how you would imagine we should react to the hypothetical situation of the people of Israel persecuting a nation partly made up of Christians. Do you think that Jews worship the God or a false god?

    • The prohibition of rightful Christian experiences by Christian educational institutions (e.g. alcohol, dancing, etc.) and whether such prohibitions are helpful or harmful to students and faculty—and to their witness in the world about them. Roffle.

    • Comics. Just how rad are they?

    • When a movie like Avatar comes out and people see a million “messages” that run counter to their ideologies, whether blatantly or subtly, what is the danger that you see, if any? Avatar is plainly a fantasy world that wears its political heart on its sleeve. Is there really anything to fear from its environmentalism (as if environmentalism was actually bad) or its pantheism?

    • Does Ben really play D&D?

  4. • An episode on copyrights. And the morality of copyright law. Good, bad, ugly? How ought believers respond? What is IP and can it be enforced and how do these things affect us in the digital world? What are the ethics to DRM? If I own a copy of Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore is it inappropriate for me to download a digital version of the book for strictly personal use, bypassing DRM. How are you reacting to publishers who don’t have any idea how to react to the shift from consumer ownership of a physical object to consumer ownership of a digital abstraction?

    • Talk about your history with various mediums of cultural expression. Music. What path did you traverse to arrive at your current tastes. Reading. Film. Games. Etc.

  6. You could talk about some of your cultural influences, especially ones that have led you to your belief in the Christian’s ability to enjoy culture. Any specific authors, or speakers who have inspired you towards this direction would be fantastic.

    Or maybe you could take time and do that episode on Biblical/Jesus films that you stated that you wanted to do in past episodes. I am sure it would be very interesting.

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