The Bible and Popular Culture
By Frances Forde Plude
A key ingredient in the communication process is the processing part. This refers to how we respond to or internalize what we see or hear. As we move into any holiday-season experience we process many communication messages.
We are all citizens of the age of the mass-mediated event – the Olympics, Christmas commercials, the Super Bowl, and rock-concert culture, for example. Perhaps our reflections here can provide a little systematic perspective in the rush of images and experience. We focus on one specific area of communication important in our faith life: biblical stories.
Our own personal history “kicks in” as we internalize all the messages around us. Theologians and communication experts call this internalizing process reception. Suzanne and I would like to devote several columns to biblical stories and how we process them in our personal lives and in our congregational life. This month the focus is on bible stories and the creative imagination.
The Bible is the written story of God’s revealed communication with us. Our faith life offers many opportunities to develop the skills people need to encounter God’s Word in scripture. Here we are asking the question: Can we recognize biblical themes in today’s popular culture?
The Religious Imagination
In his book God in Popular Culture (Thomas More Press, 1988), Andrew Greeley says religious imagination is the source of the power and energy of our faith. Greeley suggests that we are all storytellers, “playing a leading role in the story that is our own life.” He adds that much of this narrative is a story of relationships. According to Greeley “we attempt to communicate from imagination to imagination” – using storytelling or music, for example. Biblical storytelling is no different; it is the essence of religious communication.
The theologian David Tracy speaks of an analogical imagination that sees the whole world as a metaphor for God. Our judgments about modern popular culture will tend to be more positive if this is our theology.
What parish does not have various types of Bible Study groups in its midst? Facilitators often aim to keep the group focused on a theme or book of the Bible by using printed study guides. Some groups rotate the leadership and share their insights on the lectionary readings for the week. Others seem to thrive on armchair exegesis and heated discussion.
Whatever their style, adult Bible Study groups are springing up in record numbers as we try to satisfy our hunger for finding meaning in our lives. At some deep level we are connecting – or at least trying to connect – biblical stories with the stories stored in our own memories from countless hours of engagement with life and with popular culture.
By Susan Nelson
Here are some suggestions for parish leaders involved with bible study groups:
In the book Fran mentions above, Greeley lays out a language for discussing current issues. He reveals fascinating intersections between popular culture and biblical faith, using concepts like religious imagination and “secular scripture.” He refers to some popular performers as “Catholic troubadours.”
Clarissa Pinkola Estes, in Women Who Run with the Wolves (Ballantine Books, 1992), delves into the meaning of archetypes found in great fairy tales. The Estes book helps us see how, in great stories, the characters reflect some part of our own self. This same understanding can be applied to biblical stories.
When we view popular movies, read current novels, listen to music’s top 40, or enjoy some TV shows, we are ‘making meaning’ through the stuff of popular culture. At other moments we encounter the word of the Bible and we experience myth and symbol in these biblical tales. Positive, meaning-enhancing connections are made at a deep level of our being. In a discussion of the recent film The Matrix we can see how people connect some elements of the film with biblical themes such as conversion, rebirth, and sacrificial love.
Here are five helpful principles in evaluating Bible study so you connect stories with life. These ideas are further developed in The Bible for Theology by Gerald O’Collins and Daniel Kendall (Paulist Press, 1997).
Is there an atmosphere of faithful hearing? The prayer practice of lectio divina helps here. This involves reading some Scripture passages and then move into contemplation.
Do the teachings shared resonate with the creed and with events that impact upon people’s lives? The articles of the creed are a good checklist of what we believe as church. This helps refocus the group if necessary.
Are the commentaries, dictionaries, and other Bible resources you use the work of current, centrist exegesis?
Is there an awareness of the great themes of scripture, e.g., creation, justice, reconciliation, etc.?
Is the group able to accept the biblical stories as ‘media’ – vehicles of communication between God and us? Can they accept continuity within discontinuity knowing that this communication process is ongoing?
Biblical themes are everywhere in popular culture. And we will see them when we are ready. Good Bible study in our parish can increase our readiness.