That is pretty sobering. The key paragraph, I think, is this one:

"What makes the stuff so half-assed, so thin, so weak and cumulatively so demoralizing (even to me, a sympathetic journalist who'd secretly love to play the brash contrarian and rate the Left Behind books above Tom Clancy) has nothing to do with faith. The problem is lack of faith. Ark culture is a bad Xerox of the mainstream, not a truly distinctive or separate achievement. Without the courage to lead, it numbly follows, picking up the major media's scraps and gluing them back together with a cross on top. You like this magazine--you like GQ Then check out New Man, "America's #1 Christian Men's Magazine." Subscribe to Time, you say? Give World a chance. The covers are almost identical."

I actually agreed with many of his points. However, on the dinosaurs thing he portrays us all as backwoods hillbillies for having actual belief in something.
However, I don't think I would want to spend a week totally immersed in the subculture we built.

Yeah, I think obviously this guy has a chip on his shoulder somewhat. And some things were going to offend his "lost sensibilities."
But for the most part, he is honest and penetrating, even when sarcastic.
Seeing all of our "stuff" together like that really illuminates the problem, IMHO.

One thing that stood out, is that he was not "selective" in his slice of Christian "life" that he chose from. I don't know many people who would watch TBN who would also listen to POD.

Most people pick and choose pieces of that "life" that suits their tastes.

Second, of the things Christians choose to immerse themselves in, there is a context. If I watch Touched by an Angel, it doesn't define me, I define it--I put what I see in the context of what I believe. I tend to auto-eliminate the stuff I consider as fluff or trash, and enjoy the rest.

This author went about the task in a more or less indiscriminate way which I think is gonna magnify the incongruities.

And I have no idea what radio station he was listening to, but I'm glad that neither of the two major Christian stations in Houston are that way. I think both are top-notch, and stand on their own in both quality and substance. Maybe we're just blessed? :-)

What's funny is that as I was reading his comments about the music, I was reminded of a prior post here regarding the distinction of CCM as it's own category of music.

All that said, "sobering" is a good description of it.

Jen,

Are there actually Christians who say we shouldn't have secular jobs? I would find myself taken aback if a Christian complained to me that I was being worldly simply because of the job I held (unless the job entailed being a manager for Hooty McBoob's night club) O:-)

Mac, that's not what I meant to imply. I was just saying for me, I've learned from a few experiences where I've been insulated from the secular world a little too much. One being my Christian college years and my time on Young Life staff.

Now that's not to say that God didn't put me in those places for a reason. I loved my college years and I was probably protected from obvious problems I may have gotten into at a secular college, plus I think God used those years to help me become the more self-assured and independent woman I am today. But I had a crisis of faith right after college, where for about 2 years I was ready to bag my faith because all I had been exposed to was "The Ark" as the writer of that GQ article called it.

And I have no doubt that God called me to Young Life staff. I was immensely blessed by my experience working with other staff. But I was super-insulated for 5 years - and a bad working relationship with someone in my last year on staff made me really disillusioned with my fellow Christian workers. So when I left, I needed to step back from full-time Christian service.

But that's just my experience - I need the challenge of my unbelieving co-workers and friends. It pushes me to seek after God more than when I'm in a safe Christian environment all the time.

The Horton quote also goes well with recent discussions on this site about what it means to be in the culture and how we evangelize and what it means to "come out from their midst and be separate.";"0

Jen, thanks for clarifying!

Luke, the funny thing is I actually refuted the book "What Would Jesus Eat?" or a book like it at my blog when I started my program to lose weight.

I just noticed now this particular quote:

"The problem is lack of faith. Ark {Christian} culture is a bad Xerox of the mainstream, not a truly distinctive or separate achievement. Without the courage to lead, it numbly follows, picking up the major media's scraps and gluing them back together with a cross on top."

That's been almost ad verbatim what I've been screaming at the top of my lungs for the past uh, let's see, 10 years at least. :-D

Stepping out of the Ark
Time to mop up the Christian subculture -- a perspective from Walter Kirn, literary editor of GQ magazine.

Jen's Dad, my problem has never really been with the proliferation of the stuff, just its content. My beef isn't with quantity; it's with quality.
I wouldn't mind more Christian "products" if more were original, innovative, better written and produced, etc.
And at some point don't you think it gets a little inappropriate slapping Jesus' name or a Scripture reference on a can of mints?

And Mac, I think perhaps the difference is that you may have been decrying its worldliness and compromise. While we have been saying its lazy and lame.

Jared, you are correct. Lousy products are lousy products, whether "Christian" or secular. It is unfortunate that some of the "Christian" products are of poor quality, but there are good products as well. Chick-fil-a, Big Ideas and Interstate Battery are three Christian owned companies that focus on quality and compete in their market space very well. Just because someone call it "Christian" doesn't automatically make it good, but given the choice between equal quality products, I'll tend to go with the Christian one, if for no other reason than to support a fellow believer.