Catholicism and Pop Culture

The average American spends 2.6 hours per day watching TV and 9 minutes in prayer or other spiritual activities.  With this as a starting point, Cathleen Kaveny, a professor of Law and Theology at the University of Notre Dame, writer, and blogger discussed five ways that Catholicism can relate to pop culture, drawing on the work of the theologian Reinhold Neibuhr.

These included two ways that see the church and culture primarily as adversaries:

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  "Christ against Pop Culture" sees pop culture and TV as irredeemable.  All TV and all aspects of the popular culture, in this view, are sources of temptation and corruption.
  
  
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  "Christ within Pop Culture" is a mirror image of this view.  It is the perspective that sees the values of Pop Culture as the values of the Gospel.  "The values of Friends or Seinfeld are seen as the values of Jesus," Kaveny said.  These values are then used to critique the church.

Two less antagonistic options for the relationship of the church and culture were:

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  "Christ above Culture" where religion is placed on the distant horizon.  In this view, religion is seen as a good thing, but "not yet" for me.  Kaveny cited St. Augustine's famous phrase, "Make me chaste, but not yet" as an illustration of this point of view.  "I'll live in the pop culture today, but maybe when I'm 65 I'll get religious."
  
  
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  "Christ and Pop Culture in Paradox" was the second less antagonistic option.  This is the all too familiar experience of living by the values of the popular culture on Monday through Saturday and reserving Sunday for "God" or "Church."  Pop Culture and religion exist side by side but do not engage one another.  There is a schitzophrenic relationship between religion and pop culture.

The final view that Kaveny presented was the viewpoint she saw as the most helpful:

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  "Christ engaging (or transforming) Pop Culture."  This point of view has its basis in the Catholic belief that the story of Jesus, the Christian story, is the ultimate expression of the human story.  "The joy and hope, the grief and anguish of the men of our time, especially of those who are poor or afflicted in any way, are the joy and hope, the grief and anguish of the followers of Christ as well.  Nothing that is genuinely human fails to find an echo in their hearts"  (Vatican II Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World).  This search for anything genuinely human can lead to an enriching conversation with popular culture.

How are Catholics to engage with the popular culture?  The key, for Kaveny, lies in an authentic understanding of the human being.  This includes the understanding that all human beings are made in the image of God, are effected by sin, and seek happiness (although usually in the wrong places).  TV, movies, and other elements of the popular culture explore the perennial themes of the human condition.  Kaveny cited Friends, Entourage, and Sex in the City as struggling with the question of the relationship of friendship and erotic love.  The Sopranos explored and subverted cultural and religious ideas of redemption. Popular culture gives us insight into our situation.  What they dramatize and what they make fun of can challenge us to reflect on our faith more deeply.

While not everyone needs to engage the popular culture, it is important that some people do.  A conversation between Catholicism and popular culture has the potential of deepening and transforming all of those involved.

This lecture, given on the campus at the University of Wyoming, was made possible by the Commonweal Speakers Program due to the generous gift of James H. Duffy.