Reb Rev's Blog

Christianity Today’s Study Series “Faith and Pop Culture,” is a small group study which examines various forms of art, from TV to literature to cinema from a Christian perspective. As the authors point out, there has historically been a love/hate relationship between the church and the arts.

From Steinbeck to steroids, the eight sessions cover not only the traditional arts such as cinema and literature, but also address sports and television. The study also explores the role of “family friendly” movies, violence and the specific role of Christians in the entertainment industry. The eighth session is a challenging consideration of what it takes to fulfill the modern desire for entertainment.

The outline of each session is designed to facilitate a small group study, with step-by-step instructions from breaking the ice to getting focused on the topic, to rolling up your sleeves and digging in to what the Bible has to say about each topic. Each session ends with a challenge and a personal action plan for how to apply or further consider the subject in the coming days.

This study would be suitable for youth or adults and, I think, would be especially useful for family devotions either in the home or small group setting. It challenges the student to be careful of what we watch and the impact of our choice of entertainment on our thinking and our witness. I think this is an especially timely study considering the events surrounding the recent death of Michael Jackson, Steve McNair and Farah Fawcett.

“Faith and Pop Culture” is a well designed and useful study guide for small group study.

(I will be posting a few of these book reviews as a member of Thomas Nelson’s Book Review Blogger Program J

This entry was posted on May 19, 2009 at 11:00 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.