Fall prey to culture
In the enormously popular song by Bowling For Soup entitled 1985 (caution language), the listener encounters a woman who's unsatisfied with her typical suburban life and longs for the days of 1985 where she had a dream of living a life as an 80s icon or something of that sort.
The tune is catchy for pop-punk and the lyrics, no doubt, cause many people to laugh at how silly teens were in the mid80s, but what this song does is penetrate the underlying theme of all pop culture, or just culture in general. What does culture to do? Well, it says, you're not going to be happy unless you're like us. The object of 1985. Debbie, is like this, her husband is a CPA, but she is stuck in a suburban, Prozac filtered, monogomous life with no glamour or fame. She longs for the hey days of Bruce Springsteen and Madonna, no Nirvana and being able to fulfill her dreams of sexual escapades with 80s rock stars and living the life of an actress with fame and money.
But life didn't turn out like that and Debbie just stayed normal, but left her dreams in 1985. Instead of being satisfied with the life she created with her husband and two kids, she longs for the life that the culture of her youth told her was good. Culture does that to us all doesn't it? It tells us that we're not really valuable, or able to make a "real" contribution to society unless we have wealth, celebrity, noterity, fame, and all that goes with being a star. But the problem with that is that the stars of our culture fade away and become has beens at some time or another. Think of the people who were so popular in the 1980s and you will find that most of the people who were "it", are laughable nowadays because of their mullet and spandex wearing days. Some of those celebs survived and evolved and are still popular today, but they are the exception, rather than the rule.
What about us though? What is our culture telling us to be like now? When we gaze over the landscape of today, we still see celebrity touted as the defining achievment in one's life. People clamour to be a part of American Idol or Survivor so they will be able to be on the cover of a magazine, land a lucritive prize, and gain the worship of the minions of television viewers obsessed with MTV, celebrity magazines and internet websites. We are told that if you don't dress like a star, then you have no style.
All of these images, messages, and motives flash before our eyes through television shows, advertisments and so on and so on. And we sit in our homes and wonder if we are important, if we have something to contribute to society.
Fortunately, we can be important without celebrity. We can contribute without having a famous last name. How can this happen? It can happen when our lives are changed by the Gospel. When our lives are changed, our perspectives change, and we realize that we are unique people who have been created in the image of God and have something to offer our culture: change. We take the Gospel out to people and give them a message which teaches that even a nobody from middle America, the jungles of Asia, or the slums of Europe can live an impacting life with purpose, change, and true love characterized by a relationship with the one who Created the universe. True happiness doesn't take celebrity, fame, or money, it takes the Gospel.
Book of the day, A Christian Manifesto by Francis Schaeffer.
The tune is catchy for pop-punk and the lyrics, no doubt, cause many people to laugh at how silly teens were in the mid80s, but what this song does is penetrate the underlying theme of all pop culture, or just culture in general. What does culture to do? Well, it says, you're not going to be happy unless you're like us. The object of 1985. Debbie, is like this, her husband is a CPA, but she is stuck in a suburban, Prozac filtered, monogomous life with no glamour or fame. She longs for the hey days of Bruce Springsteen and Madonna, no Nirvana and being able to fulfill her dreams of sexual escapades with 80s rock stars and living the life of an actress with fame and money.
But life didn't turn out like that and Debbie just stayed normal, but left her dreams in 1985. Instead of being satisfied with the life she created with her husband and two kids, she longs for the life that the culture of her youth told her was good. Culture does that to us all doesn't it? It tells us that we're not really valuable, or able to make a "real" contribution to society unless we have wealth, celebrity, noterity, fame, and all that goes with being a star. But the problem with that is that the stars of our culture fade away and become has beens at some time or another. Think of the people who were so popular in the 1980s and you will find that most of the people who were "it", are laughable nowadays because of their mullet and spandex wearing days. Some of those celebs survived and evolved and are still popular today, but they are the exception, rather than the rule.
What about us though? What is our culture telling us to be like now? When we gaze over the landscape of today, we still see celebrity touted as the defining achievment in one's life. People clamour to be a part of American Idol or Survivor so they will be able to be on the cover of a magazine, land a lucritive prize, and gain the worship of the minions of television viewers obsessed with MTV, celebrity magazines and internet websites. We are told that if you don't dress like a star, then you have no style.
All of these images, messages, and motives flash before our eyes through television shows, advertisments and so on and so on. And we sit in our homes and wonder if we are important, if we have something to contribute to society.
Fortunately, we can be important without celebrity. We can contribute without having a famous last name. How can this happen? It can happen when our lives are changed by the Gospel. When our lives are changed, our perspectives change, and we realize that we are unique people who have been created in the image of God and have something to offer our culture: change. We take the Gospel out to people and give them a message which teaches that even a nobody from middle America, the jungles of Asia, or the slums of Europe can live an impacting life with purpose, change, and true love characterized by a relationship with the one who Created the universe. True happiness doesn't take celebrity, fame, or money, it takes the Gospel.
Book of the day, A Christian Manifesto by Francis Schaeffer.
posted by Bobby's blog at 6:35 PM
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