If there’s one thing Christians love to do, it’s complain about the culture around them.

And with good reason. The current culture in the West doesn’t hold our views on marriage, sexual ethics, or the rights of the unborn. Christians in Hollywood movies and TV shows are usually portrayed, at best, as self-righteous and out of touch with reality. Most of the time, they are hypocritical and manipulative. The characters tell people to do one thing and do the opposite themselves behind closed doors.

And the pastors/priests in these shows are usually the worst. When was the last time you saw a show where the pastor was someone you wanted to follow? On the screen, they are almost always portrayed as abusing their position of leadership for money, sex, and power.

So, what are we supposed to do about it?

Money Talks

The first step is to stop giving them your money, of course. Don’t complain that Disney+’s newest cartoon for kids is “too woke” and then keep giving them your money just so you can watch Star Wars for the 250th time. We need to send them a signal with our dollars that we don’t approve of the stuff they are putting out.

But getting shows taken down or inappropriate books taken out of kindergarten libraries isn’t enough. All you’ve done is create a vacuum. And it will get filled with something.

Why not fill that vacuum with something good? Why not give the culture something good to put in place of the bad?

Christians, especially Protestants, can be so dry and boring. We focus so much on the history, theology, and philosophy of our world view. And, no doubt about it, the world needs to hear more of that. But expecting the average person to learn all they need to know about Christianity by reading tomes of ancient wisdom or watching deep, 3-hour-long theological debates on YouTube is a fool’s errand.

If we want to influence the culture, then the answer is simple. We need to be involved in the arts.

For The Creative Types

The arts, whether that’s music or movies or TV or books, are a major part of everyone’s lives. No matter what form it takes, a work of art is an attempt to tell a story. And the story is permeated with the storyteller’s worldview. So, why not give the world more stories focused on the Good, the Beautiful and the True?

And I’m not suggesting more stuff that is overtly Christian, either. A song can have a Christian message without mentioning Jesus’ name. Movies don’t have to be about a belligerent atheist who has a “come to Jesus” moment at the end of the story, either. Frankly, these movies are often cringy and not something I would want to show to my non-believing friends.

When people are seeking entertainment, they don’t want to be preached to. Christians complain all the time about how Hollywood is promoting an agenda. We hate that. Well, non-Christians don’t want to be preached to in their movies, either.

Art with the Christian worldview doesn’t have to be so “on the nose”. Just look at J.R.R. Tolkien and The Lord Of The Rings. Tolkien famously hated all forms of allegory. But his Christianity is found all throughout the series. And I’ve lost count on how many people I’ve heard say they started going to church because they read those books.

Many classic works of fiction explore Christian themes even though their intent is not to share the Gospel or evangelize. Take, for example, Les Misérables. It is the story of a criminal, Jean Valjean, and his arc of redemption. He turns his life around, gets a second chance, and lives a life of sacrifice rather than selfishness.

Or how about in The Brothers Karamozov, when Dmitri famously says, “Without God, everything is permitted”. That thread runs through the rest of the story as the author attempts to explore the grounding of morality.

The Audience Is Listening

I know there is a market for the Good, too. I’ve been a huge fan of metal music my whole life. Back in the early 2000s, over a decade before I was saved, I went looking for metal music with a more encouraging, positive message. A lot of metal songs weren’t sitting well with me. It took me over a decade to find it, though. Not because it wasn’t there, just because the places on the Internet weren’t set up for me to find it yet.

Around that same time, I heard Skillet’s “Monster” for the first time. Where? In a video game (Guitar Hero 3). But I had NO idea there were a Christian band. Now, I listen to the song and I think, duh! Had I known they were a Christian band I might have pursued them more back then, which may have led me to other Christian bands, which may have led me to be saved earlier.

Recounting stories found in the Bible is becoming very popular on streaming platforms recently. The Chosen is a huge hit that moved from an upstart streaming platform (Angel Studios) to one of the industry’s giants (Amazon Prime). Amazon now has a series on the character of King David that’s doing pretty well, too.

And there’s so much more to be shared! And the audience for it is there. Believe it or not, it’s the same people who fell in love with Game of Thrones. I mean, have you read the book of Judges recently? It makes Game of Thrones look like a children’s story in some places.

The same audience that fell in love with Game of Thrones could fall in love with Judges. A Judges TV show doesn’t have to be as gratuitous to attract an audience as GoT was, but there’s a lot of stuff in there that should make us uncomfortable.

And we shouldn’t overly sanitize it, either. God didn’t when he had the Old Testament authors write it down. He wanted to show how deplorable some people could be and how he could still use them to accomplish his purposes.

In God in the Dock, C.S. Lewis writes, “What we want is not more little books about Christianity, but more books by Christians on other subjects—with their Christianity latent.” Lewis is encouraging us to take part in other arenas that aren’t specifically Christian, and let our worldview come out through the things that we do there.

We don’t need to write stories or make movies specifically about Jesus, or people coming to Jesus. But we should infuse our stories with characters who have the traits he embodied: love of others, serving those beneath your station, strength balanced with gentleness. And, of course, sacrifice for others. If we create characters like that, we can say to our secular friends, “You know all that stuff you love about that character? Those things are present in a person who really lived.”

The Biblical case for telling stories this way comes from Jesus himself. He frequently taught in parables. Most of the time, he was teaching about God and/or the Kingdom of Heaven. But he doesn’t name God as one of the characters in the parables.

It doesn’t stop with the things we traditionally think of as art, either. Buildings and architecture now tend to have a very hard appearance, with super smooth exteriors and sharp lines. But go look at the architecture in older areas like Europe and the Middle East. Their architecture has a beauty we can recognize. And a lot of that beauty was the builder’s attempt to show God how much they loved him by making beautiful things.

So, if you’re a songwriter, write songs that show the Good. If you’re an architect, build things that are Beautiful. And, if you’re a storyteller, tell stories about the Truth. Not in a preachy way, but in a way that explores how the world really is.

For The Non-Creative Types

This message isn’t just for writers and musicians, though. Even those of us who can’t carry a tune in a bucket can have a major impact on the culture through the arts. Our impact comes through two mechanisms: our time and our money.

Get Your Kid A Guitar

First, as parents, we need to encourage our kids to get into the arts. Christian parents tend to be very pragmatic when it comes to where we steer our kids’ futures. We want them to go to college and get degrees for jobs that are steady and “in demand”. We want them to be doctors, scientists, teachers, or to work in the trades.

Not all kids are interested in those things, though. So, my first piece of advice is to stop telling your kids “you have to get a real job”. If your kid wants to get into theater, then encourage him or her to get into theater. If he or she wants to go on and study music in college, then encourage them to do so.

Along those same lines, if we want to influence the arts, we have to support the arts. A great place to start is your local high school. They usually have a concert band or two. Sometimes they even put on plays once or twice a year. Go see the shows!

Money Talks (Again)

One of the most powerful ways we can influence a situation is with our money. That statement may feel gross, but I’m not talking about investing your life savings in anything. I’m talking about small things like buying CDs, buying tickets, and buying merchandise.

Money does a few things. Yes, the main thing it does is pay the artist and those who worked on the thing you purchased. And the more money they make, the more they can do. But it serves another purpose as well. It’s a signal of value to everyone else.

Markets pay attention to where money is being invested. If a certain style of music is generating streams, physical sales, and ticket sales, the record labels are going to want more of that, so they’re going to promote more of that. So, if a bunch of us start streaming or buying or going to see music that aligns with our worldview, the record labels are going to want in on that action.

The same can be said for books and movies. Movies often start out as popular books. So if we buy stories that align with our worldview, screenwriters, producers, and directors are going to pay attention and want to turn those stories into big pictures. That we, in turn, need to go see. Or stream.

Go Tell It On The Mountain

The next thing we can do to affect the culture through the arts is to tell our friends about the stuff we love. The best way to hear about new things is still through other people. All of the platforms like Netflix, Spotify, and Amazon use recommendation algorithms to show you the next thing you should watch, listen to or buy based on your previous choices. These things work well enough, but they don’t tell you about new things that are good. And they can be manipulated to promote certain content over others.

Before search engines and algorithms, the way we learned about new music was MTV, the radio, or our friends. A lot of my favorite bands from my youth weren’t being played on the radio. I relied on my friends to tell me what they were listening to.

I have a desire to promote new musicians who make music that I like. I can’t ask Spotify to recomment new artists that sound like Led Zeppelin, though. If I play “Whole Lotta Love”, and ask Spotify to recommend songs like it, I’m only going to get the songs with the most streams that sound like Led Zeppelin. It will never recommend new artists to me.

The best way I have found to discover new artists to listen to is the old fashioned way; ask a real person. These days it’s Facebook groups and forums on the internet rater than my friends in study hall. But the source is the same: a real person giving their real experience with something.

So, on the other side of that coin, if we want to influence the culture, we need to tell people about the Good stuff we are reading or watching or listening to. I am constantly telling people about the books I am reading and the music I am listening to. Hopefully, so that they will enjoy it and pass it along.

Just like sharing music that we love, we should tell our friends about great movies with good messages. I’m not just talking about the next God Is Not Dead movie. I’m talking about movies that have messages that align with the Christian worldview. Movies that promote the traditional family structure, movies that promote the value of life and sacrificial love.

When we listen, read or watch something, that signals something to the music labels, book publishers, and streaming platforms; this is where the money is. When they see a demand for a certain type of content, they start pumping money into it. Money attracts talent. And creators need money to attract that talent.

Buying a finished product isn’t the only way you can financially support artists. Crowdfunding is hugely popular right now. When fans invest in things they want ot see, it’s a way to disrupt the traditional system where record labels and movie studios only finance things they think will make them a lot of money. You can go to places like Kickstarter and Indiegogo to help fund future projects you would like to see. Some projects have been completely crowdfunded and done well. But even though a project may not get all of the money they need to produce their film, it might signal to a studio that there is enough interest for them to put their financial resources into it.

Fill The Void

In the end, “making a stand” and boycotting things we don’t like is only part of the battle. If we want to shape the culture, we have to replace it with something.

We often refer to God as the Creator. Humans are made in the image of that creator. We are meant to be creative, too. Our creativity serves a purpose – to share the Good, The Beautiful and The True with the rest of the world and point it to the One who created them.