Pop CultureAn interview with Jeffrey Keuss, Ph.D.

A Christian college professor and pastor, Jeff Keuss has been called “an engaging interpreter of theology in popular culture” by colleagues at The Kindlings (www.thekindlings.com). Keuss’ work with youth and his research on Christ and culture has led to scholarship on subjects like Dr. Seuss, Bruce Springsteen, Star Wars, Twilight and U2. During his visit to Northwestern for the college’s third annual Day of Learning in Community, Classic staff asked him about Christianity and pop culture.

Classic: I understand you’ve read Twilight.

Keuss: I have. Three of Stephenie Meyer’s books are in my office at Seattle Pacific University, which both shocks and awes students. They ask, “How can you read that?” And I ask, “How can I be conversant with culture if I don’t know what’s happening in culture?” The questions Twilight raises—about love, intimacy, growing up, life after death—these aren’t just Christian questions.

Classic: OK. But would you let your daughters read Twilight?

Keuss: My oldest is 9, and she asked but then she got interested in Percy Jackson. When she picks up Twilight, we’ll read it together. I don’t believe in shielding her from the world, but I’d also never send her out there alone. As a parent, I need to nurture my daughters into the culture they live in instead of forbidding them from reading something or insisting they read only books from a Christian bookstore.

Classic: Something wrong with the books in a Christian bookstore?

Keuss: Probably not. But books, music and movies created for a Christian subculture aren’t always representative of the real world, which means they’re not really telling the truth. I don’t see anywhere in Scripture where the church is called to create its own culture apart from the world. Yes, we’re to be in the world and not of it, but we’re not to create our own Christian subculture that secludes us. The problem with Christian subcultures is that one of the implications is “Be afraid.” I don’t think it’s helpful to instill children with a fear of the world, so they’re terrified—and unable to think clearly—when they inevitably encounter it.

Classic: As parents—or educators or pastors—how do we help prepare young people to engage popular culture?

Keuss: We need to help them develop open hearts and critical minds. I think I do my children—or my students—a disservice if I try to protect them from the world as opposed to preparing them to go into the world. Preparing means listening to the world’s questions and the way the world has framed them. What are people hungering for? Meaning. Intimacy. Life after death. They want to be moved by something, but they don’t even know what to call it. I agree with Pascal who said there’s a God-shaped hole in everyone. A lot of popular culture won’t fill that. But not everything in Christian music or a Christian bookstore will either.

Classic: What will?

Keuss: The truth. The search for truth is ongoing, and Christians are not the only ones or sometimes even the best ones at recognizing the truth. Sometimes people we think of as pagans are creating the best art, doing the best research, asking the best questions and seeing in ways that open our eyes.

Classic: What hinders Christians’ search for truth?

Keuss: Some Christians are confined by what psychologist Dr. Tim Clydesdale calls a lockbox spirituality. They want to keep the faith they had when they were 10 years old. Students with a lockbox mentality sit in classes—even at Christian colleges—with Teflon, nonstick surfaces. They perceive all questions about faith as an assault on their own carefully guarded faith.

Classic: So what’s a lockbox Christian to do?

Keuss: Move from bounded to centered spirituality. A bounded Christian is concerned primarily with borders and fears crossing lines because those on the other side might be wrong. A bounded Christian tries to figure out who he’s not—all he sees are walls. A centered Christian assumes God is in the middle, and she’s making her way to God. She welcomes others who might be journeying to God too, even if they’re coming from a different direction. She reveals God to other seekers by saying: “I think we’re looking for the same thing.”

Classic: You’re a U2 fanboy.

Keuss: After becoming a Christian in high school, I was in a Christian music store—and among albums by Keith Green and Randy Stonehill, I found U2’s War. I bought it, listened and was telling my friends about this cool Christian band, and my friends said, “They’re not Christians.” I thought, “What?!” Their music, like “40” about Psalm 40, reached me in ways music by Christian artists hadn’t. So I bought more albums.

Classic: Bono and his band are rock stars, though. Some Christians are uncomfortable with that.

Keuss: Right. When I was a youth pastor in Dublin, we took teens to the gate outside Bono’s house. One time an American, Eric, tried to “spread the gospel” by throwing a Gideons Bible into Bono’s compound—like an evangelistic hand grenade. After I calmed the guards and police, I asked Eric, “What were you thinking?” He said, “If I don’t share the word of God with Bono, who will?” Apparently Bono wasn’t Christian enough for Eric. Bono’s theology may not be your theology, but there’s a faithfulness to U2’s journey that challenges both the church and the world—and that middle space is so interesting to me.