Book Review: Pop Goes Religion by Terry Mattingly

Pop Goes Religion: Philosophical Popcorn Even in today's churches, pastors are more and more often using snippets of pop music, television shows, and blockbuster movies in order to illustrate their messages. Theology, it seems, is more easily interpreted by Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings than C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity. While we could easily lament this shift in culture, we might be better served to determine how these lines are blurred, and why they have blurred so much. In Pop Goes Religion: Faith in Popular Culture, journalist Terry Mattingly theorizes that Americans are confronted with ideas in popular media first and foremost. Mattingly's coverage of popular culture is based on the central conceit that to reach a large audience of potential believers, one must consider the venue of popular culture. In other words, the average American will find religious discussion in an episode of The Simpsons before she hears about it in a church sanctuary--if she even attends a church. If the tone of his writing is any indication, Mattingly is writing to an audience of literate Christians, those who take an active interest in media and media culture, while still seeking to preserve their faith. He draws from an eclectic group of sources in order to discuss theology, spirituality, marketing, and perception. With each chapter, he asks his audience to consider how Christians market themselves, how the secular market treats Christians, and how Christians have penetrated the secular market. The book should appeal to any Christian who has felt caught in between entertainment and spirituality, and Mattingly goes out of his way to show how the two are not always, or necessarily, separate entities. In order to support his thesis, Mattingly has compiled excerpts from his weekly column for the Scripps Howard News Service. While he generally addresses aspects of spirituality in popular media, or the religious opinions of participants in popular media, he also discusses ways in which religious media outlets, such as the Christian Contemporary Music, market themselves to the public. In Pop Goes Religion, Mattingly includes what one presumes is the cream of the crop, articles that play and provoke. The introduction to the book provides a sort of ür-anecdote of Mattingly's interests, in which he introduces Billy J. Gibbons, the lead singer of ZZ Top, to J. Francis Stafford, the archbishop of Denver. Mattingly's glee emanates from the pages, as he imagines similar pairings in which he could provoke conversations. What Mattingly fails to do, however, is move beyond the giddy introduction. What happens after Gibbons shook hands with Stafford, one might wonder. What do they say to each other then? The question of What then? is a point of discomfort underlying the entire text. In the space of six chapters, Mattingly covers five areas of popular culture: Music, movies, television, books, and media. He discusses a wide range of subjects, from the faith of the lead singer of U2, to the Gnostic aspects of Star Wars, to the theology of advertising. Each article is clever and incisive, summarizing the issues clearly and pulling quotes from musicians, theologians, pastors, and publicists. Mattingly asks a variety of questions about his topics, but in the end, he never provides any answers. Perhaps it is too much to expect any definitive answers from this book—or from any book focusing on religion. Mattingly stays tied to the format of his column, only briefly prefacing each chapter with an explanation of his overarching theme. In a book about the intersections of religion and popular culture, one expects more than an extended illustration. It isn't enough to simply proclaim the lines between religion and culture are blurry. It's easy enough to open a magazine, turn on a television, or walk past a movie theatre and observe. It’s not enough to show how; one must consider why. Mattingly neglects to move beyond the how, and in doing so, he reduces his book to popcorn. It's postmodern, provocative popcorn, but still only empty calories.