May/Jun 2001

Is Christian Originality Dead?

A commentary by Bob Liparulo

Nobody doubts that our Lord is creative and original. Shouldn't His followers be, as well?

You wouldn't think so by the bumper stickers and T-shirts we use to proclaim our faith. Many of the most popular Christian slogans are "borrowed" from secular marketing campaigns: "Got Jesus?" "Jesus: My final answer," etc.

A few years ago, the No. 1 religious T-shirt in the United States was a "parody" of Tommy Hilfiger's popular logo clothing. Atop the familiar red, white and blue stripes were the words "Today He Forgives," instead of the designer's name.

Hilfiger threatened legal action to get the T-shirt changed. But today parody T-shirts that "Christianize" everything from Reeses to Heinekin remain immensely popular.

"They're ripping off the trademarks of companies that have spent years and millions of dollars establishing a recognizable logo," complained Barry Landis, general manager of the Christian record label Warner Resound in Nashville, Tenn. "What kind of message does that send the world about the integrity of Christians?"

Not to mention what it says about our ability to think for ourselves. Some argue that turning Budweiser's "Wassup!?" gimmick into a T-shirt that reminds us that Jesus will meet us in the sky (the "up" part--get it?) is a smart way of inserting Christianity into pop culture, but I think it's kind of sad.

Oh, I'm all for witty wordplay. I like the "Life's Hard/Pray Harder" variety of slogans. "What Would Jesus Do?" was a stroke of genius--catchy, original, thought-provoking. Can't you just see some mainstream company pilfering from Christians for a change and coming up with "What Would Harry Potter Do?" T-shirts, wristbands and bumper stickers?

And if something like that does happen, I would cheer! Christians should be leading the world in original thought, catchy slogans, powerful messages. Mainstream companies should be looking to us for brilliant ideas to borrow, instead of the other way around.

It's not that Christian manufacturers of parody products are necessarily doing anything illegal. Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 provides that "the fair use of a copyrighted work... for purposes such as criticism [or] comment [including parody] is not an infringement." It's just that we can do better.

T-shirts and bumper stickers are only the most easily identifiable culprits in the Christianizing of pop culture. Christian publishers are notorious for cribbing best-selling titles, jacket designs and topics.

How many variations have we produced of the mainstream blockbuster (and theologically unsound) Conversations With God? Not so long ago, one Christian publisher started replicating the cover designs of popular novels so precisely that it was difficult to tell them apart.

It doesn't have to be that way. The Left Behind book series boasts sharp and wholly original designs that some secular publishers have carefully mimicked. That deserves an "Attaboy!"

Christians should expect--and champion--nothing less than originality and creativity. After all, our cultural heritage adorns the ceiling of the Sistine chapel, not Mad magazine.

Bob Liparulo is a free-lance author and a contributing editor to New Man.

Eye Candy:

* Road to Redemption (World Wide Pictures). Amanda is a very bad girl. She lives with her boyfriend, steals from her boss, and now she's taking her estranged grandfather fishing in an effort to get $250,000 from him before the mafia catches up with her. So goes the plot in this latest effort from Billy Graham's motion picture division. Some goofiness at the beginning sets viewers up for a very unfunny eye-roller. But that's not the way it turns out. In fact, early on, Road to Redemption becomes intentionally hilarious. The slapstick, coupled with excellent performances and superb production values, make this a terrifically enjoyable family movie. Certainly, it has its share of corniness, and Grandpa's moralizing gets a bit tiring. But on the whole, the frequent action and general unpredictability more than compensates for its transgressions.

Bottom Line Good, clean fun for everyone. A great family movie. Media Source

Good Reads

Sound Picks:

* Make Me Your Voice (Spring Hill). Coming together on this project with praise songs are 15 musical dignitaries, including Charlie Peacock, and Andraé Crouch. The proceeds from the record will aid the Sudanese efforts of Samaritan's Purse and Christian Solidarity Worldwide. Even without such generosity, Make Me Your Voice is a great addition to your sonic environment; its charitable roots should push it to the top of your shopping list.

Bottom Line Wonderful tunes aid a worthy cause.

* I Surrender by Dennis Jernigan (Here to Him Music). Much crisper sounding than most live recordings, the CD offers the best of two worlds--the passion that audiences bring out of artists that studio walls don't, and top-notch engineering.

Bottom Line The splendor of a Jernigan praise event caught on CD.

* Even Now by Matthew Ward (Pamplin/Discovery House). Inspired by Ward's physical experiences as a cancer patient; this new CD stems from the grief and despair of some of his close friends. Its songs are designed to comfort the hurting by remembering God's grace and goodness and by emerging the listener in beautiful music and soothing melodies.

Bottom Line Strong inspiration for desperate times or anytime.

* A Painted House by John Grisham (Random House). All the Christians who jumped onboard the Grisham bandwagon when The Testament revealed the author's spiritual side won't find such proselytizing here; just the ramblings (albeit interesting ramblings) of a precocious 7-year-old boy, living among the cotton fields of rural Arkansas with his parents and grandparents in a little house that's never been painted. Of course, religion does factor into the motivations and perspectives of the characters that people the novel. However, the source of the morality that Grisham has bestowed upon his fictional family only occasionally presents itself, and then, usually, with tongue-in-cheek spryness: "As Baptists, we knew all manner of dancing was not only inherently evil, but downright sinful. It was right up there with drinking and cussing." Neither will readers find the legal thrills that gave Grisham his legions of fans. This is, instead, a literary endeavor, the writer's equivalent of turning down the volume to hear whether your speakers are good enough to pick up the finest of notes. In this, Grisham passes admirably. If you can set aside the need for a quick adrenaline rush, you'll find in A Painted House a captivatingly pleasant diversion.

Bottom Line No adrenaline rush, but a captivatingly pleasant diversion nonetheless.

* Beyond Failure by James Scudder (Crossway). Few of Jesus' contemporaries blundered as profoundly as Peter did when he denied our Lord. Yet he went on to greatness as the rock upon which the church was built. Scudder uses Peter's frequent faux pas (and the way God turned each of them around) to illustrate society's misplaced aversion to failure. Rethinking our response to failure, he writes, "can actually inspire us to achieve great things." Scudder, a Baptist pas tor, has a marvelous gift of storytelling. He packs his book with anecdotes of ancient and contemporary disappointment--both insignificant and profound--and highlights the triumph God sowed there.

Bottom Line Failure schmailure. This book shows how to turn mistakes around.

* Wild By Nature by Tom Morrisey (Baker). Morrisey makes "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin look like a couch potato. The guy scales mountains, plunges into lightless, underwater caves, hunts rogue bears. In Wild By Nature, he takes us on nine such adventures--dangling readers from an outcropping on Devil's Tower or brushing their hands against the rough hide of a shark by wielding a fiercely descriptive pen and elucidating the technical details of each "sport." Then he expounds on the spiritual lessons he learned from each brush with death. After learning the hard way about the counterintuitive measures required to pull an airplane out of a spinning descent, for example, he realized that "there is a tremendous confidence that comes with knowing that, even as we are facing a situation that we have never, ever faced before, we face it in the company of Someone who can handle anything." Morrisey smartly uses hearty adventure to satisfy our hunger for godly truths.

Bottom Line Great adventure stories that help illustrate biblical truths.