Pop Xulture Newsletter # 24
Focusing on 1983 vs. 2023: The Monster Among Us. 7/16/24
This month’s Newsletter is lengthy due to a full article below. I’ll explain more in a bit, but first off, welcome, and second, I really enjoy giving you these types of exclusive pieces tucked away in a Newsletter!
Xurrent News
My writing has been infrequent lately as I’m working on a certification program. But I’m almost done so I’ll return to what I love in the very near future!
As such, I’m preparing an article for Christ and Pop Culture (CAPC) on the Netflix show Eric. That should be out in the next few weeks.
And I started recording my articles and newsletters as audio so you can play them as mini episodes. The audio is an embedded link at the top of the page for easy access. Today’s Newsletter is my 40th piece published on my website (small cheer) but the recordings are sporadic. So if there is a piece you’re dying to hear, just leave a comment asking me to record it and I’ll do it quickly!
Xomposition Exclusive
At the end of each year I compare the current year to its ’80s counterpart in a series at CAPC. And each following July, I give you an exclusive section that didn’t fit in the published article. Last years, titled, “1983 vs. 2023: When Is Revival Right for America?,” covered several pop culture topics.
Among other things, the actual article reviewed skewed motives for revival such as fearmongering and unhealthy intermeshing of politics with religion and control. The following section hits on those points but explores the idea of fighting monstrous “enemies” who are actually supposed to be the sisters and brothers we were designed and commanded to love.
The Monster Among Us
There’s something to be said for facing our fears. As Tiny Fey said in 2023’s A Haunting in Venice, “Scary stories make life less scary.” 2023’s Japanese Godzilla Minus One illustrates facing our fears by facing monsters. Opposed to the MonsterVerse Godzilla, the Japanese version has the Lizard King’s origin being nuclear related.
As Wikizilla reports, “Tomoyuki Tanaka and Akira Murao proposed a revival film…titled Resurrection of Godzilla. The unrealized 1983 script focuses heavily on illegal nuclear dumping and Godzilla terrorizing Japan in search of the nuclear materials. When humanity is fearful, and American society is always fearful, we often seek the illusion of control.
Fear of domination usually informs the use of technological advancement, often seen representatively in fictional portrayals. Examples include humans using various weapons to battle Godzilla, sometimes creating robots to battle kaiju. Likewise, 1983’s anime Armored Trooper VOTOMS used mech to fight other humans in something similar to the forever war I mentioned in “1981 vs. 2021: Searching for Salvation.”
William Gibson used the novel Neuromancer to straddle the line of the double-sided sword of technology, saying, “But he [the hero] also saw a certain sense in the notion that burgeoning technologies require outlaw zones, that Night City wasn’t there for its inhabitants, but as a deliberately unsupervised playground for technology itself.” This firm belief in human ingenuity allows us to excuse ourselves for becoming monsters in the process of fighting monsters.
When we begin accepting politicians as “the lesser of two evils” or panic about end times or “liberal infiltration,” we can become militaristic instead of loving. Our minds can be conditioned to believe conservative, evangelical, Republican rhetoric which uses biblical language, but never considers or advocates for the basic Christian tenants of “love” and “justice” (see Kaitlyn Schiess’ The Ballot and the Bible, as mentioned in the 1983 vs. 2023 article).
We begin seeing connections and conspiracy theories where nothing exists. Our imaginations are simultaneously stifled and hopped up on the cocaine of news and social media. We begin questioning reality like the characters in 2023’s apocalyptic Knock at the Cabin. We see films like 1983’s Videodrome which tells the bizarre story of a TV programmer’s search for signals pirating his broadcast and we search for meaning.
Low and behold, actual instances of pirating popped up in 1983’s news and a conspiracy theory is hatched. We kick these theories down the decades and are naturally afraid of pirated signals hijacking our brain and taking control. Forty years ago we were assured credit cards were the mark of the beast, helicopters were undoubtedly the locusts from Revelation, and somehow these panicky apocalyptic guarantees morphed into the deduction that any Democrat president was the Anti-Christ coming for our guns.
So we waste imagination on political theories and move to churches that worship Donald Trump, never imagining what God actually wants to do spiritually for the United States. We’re so fearfully invested in the moment we can’t imagine the kind of spiritual revival God could be planning for four or forty years from now.
Consider an inferior example: Nintendo’s 1983 debut of the 8-bit arcade game “Mario Bros.” There’s no way they could’ve imagined it would spawn a physical world at Universal Studios Hollywood and blockbuster The Super Mario Bros. Movie made entirely by computers forty years later. At its core 2023’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie is about fears of an oppressive political regime of monsters and the fight for freedom. Have we given ourselves an excuse to fight monsters when they’re really the sisters and brothers we were designed and commanded to love?
Ruth Tucker designed her book From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya primarily as a historical account of missionaries from the early church forward. But the work becomes especially relevant when she discusses modern (1983) missiological approaches. The focus on personal salvation ran into some snags (precious missionary resources could be depleted if an entire people group reformed so native converts sometimes undermine the mission) therefore missiologist Donald McGavran suggested emphasizing a community’s “corporate decision.”
Part of this theory is the criticized Homogeneous Unit Principle which argues that using tribal “consciousness of race” (some might call “racism”) can get a community to accept Christianity, then as they mature, they’ll stop being prejudiced. One writer explained McGavran’s value was not necessarily in the correctness of his theories but “more than any other person” in recent history, he “completely upset the old, traditional and largely non-productive missionary methodology…”[i]
As asked previously, is it possible Christians, or those thinking they’re Christians, have been conditioned and radicalized to think that politicized, biblical-seeming rhetoric is the same as preaching Jesus’ gospel (i.e. minus the lynchpin of love)? Contemplate Fall Out Boy’s 2023 “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” which is a modern take on Billy Joel’s 1989 song of the same name but with updated lyrics (and pop/pop punk/rock FOB stylings).
This version’s rapid-fire lyrics include: “Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice, George Floyd, Bush v. Gore, Elon Musk, Kaepernick, Texas failed electric grid.” These names and phrases are divisive and bring a multitude of emotions for most readers. But regardless of where you stand on racism, the environment (or climate change, if you will), and the host of other important cultural debates, if we can’t have a respectful and level-headed dialogue, then we are not a nation of love. (And it’s especially disconcerting when we have supposed Christians or those advocating that we’re currently a Christian nation, who simultaneously say we don’t need to be a nation of love and respect.)
In an interview on his 2023 book The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, author Tim Alberta gives an example of Greg Locke’s recent sermon on flat earth theology. Alberta’s book is actually about the evangelical church’s polarization due to Trump’s politics, and while that topic reiterated my lived experience, but the flat earth example served as my wakeup call regarding the stupidity vying for legitimacy from some pulpits. When my first thought is that Locke is a false teacher, am I a product of growing up in the ’80s or have I legitimately understood the book of Revelation? Maybe both.
When Christians beg for revival is there any retrospection on the messages they’re trying desperately to share? Do these politically charged sermons, soundbites and podcasts do a disservice to the gospel message? Does our favorite Christian speaker spend a majority of the time championing a politician or denouncing large/encroaching government or heralding the end times or cagily bemoaning the evils of minorities, you know, all the “monsters”? At what point did we let imaginary or secondary issues override Jesus?
[END EXCLUSIVE ARTICLE CONTENT]
Xoncluding Thoughts
One last thought on where I may have done a disservice in my initial 1983 vs. 2023 article:
Matthew J. Lynch’s 2023 book Flood and Fury explores understanding Old Testament violence. One example Lynch gives is the “end-times cataclysms” of the Bible. He likens them to the postapocalyptic world seen in the video game Fallout - which was adapted as a TV show in 2024. Although “lacking the nuclear specifics, some parts of the Old Testament include visions of destruction…[t]he precise problem here is the sheer scope of violence…” (p. 11). Lynch addressing and explaining this issue is important, but for our purposes it also reminded me not to belittle or underestimate the use of apocalyptic language in the Bible. In an effort to curtail over-use of end times fear mongering rhetoric in my 1983 vs. 2023 article, I may have failed to acknowledge that the Bible does use these themes and language. Flood and Fury is a good reminder of holding that tension.
I appreciate you reading and hope you enjoyed a longer section of never-before-seen material! Until next time.
Thanks, in Him,
-Chris (the Bearded Wonder) Fogle
[i] Ruth A. Tucker, From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya: A Biographical History of Christian Missions, p. 479.