50 Shades and the Limits of Cultural Engagement

As forecasted, 50 Shades of Grey is a box office hit. The film toppled a record for R-rated films set in 2004 by The Passion of the Christ, a fact that practically begs to be stretched to its symbolic and metaphorical limits. Its popularity is both predictable and suprising–predictable because of the book’s astonishing success, and surprising because the box office, as this New York Times report noted, is not usually kind to sexually explicit romps like this.

The Christian blogosphere’s reaction has reminded me of my favorite scene from The Return of the King: the slow camera reveal of the thousands of Rohan cavalry about to charge the orcs assaulting the kingdom of Minas Tirith. Dozens upon dozens of posts have poured in from bloggers ranging from your humble servant to my fellow Patheos colleagues to the erudite analysts at First Things, World Magazine, and The Gospel Coalition. Indeed, the sheer number of pieces on 50 Shades has inspired some fair questioning on just how helpful this knd of rapid-response blogging is in the first place.

That’s a valid concern, but I want to shelve it for just a moment and reposition the conversation. Of all the Christian responses to 50 Shades, the one response that genuinely surprised me was that of Paul Asay and Plugged In, the pop culture-analysis publication of Focus on the Family. To put it mildly, I did not expect Plugged In to review the film. Christianity Today declined, as did World, two Christian publications that are notably more generous in their evaluations of secular art than Plugged In. Whereas the former magazines approach film and television from a more traditional critical perspective, Plugged In typically evaluates them strictly from a “family-friendly” rubric, sifting through the number of swear words, sex scenes, and violent images to render a verdict on whether a particular film is appropriate for Christian/family (a problematic yet frequently made equivocation) consumption.

Given that 50 Shades’s subject matter and explicit treatment of it are closer to being marketing hooks than secrets at this point, the Plugged In review seems almost excessive. If the point of a review is to let parents know if a film is “safe for the family,” then a verdict of 50 Shades of Grey can be written by anyone who has seen the trailer.  The obvious question then is why would Plugged In feel the need to send one of its reviewers to the cinema to watch the film?

Asay posted an explanation on the Plugged In blog shortly before the review was published. Here’s a relevant excerpt:

People will read our review, no question. Which means my prayer is that I can craft something that, while not necessarily revolutionary, will help all of us, myself included, think through the issues that swirl around the film. I feel a sense of purpose here in that—a calling, if you will. I don’t believe our primary mission at Plugged In is to say nice things about nice movies: It’s to shine that light in a sometimes murky world. To examine the stories told in dark theaters and see what should be condemned and what might be redeemed. To encourage others sometimes, but to warn them as well.

Some have compared what we do at Plugged In to Isaiah’s “watchmen on the walls” (Isaiah 62:6). And it seems to me that watchmen aren’t needed when things are quiet outside their walls. It’s when things get hairy that they become pretty important.

I’m grateful for Asay and the work that Plugged In does. It’s valuable work that makes a difference for many people, and it comes from a desire to be faithful to Christ in all of life. I’m not doubting Asay’s or Focus on the Family’s intentions for one minute. Rather, I’m wondering if this whole episode is an illustration of some inherent weaknesses of this species of evangelical “culture engagement.”

Asay writes that Plugged In decided to review 50 Shades in order to be faithful to its mission statement, which reads, “Shining a light on the world of popular entertainment.” Fifty Shades is popular, Asay says, and is therefore in need of a Christian response. “Christian culture is curious,” he writes, and wants to “understand why this book and now movie…has become such a phenomenon.” Thus, in order to speak truth into popular culture for the benefit of the church, Asay reasons that there must be a Christian in the theater seats who can receive 50 Shades and then talk about it honestly to other Christians.

I don’t disagree with Asay that Christians need to have something to say about popular culture, including 50 Shades. Where I think Asay and many evangelical writers get it wrong is in their assumption that the only way to talk honestly about culture is to imbibe it first, and then speak truth about it. This assumption seems based on another assumption: That it is impossible to speak Christianly to culture that we opt out of. Now of course, by urging readers to avoid 50 Shades at all costs, Asay is, in a sense, equipping Christians to Christianly opt out of a piece of culture. But what is stumping me at this point is why there needs to be even one Christian watching 50 Shades in order for a call for shunning to be legitimate. Why exactly do Christians need to send one of their own “through the wall” before running like smoke and oakum?

I can imagine someone answering, “Well, unless someone goes to the cinema, how will Christians know the truth about it?” Now right there we have an assumption on the table, and it’s an assumption that undergirds Plugged In’s approach to films. The assumption is that watching the movie –> knowing the truth about it –> credibly warning others. The problem with this assumption is hard to find if (as has been the case for the last few years) most of our cultural output consists of superhero morality tales. But when a movie like 50 Shades comes around, the tension is easier to spot. Simply watching a film doesn’t actually equip a person with the necessary truth about what it means. For Plugged In, whether Christian families can faithfully watch a film is a matter of what comes out of the aggregation machine when sex, violence, and language are computed. But this is a vastly insufficient method for understanding culture. A piece of art is more than its disparate elements. That doesn’t absolve Christians from tough questions about whether a film with two or three sex scenes is a redeemable viewing choice (for many, it isn’t), but it does challenge the Christian viewer to consider art as a holistic story rather than merely the sum of its audio/visual impressions.

Counter intuitively, this dilemma was exposed in Plugged In’s review of 50 Shades. Because Plugged In approaches films for their atomized objectionables, it reasoned, logically, that unless someone actually watched 50 Shades to get the info on said objectionables, Christian readers would remain in a position of vulnerable ignorance. But that’s not necessarily true. Christians were privy to a wealth of information about 50 Shades’s BDSM subject matter and the boasting of its producers that its sex would be more graphic and more frequent than the competition. A film like 50 Shades cannot be logically anathematized a priori if Plugged In’s content rubric is applied here. It must be seen. If, however, films are more than their individual elements, then it is perfectly reasonable for a Christian to decide that a film about sadomasochistic sex is unworthy of time or mammon.

Again, I’m not at all doubting the sincere intentions, and I certainly don’t want to imply some slip of integrity on the part of anyone (least of all Asay). More than I’m grieved that Asay had to sit through the movie, I am worried that this approach to evaluating pop culture is a trap that will ensnare parents and pastors. As grateful as we should be for ministries like Plugged In, they are not a replacement for the biblically ordained soul-care given to families, the local church, and Christian fellowship. The thought that a local pastor, student minister or caring parent would feel like they have no choice but to put themselves in a position to consume a vile film in order to protect those in their care is deeply troubling.

It’s also unnecessary. Cultural engagement is a necessary part of being on mission in a fallen world. Those who do it full time are in a real sense missionaries. But it is crucial to remember that our missional mandate is to present, as a purified church, a Good News of redemption from the “empty way of life” of the fallen world. The vision of a Christian so enthralled by God’s gifts of redeemed marriage and the marriage bed that she turns away with loathing from the nihilistic consumerist sex of 50 Shades is far more powerful than any astute analysis or report of the movie’s demerits. Empowering Christians with a more full orbed vision of what pop culture really means for the church will (perhaps paradoxically) also empower Christians to turn their back on the demonic and irreparable.

Cultural engagement is more than bringing a Christian report card back from the theater. It requires vibrant faith, theological knowledge, a vivid imagination and a Great Commission heart. Cultural engagement is difficult, but it need not be made more difficult by reductionism. As evangelicals recover a sense of story and not just worldview, we will see more clearly the lines of tangency between the Gospel and the arts. That will lead us to more careful watching, more thoughtful conversations, and–in at least one case–a truly Christian repudiation.