The problem with making Christian versions of everything

NEW YORK (RNS) If someone offered you the chance to live in a world designed to look and feel like the real one, but is actually a tidier, more ordered Stepford-ish facsimile, would you take it? For many Christians today, the answer appears to be yes.

Call it Newton’s Third Law of modern Christianity, but for every event, there appears to be an equal and opposite corresponding Christian event. There are Christian music festivals and book festivals; Christian versions of TED Talks; the upcoming International Christian Film Festival in Orlando, Fla.; and earlier this month, even a Christian Fashion Week.

While it might seem tempting for Christians to lock themselves away in anti-secular bubbles, where they could wear nothing but Christian clothing and eat nothing but Christian food (Chick-fil-A, I’m guessing?), the ramifications of doing so are polarizing at best, and deeply destructive at worst.

Just look at the recent spate of religious freedom laws being passed around the country. Regardless of whether you view the RFRAs as discriminatory or necessary, the nut of their existence essentially boils down to separateness. At their core, they are laws designed to keep one group of people from being forced to interact with another.

It doesn’t matter whether they are being sold as religious freedom, LGBT discrimination or Rick Santorum’s hypothetical of protecting gay T-shirt makers from Westboro Baptist Church, the fact of the matter is that RFRAs construct a legal wall between two potentially opposing camps. And while on the surface this may appear to have nothing to do with Christians’ creating their own versions of things, the truth is, they are much closer than you think...
Complete article here.

Comments

  1. CJApril 11, 2015 at 5:26 PM

    That was a terrible article. The author basically says that Christian fashion shows only differ from ISIS beheading Copts in degree, not in kind. It relies on the tried and true progressive concept of "othering" as if the secular world is an innocent bystander in this separatism. The fact is that gatekeepers of the larger culture tend to be hostile to those who would practice their craft in an explicitly Christian manner. This is evident in everything from the anecdotes that Rod Dreher has been collecting about academia to the Sad Puppies campaigns in Sci-Fi literature.

    It's telling that the author skips right over modesty as a goal of Christian fashion and jumps straight to social justice concerns about the environment and wages. Those are worthy goals, but Christians shouldn't have to limit their expression of Christian values that are acceptable to leftists. Christian events don't have to violate the command to be salt and light. The invitation to come and see is still there for anyone who is interested.

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