There”s a lot of blame going around these days. Whether it’s politics, publishing, the economy, or the decline of Western Civilization in general, there is no shortage of culprits for why things aren’t the way they should be.
- Rap music
- Organized religion
- Wall Street
- Atheism
- The mainstream media
- The Tea Party
- Capitalism
- Television
- Oil companies
All these and more have shared some degree of blame, by one group or another, for screwing things up.
Blame is an interesting thing. It goes all the way back to the Garden when Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed the serpent. The funny thing about blame is, the bigger things get, the busier we are, and the more complicated life becomes, the harder it is to really blame anyone. So we generalize:
- The World is the problem
- The Government is the problem
- Hollywood is the problem
- The Church is the problem
- Sin is the problem
You might as well blame the Trilateral Commission while you’re at it. These things are so nebulous as to render blame moot. I mean, how exactly does one go about changing… the World, the Government, Hollywood, or the Church? It’s a rather helpless feeling, isn’t it?
I succumbed to that helpless feeling last week, momentarily, when Nicole Petrino-Salter posted a series of blurbs from various authors asking them, in three sentences or less, to “define Christian Fiction.” Both Part One and Part Two displayed, in living color, the swath of opinions that exist among Christian authors and readers.
It was the comment left by dayle that gave me chills (the creepy kind):
See dog chase tail.
Truth is, both are to blame:
- The Church AND its Members are to blame
- Publishers AND Consumers are to blame
But in this scheme, there is only one person on the hook. The Individual. And as long as the Individual is happy to criticize the Government, the Church, Hollywood, Publishers, or Consumers, or content to drink the Kool-Aid, tail-chasing will remain status quo.
This is a very valid point, and one employed often by supporters of contemporary Christian fiction (and other cultural artifacts and industries): It’s not the publisher’s fault, they say. Publishers are simply giving consumers what they want. Which means
a.) Publishers are NOT at fault, and
b.) The blame — if “blame” is the correct word to use — lies squarely on… that amorphous, unnamed, perpetually hungry, hard to peg, money-wielding group called Consumers.
Translation: NO ONE IS TO BLAME. At least, no one who really can make a difference.
When the film version of the Da Vinci Code released, there was much consternation about how it would impact Christians. Would there be a mass defection once the conspiratorial underpinnings of organized religion was finally revealed? Would Christians see the film and subtly be re-coded (to think rationally)? An L.A. Times article entitled Vatican Officials Grappling with Da Vinci Code cited one priest’s blame:
Father Wauck makes a great point. One of the reasons films and books like the DaVinci Code create such a big ripple in the Church is because so many professing Christians are so ignorant and uninformed about their beliefs. Or as Wauck puts it “…the popular appeal of the book underscores the failure of the organized church to adequately educate its followers.”
It’s why these debates become so frustrating, so fast. We’re not sure where to place the blame and when we finally do, there’s not a damn thing anyone can do about it.
Which means either surrender, or shut up and smolder.
The pastor says, when we teach “hard doctrine” or challenge our membership, we lose people. And we can’t lose people. So we give them what they want. The Christian publisher says, when we give them something heady, edgy, or outside the traditional genres, it doesn’t sell. And we can’t NOT sell. So we give them what they want.