I do not often speak about the Christian Bubble in a complimentary way, and I'm a Christian, so let's talk about why I think it doesn't spread the gospel well and needs some tweaking.
*The blog you see here is written with a Christian perspective.*
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| Photo by Trenton Thomas |
The "Christian Bubble" refers to a group of Christians that take in almost exclusively Christian content, avoiding secular content in the general sense. Given that definition, we move forward. In most cases of this, you can get culture shock by even stepping outside the "Bubble" for one day, as well as being judged for talking about what doesn't fit the standard of your Bubble by others in it. The Christian genre of media is marketed to these individuals. This is the audience you are writing/filming for if you publish under the "Christian" genre in any way.
I have many reasons that this is not the best way to live for Christ. For starters, you only interact with Christian people who are already (mostly) saved and the amount of diversity in your life is nonexistent here. That negates the purpose of the gospel, which is to be spread to the unsaved people in the world - not preached to a choir. On top of this blaring fact, the standard of living makes it a separate world where you can't reach the outside world because you can't relate to humans outside the Bubble. No outside relationships mean no way to talk about Jesus in a natural way. If you bring in an outsider and they are themselves they can get judged for being themselves, thus they leave and never come back. This is a problem for Christian-kind that needs to be solved. Let's break down the major points.
The Standard of Perfection
The gospel itself is that Jesus took on sin so that we can live in eternity with Him instead of Hell. God loved us enough to send His Son to us, then send the Holy Spirit to help us after Jesus ascended back to Heaven. We are now supposed to go and tell the Good News of Jesus' victory over death and follow Him through our study of the Bible and prayer. Nowhere in the gospel does it say we need to attain perfection and earn our salvation, yet the Bubble culture can make the gospel a list of rules and not a relationship with Christ. This is a huge, gigantic problem. If the Jews could not handle a long list of rules created by Pharisees, neither can the Gentiles. Overcomplicating everything is a human trait we could all go without.
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What I mean by a standard of perfection has to do with social rules. If you don't behave according to the social rules of the group you will be judged and talked about badly. The set of rules (spoken or unspoken) before you are easily identified when broken. If you slept in and forgot your bible study or accidentally dressed outside of the dress code you will get judged. If you challenge the status quo you are now a rebel, which makes anyone creative or different stick out like they are painted neon. Think of Belle from Disney. The unusual humans, like me, don't fit here and aren't getting much out of church because we are bored and have nothing to challenge us.
Not fitting the standard leads to many things, including being excluded. I have felt this exclusion before and it is strange, like you didn't get raised there (only you did) and you're regarded as a foreigner. Also, expect the gossip to start. They may talk about you like you are living in sin and need to see the light - when really, all you did was do something that broke their mold (although living in sin for real is not good). I know it's odd, but it happens. Creative people who try to hold mirrors up to the society here are called boat-rockers, so you are socially deviant in their eyes. They want to be comfortable and cozy, which makes asking difficult questions hard. Deviants are upsetting to them. This is how you kill a church from the inside out. You will lose anyone who is considered a social deviant to another church after a good while of being ignored.
*I will note that living in sin is an issue if you are in fact doing so. I do not deny this by mentioning the above. There are some issues that go under Christian Liberties (Romans 14 here ), but sin is not a myth.*
Being Too Comfortable To Be Sharpened
Here we see that boat-rockers are considered deviants. In this way, a lack of challenge leads to boredom in some individuals. Why? Because there is no stimulation that spurs us on to follow Christ in a Church or Bubble that does not want to come out of their cozy, comfortable, easy lifestyle. Being comfortable does not focus on Christ at all, but instead, it serves yourself. It is selfish to keep the Good News of eternal life to yourself because you want to stay in your simple, predictable lifestyle. We all hate change and I understand that. What I don't understand is being sheltered to the point of being too different to reach other cultures or the world itself. God did not call the biblical people to comfort. While He does want us to have joy, we are not supposed to use that joy to serve ourselves alone. Two people sharpen each other. That requires challenge and study. If you want a predictable life I understand why, yet I don't believe Jesus died and rose again so we could live in a bubble. All nations will one day praise God. That means we step out of our bubble to reach those nations. In order to do that we throw away predictable altogether.
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In this way, there are taboo subjects that come up in the outside world and are avoided like the plague in the Bubble. Sex is a big one unless you are married. The youth classes in Bubble Churches are sometimes ill-prepared for dating and sex in the world because the Church failed to teach it, and these students fall flat on their faces due to the sheltering they received. Ouch! It hurts, believe me (High School, sigh). Explain it in an age-appropriate way to your kids or they will feel that pain. Don't leave it to the public schools. Sex and the opposite sex shouldn't be taboo when it is the reason you are alive in the first place. If sex is not explained at all or not well someone can take your innocence more easily because you are ignorant about what leads to sex. Teach your kids what they need to know based on maturity, yes, but do teach them. If you don't the world will.
*I also acknowledge here that parents should teach their kids about sex and their bodies (mine did) and it is an awkward subject to struggle through in conversation. Nobody is perfect and sex for the first time is super awkward anyway. While the Church should address it, the parents should be talking about it, too.*
Revealing Truth While Walking On Eggshells
The other serious issue is the unwillingness to look at the darkness and combat it. We are God's warriors, are we not? If the only thing allowing evil is that good people do nothing the Christian Bubble is allowing tremendous evil and injustice to happen by avoiding the dark topics and shunning what doesn't fit their cozy little world. God called us to do what is good and serve others. Are we truly serving others by not acknowledging the darkness around us? No, we are enabling it to happen.
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| Photo by Say Goodnight Kevin |
The problem with confronting the Bubble within the genre they read is that only they read it. If they don't accept it and demand it be taken off shelves the work created to show a mirror in their face dies. No one else will read it. These people are easier to offend. For that reason, youth who are made to follow rules they don't believe in will, upon adulthood, decide to live their own way in the face of the adults that raised them. Those youth may rub it in the face of their parent or grandparent and cut them off entirely, in extreme cases. The Christian genre is not where you want your book if you want a wide audience to read it and it shows a mirror in the face of society. If the Bubble won't read secular novels they won't ever see it. Logically, this means they don't often have their comfort zone interrupted. Ted Dekker is about the only writer who can get away with darkness being portrayed intensely in the Christian fiction genre. He is the only one I know of, other than Frank Peretti.
The conclusions that I reach are that we need to fix the Christian genre so that we can challenge the faith of those who are still sitting in their comfort zones instead of spreading the sweet love of Jesus. Unfortunately, if you intend to make it financially in Christian fiction, you have to walk on eggshells to challenge your readers and film audiences, which makes it nearly impossible (depending on who you are). Given that, the Bubble is a hard place for writers who want to make a difference and don't have a big name.
Not Entirely Bad
The Christian genre is not a bad thing if you want to enjoy it. I listen to Christian music and have some Christian genre books in my library as pallet cleansers between crime fiction. I don't want you to think I avoid it in its entirety. My father even supports K-Love radio (which I love). I was raised on Veggietales and have grown up in the Church. I love Bible study books and devotionals as much as any Christian. Most of my beef with the Bubble is that Christian fiction has so many (too many) rules that make it near impossible for nonChristians to read it. I am also highly creative in nature and changed churches with my family from a Methodist to a Friends church when I was younger. I will tell you that the Methodist church my family attended (minus my family members, who continued to be loving) did start to treat us as strangers during that transition and I felt invisible there even before that. It was a Bubble Church and I didn't fit. While that church has changed since I went there, we left that church for good.
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I need you to know that as a Christ-follower I am passionate about Him and want His love and salvation to spread to the nations. I am not attacking the Bubble for no reason. It does have a support network in it, which shouldn't leave, but it needs to not be an exclusive club. Christ came to save all of us, not just the Bubble. If you raise your kids in only Christian content you leave them at a disadvantage on how to live in the world without being of the world, which isn't good. There should be a balance of both secular and Christian content so that we can guide youth to adulthood and prepare them for combatting the darkness out there. Arm them for battle; don't ill equip your kids for what is truly out there. When they are on their own they will need the armor.
https://www.beliefnet.com/faiths/christianity/5-taboo-topics-churches-need-to-be-willing-to-talk-about.aspx
https://www.philcooke.com/christian_media_bubble/
https://crossexamined.org/should-you-raise-your-kids-in-a-christian-bubble/
https://www.josh.org/breaking-out-christian-bubble/
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