Clash Vs. Conversation

CLASH VS. CONVERSATION Why war across cultural lines when you can simply talk?

BY JOSHUA ANDERSEN

overwhelmed Independence Mall as police rubbed elbows with protesters and debates erupted over biblical references to slavery and the stoning of children. Luce himself mingled amidst both teenage supporters and livid activists, smiling much, speaking little, and at one point asking a protester (with apparent sincerity), “Why are you so mad?”, to which the protestor responded with a litany of “Christian” evils. Although heated, the day ended peacefully as small pockets of evangelicals and their detractors argued politics, policy, and purity until, slowly, both groups dwindled and the mall once again filled with tourists.

Put simply, human language is wildly deficient.

We learn the same vowels and consonants and often use the same idioms and expressions, yet even in homogeneous settings we can still misunderstand one another. When speaking across a perceived chasm of cultural difference, conversations frequently turn into reactionary arguments or outright provocation.

So while a multitude of English words was used recently in Philadelphia by two groups claiming to know both the cause and the solution to the “moral crisis” facing America, it sounded as if they were speaking different languages entirely.

“The Bible taken literally is a horror!” shouted a protester as a few hundred Christian teenagers formed a sign-bearing line at Philadelphia’s Independence Mall.

“The Bible taken literally says Jesus loves you,” responded a Christian demonstrator over her bright red sign.

Battle Cry (battlecry.com), a conservative “purity” movement sparked by Teen Mania Ministries’ Ron Luce, brought 17,000 youth and their leaders to Philadelphia in May. The event came directly on the heels of two other rallies in Detroit and San Francisco, which drew protests from activist groups that accused Luce and Battle Cry of spreading a message of “fascism” and “theocracy.”

In Philadelphia tense exchanges between the two groups

NAMING THE ENEMY

The message of Battle Cry is ultimately one of “reverse rebellion”—a revolution of sorts against the forces of corporate pop culture that, according to Luce’s Teen Mania, have resulted in the “unprecedented spread of STDs, drug and alcohol abuse, violence, and suicide among the teenage generation.”

Much of the language used at the Philadelphia rally centered on reversing what is considered “cool” among teenagers: what’s manufactured, packaged, and sold by the MTV image-makers versus what the young, hip, media-savvy evangelicals of Teen Mania would like to offer.Violent video games such as “Grand Theft Auto” and the blatant misogyny of videos on Black Entertainment Television, for example, were singled out

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Photos by Joshua Andersen

as “virtue terrorists” pumping a kind of “edutainment” into the living rooms of teenagers, advocating a destructive and morally corrupt lifestyle. But many young Christians—some with tattoos, body piercings, and all the right lingo—stood up at Independence Mall and insisted that traditional morality is not the stuff of a bygone, Ozzie-and-Harriet era.

“Enough sex, enough porn, enough lies about what will make us happy!” shouted a young Teen Mania spokesperson from a makeshift podium. “This is our battle cry!”

And the message resonated strongly among the many teenagers who had come to proclaim “purity” as a viable option for their generation.

“I’ve been on both sides and God’s way is better,” said Jeff Comitz, a 19-year-old Philadelphia native who wanted his voice to be heard at the rally. “[MTV and BET] are promoting safe sex when they should be promoting no sex.”

Indeed, Battle Cry statistics state that a single hour of MTV exposes viewers to nine sexual scenes, 8.9 un-bleeped profanities, and 18.3 bleeped profanities.

Comitz sees an alternative. He said his interpretation of the Bible is literal, and he believes the ancient text is still full of relevant instruction in how to live a lifestyle in opposition to the forces of pop culture. “I think God put those words in there,” said Comitz. “I think he meant what he said. I think when God speaks he means it.”

But it is precisely this literal interpretation of the Bible that drew the most vocal reactions from protesters such as Joey Steele, a 25-year-old communist from New York City who opposes everything from the militaristic language of Battle Cry (much of Battle Cry’s paraphernalia depict tanks, soldiers, and warfare) to its ties to the Bush Administration (through Ron Luce’s appointment to the White House Advisory Commission on Drug-Free Communities).

“There’s a problem with taking this stuff literally,” said Steele, who grew up in a Catholic home. “There are passages in the Bible that, taken literally, justify slavery, justify the horrible oppression of women. [Battle Cry] is right that there’s a moral crisis, but it’s not the moral crisis they’re talking about.

The way to solve it isn’t by going toward traditional morality.”

Steele believes the real agenda of Battle Cry is to pull the country back into a kind of puritanical, Bible-based society built around the virtues of the founding fathers. He is fearful that if the Battle Cry agenda is successful, a narrow, JudeoChristian culture might eventually blur the boundary lines of church and state.

“They’re trying to create a know-nothing population,” said Steele. “People are going toward what is ultimately going to be a very theocratic agenda.We’ve got to struggle with these brothers and sisters ... If they’re not critical of what their leadership is doing, they’re going to end up following right behind it. We’re out here to change minds.”

But change minds from what to what? According to Butch Maltby, a consultant to Ron Luce, the problem with activist attempts at converting the evangelicals is that Steele and his friends are simply missing the point of Battle Cry. “I think it’s interesting that when you come to these rallies for Teen Mania and Battle Cry, a lot of the opposing messages aren’t really on point,” said Maltby.“There’s a lot of preoccupation with politics, with [President] Bush.”

In Philadelphia, for example, much of the protest over Battle Cry’s agenda centered on the war in Iraq and the ousting of President Bush, and rarely touched on the specific desire for purity expressed by the gathered teenagers. According to activist Sunsara Taylor, who spoke on Fox’s O’Reilly Factor in March and protested at the rally in Philadelphia, “The real challenge for young people looking to live a moral and meaningful life is to be a part of the movement to drive out the Bush regime.” While teenagers in Philadelphia waved signs about reclaiming their generation from the violent and sexual forces of pop culture, many protesters called for the impeachment of George Bush—a significant disconnection in the minds of Battle Cry organizers.

IN SEARCH OF COMMON GROUND

Communicating across cultural lines is hard enough—warring across them can get downright ugly. When the dust from clashes such as the ones in Philadelphia and San Francisco finally settles, who has the correct interpretation of America’s

Hundreds of Christian teenagers formed a protest line at Philadelphia’s Independence Mall.

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woes? Are “Grand Theft Auto” and MTV truly destroying the youth of America, as Battle Cry suggests, or is it the fundamentalist Christians themselves, as activist groups say, who are contaminating America’s beloved traditions of freethinking and democracy? Are we indeed in the midst of a culture war between Christian fundamentalists and secular activists?

“It’s not as black and white as these kinds of [Battle Cry] campaigns make it look,” says Kevin Maness, professor of media studies at Eastern University. “I don’t disagree that media can be bad. I share their concerns about conglomeration and I share their concerns about some of the content. But I don’t think you should be so extreme in your rhetoric. It’s a classic propaganda technique to have extremes and generalities.”

Although Maness agrees that violent and sex-saturated media can be a decidedly negative influence on young people, he insists that the rhetoric employed by both Battle Cry and their detractors is essentially a fuse that leads to culture clashes instead of conversations. When you want to pull people into your ideological camp, says Maness, it helps when you have a clearly definable enemy.

“I think one of the big flaws with war rhetoric in general is you have this idea of two clashing armies that are fighting for two particular nations, that have two particular ideologies and different colored uniforms and hats,” says Maness. “That’s classic war propaganda. I’m concerned that this rhetoric doesn’t actually do much good.”

Maness describes the language of both Luce and activists such as Steele as “agitprop,” a kind of political propaganda used to agitate and rile a populace around a certain ideology.

The problem? “You can’t do agitprop forever...because it’s exhausting,” says Maness. “It’s exhausting for people on both sides.” But it’s precisely that exhaustion that Maness sees as a sign of hope for a real conversation instead of bullhorn bullying.

“Maybe if people get tired enough they’ll finally sit down with this other guy who also looks tired but is sitting on the other side of the fence,” says Maness. “We need to learn to have better conversations.”

Conversations—it’s one thing to use words belonging to the same linguistic family; it’s quite another to hear, process, and understand those words when they take shape from radically different worldviews.Yet many Christians are calling for a new conversation between the conservative Christian camp and secular activists. And new conversations require a tweaking of existing vocabulary.

Jim Wallis, author of God’s Politics: Why the Left Gets it Wrong and the Right Doesn’t Get It (HarperSanFrancisco, 2005), has been working hard at creating a new conversational landscape that could potentially bridge the distance between the two camps.

“Sometimes the most strident and narrow voices are the loudest, and more progressive, prophetic, and healing religion often gets missed,” writes Wallis.“People concerned about social change and hungry for spiritual values can actually combine those two quests...We must find a new moral and political language that transcends old divisions and seeks the common good.”

Both Wallis and Maness are essentially asking how Battle Cry might turn a legitimate concern with media conglomerates and their messages into a conversation with secular activists such as Kalle Lasn, who founded Adbusters magazine and helped popularize the term “culture jamming” on much the same anti-media platform as Luce.

Luce allows that there are portions of Teen Mania’s agenda that overlap with those of activists such as Sunsara Taylor, Left: Sunsara Taylor of World Can’t Wait reads from the Bible to protest what she perceives as Battle Cry’s agenda.

Both she and Luce admit their two organizations share some concerns, but it might be too hard to hold a conversation when you’re already holding a protest sign.

Above: Every cause has its t-shirt.

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according to Luce, is that neither side seems able to speak the same language.

“We might have some things in common,” said Luce, surrounded by vociferous protesters, tense police officers, and his own excited entourage, “but we can’t seem to have an actual conversation.” ■

whose organization, World Can’t Wait (worldcantwait.net), was instrumental in organizing protests against Battle Cry. Although her appearance debating Luce on the O’Reilly Factor was more a sparring match between her secular activism and Luce’s conservative Christianity, in person Taylor admitted that she, too, hates the multibillion-dollar porn industry. Both Luce and Taylor want to see corporations stop turning children into mindless consumers, and both reject the objectification of women through sex-saturated advertising. But the big problem,

Joshua Andersen is a freelance writer and frequent PRISM contributor living outside of Philadelphia.

More than Morality

Eric Lubin

BY KRISTYN KOMARNICKI

Despite its focus on destructive cultural influences, Battle Cry is about more than just fighting immoral media. Ultimately, the movement encourages kids not just to clean up their lives but to give up their lives.

At the youth rally held in Philadelphia’s Wachovia stadium in May, Luce paced back and forth on the open stage, telling the tale of the Prodigal Son and interspersing his talk with testimonies given by teens whose lives have been radically changed by an encounter with Christ.

Luce likes to turn things on their heads. “What’s all this about ‘accepting Jesus into your heart’?” he asked the attentive teens and their youth leaders. “Jesus isn’t some bum wandering around, hoping you’ll have pity on him and let the poor guy in.What’s really happening is that you want him to accept you. Well, guess what? He already has. He loves you, he died for you, and he wants you to die to yourself so you can live for him.”

“House lights on!” shouted Luce as he prepared to invite them to do just that. “Let’s turn every light on, and have every eye open.” The long-honored tradition of lowering the lights and asking people to bow their heads and quietly raise their hands if they are ready to (covertly) dedicate their lives to Christ—there’s none of that here.

“I’m going to ask you to do something that might be the boldest thing you’ll ever do in your whole life,” he warned the crowd. “If you are ready to give your life to Christ, or to rededicate your life, I want you to stand up where you are and shout at the top of your lungs, ‘I want the Cross!’ Don’t check with your friends first. Don’t say, ‘I’ll do it if you do it.’

This is about you. Think about it carefully. Don’t get swept

up in the moment. This isn’t about a passing emotional response. This is a lifelong commitment.”

The war rhetoric, the giant venues, the plethora of Battle Cry merchandise (from clothing, books, and videos to downloadable wallpaper for your cell phone)—it remains to be seen whether these will facilitate or impede the work God wants to do in young hearts. But at its core, Battle Cry really does invite kids to make the ultimate commitment—death to self in exchange for life eternal, beginning today.

The corporate-powered youth culture offers drugs, sex, porn, alienation, and violence as the fast track to death.

Judging by the number of kids who stood up for Christ in Philadelphia—and their faces—our young people are clearly dying for something a lot more attractive to live for.

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