By Greg gauthier
If Christians want to re-enter the mainstream, they're going to have to do it by exploiting the cultural landscape that has been erected while they've been asleep for the last 50 years.This means learning the ins-and-outs of postmodern epistemology, the pretzel-knot metaphysics of subjective-materialism, the black hole of nihilistic-hedonistic ethics, and the psychology of absolute self-regard... and then turning all of that on its head, in the form of art and entertainment media.
And I don't mean rebooting the "Bibleman" series, here. Please don't do that.
What I mean, is storytelling that pulls young minds back from the brink. Heroes that are willing to stare into Nietzsche's abyss and have the wherewithal to escape it, and even collapse it. You need to make faith a virtue again, and the way to do that, is to make it desirable, and the way to do that, is to put characters in situations where the embrace of the virtues is the path to redemption.
And I don't just mean the martial virtues. I mean all of them. Temperance, Charity (properly understood as Caritas), Discernment, Courage in all its forms, Fortitude, Humility, Gratitude, Patience, and of course Faith itself, and dozens of other minor virtues.
The Catholics used to have a pantheon of their own that gave them a full catalogue of characters and stories upon which they could draw to provide this cultural guidance, in the form of the saints and martyrs. But most of that has been forgotten already, outside of a handful of devout trad communities. Which is why abominations like "Bibleman" now exist.
One place you might draw inspiration from, is C.S. Lewis. His work is sophisticated, extremely courageous, and deeply thoughtful. But not a lot of it translates well to film or television. So, he functions as a good base model, but adaptation and innovation will be necessary -- here, I don't mean of Lewis' works themselves. I mean of whatever they inspire, in new works. But that kind of work is going to require making a lot of mistakes and learning from them. And I'm not sure Western Christians really care enough anymore, to bear the suffering that will bring.
