On Consumer Culture, Identity, the Church and the Rhetorics of Delight by Mark Clavier

Author:Mark Clavier
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA

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The divided wills of Christian consumers

‘Winter is coming’

During the summer of 2016, a debate erupted over social media about whether faithful Christians should watch Game of Thrones. The argument had little to do with the violence depicted in the films or even the appalling ways many of the characters treat each other. As usual, it was about sex: given the series’ graphic and often violent sexual scenes, could Christians watch the series without committing a sin? Even the eminent conservative pastor John Piper weighed in by composing twelve questions that Christians should ask themselves before settling down with a bowl of popcorn to enjoy the antics of the denizens of Westeros (Piper 2014).

I believe with all my heart that what the world needs is radically bold, sacrificially loving, God-besotted ‘freaks’ and aliens… . The world does not need more cool, hip, culturally savvy, irrelevant copies of itself. That is a hoax that has duped thousands of young Christians. They think they have to be hip, cool, savvy, culturally aware, watching everything in order not to be freakish. And that is undoing them morally and undoing their witness. So, here are … 12 reasons why I am committed to a radical abstention from anything I know is going to present me with nudity.

The perspective that lies behind Piper’s twelve theses is unequivocal: the world is dominated by an inherently or largely anti-Christian media industry that appeals strongly to young men and women, even those who consider themselves good Christians.

The response by other Christians to these and similar concerns was equally firm. Denise McAllister, a journalist for The Federalist, wrote:

The fact is, Christians can watch ‘Game of Thrones’. It’s not sinful, it’s not bringing shame to their Christian testimony, and it’s not unwise. The series is filled with lessons for humanity in love, devotion, politics, family, and life. To judge them by the standard of your own fragile conscience is to proudly put yourself in the place of God. (McAllister 2017)

For David Muth, writing for The Living Church, the Game of Thrones is brutal and meaningless but also ‘Christ-haunted’, which he, in the tradition of J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, likens to the old pagan world: ‘Pleasures were to be grasped in whatever form they may be readily at hand, and whether they involved cruelty or kindness was a matter of relative taste’ (Muth 2013). He even finds moral worth in watching the series: ‘Seeing the hopelessness and savagery of what this age threatens to become may serve to shake us from our torpor.’ In both instances, the apologists seem to be arguing that by watching Game of Thrones, Christians can gain a perspective on reality as it is or, at least, as it’s becoming – both sordid and beautiful.

Whatever the merits of these and similar arguments, in many respects, the debate about Game of Thrones is a reprisal of a concern as old as Christianity itself: what does it mean in our ordinary lives to be in the

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