All God's Children and Blue Suede Shoes

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding Expose on Culture & Christians Role in It
Review: From telling us what culture is and the various levels of it to what it means to be "in the world but not of it," Myers delivers the best to date analysis of culture and Christianity. Of the numerous insights he gives, one of the favorites is: schools do not just give knowledge, they do cultural assimilation. And we wonder why our schools are letting us down! This is a must read for Christians and those into popular culture!

Rating:
Summary: A fine and much-needed look at pop culture and the Church
Review: From telling us what culture is and the various levels of it to what it means to be "in the world but not of it," Myers delivers the best to date analysis of culture and Christianity. Of the numerous insights he gives, one of the favorites is: schools do not just give knowledge, they do cultural assimilation. And we wonder why our schools are letting us down! This is a must read for Christians and those into popular culture!

Rating:
Summary: timely and important
Review: I read this book when it first was published and it has helped me to frame my thinking ever since. I have yet to find the author wrong in his conclusions. Rather, as time goes by, he proves to be more and more on target. It is too bad more people are not aware of this work.

Rating:
Summary: timely and important
Review: I read this book when it first was published and it has helped me to frame my thinking ever since. I have yet to find the author wrong in his conclusions. Rather, as time goes by, he proves to be more and more on target. It is too bad more people are not aware of this work.

Rating:
Summary: Popular Culture and a Declining Country
Review: This book does a marvelous job giving facts about culture and Christianity from the perspective of someone who knows both extremely well. It is easy to read but not simplistic. It should appeal to those who want to think more deeply than typical Christian magazines take you but not so deeply that you feel you're reading a treatise. The writing style is buoyant, and at times clever, so you'll never feel bored.

Rating:
Summary: A fine and much-needed look at pop culture and the Church
Review: This is one terrific book. Ken Myers delves deeply into popular culture. He does a great job of grounding his research and findings in a theological framework. He cites everyone from C.S. Lewis to Bob Dylan to G.K. Chesterton to Bo Diddley.

This book is so needed today. So much of pop evangelicalism and even the mainline churches have unwisely and unthinkingly schmaltzed the Church's glorious message into a dumbed-down, styrofoam, homogenized pop culture framework and are submerging the Church's heritage into it. (See Marva Dawn's book "Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down"). I refuse to listen to my local Christian radio station because they've pretty much pancaked their format to just watered-down pop Christian music, pretty much devoid of hymnody or anything with any history to it. What if the World War II generation had demanded that the Church's glorious history and hymnody be replaced by Lawrence Welk-style tunes? That's exactly what's happening today.

Read Myers' book to find out the values of popular culture and how they compare to high and folk cultures. This book will provide you with much great background, and, most importantly, helps you to think Christianly. It's creative, intelligent and a very enjoyable read.