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Going to a quasi-Christian (and mostly pro-American) school, I knew firsthand of the type of cultural hypocrisy that such an institution can sink to. Basically, the school made it a point to avoid any sort of cultural fad that might have been prevalent at the time. You name it; it was prohibited. Of course, the school couldn't really enforce this when the students weren't at the school, but the school would try to influence the parents with literature in the front of the student handbook warning of what worldly things will do.

Now, I said hypocrisy earlier. I can think of my classic example: Shakespeare. Let's face it: some of Shakespeare's material is a little off colour, but yet the school permitted a Shakespeare night where I played a seducing womaniser. Shakespeare's plays were considered bad enough that they were banned from being performed in London, but yet today, this material is what's taught in a quasi-Christian school. Let's remember that Shakespeare was one of those fads at one time. One hundred years from now, what are the quasi-Christian and Christian schools going to be teaching in literature class? Will it be the fads of next century or the classics like Friends, Seinfeld, Star Wars or perhaps… Family Guy?

Does reading about a viewpoint that differs from our own make us subscribe to that viewpoint or does it make us understand it better? Depending on the person, it could do either one. The point is that people will not know that we're Christians by our literature. So, what will they know us by? Just remember that the sun shines on the good and bad; God blesses the righteous and the unrighteous with certain gifts. Let's remember that the world's greatest scientist was an atheist. Let's remember that who many consider the nation's greatest president (unless you live in the South) was a deist. Let's remember that of all the people who build our roads, handle our money, prepare our food, drill for our oil, protect our lives and rights, probably most will not be Christians. Does that mean that we should distance ourselves from society by moving to some far-off corner of the world to live in separation? Does that mean that (to borrow an example from a worldly television show) we should wear figurative plastic bubbles to protect ourselves from the world's diseases like we have no immune system and can't determine fiction from reality? By all means, I hope not.