Bible Belt Gives Answers To Rabbi Son
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Christianity Connects With Pop Culture
I came across an interesting interview at Creative Loafing about a son of a rabbi,Benyamin Cohen, who explores the Christian faith. In his book My Jesus Year: A Rabbi’s Son Wanders the Bible Belt in Search of His Own Faith, explores the successful outreach from Christian churches and connection with current times—meaning faith can exist with pop culture.
Here are a few snippets from his interview with Debbie Michaud:
Churches do an amazing job of outreach and marketing themselves to new visitors. In the book, I tell a story of how I got preferential treatment (first-time visitor parking in the front next to the handicapped spots) at a megachurch in Lithonia. Once I walked inside, I was treated like a rock star. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same thing when a wandering Jew walks into a synagogue for the first time. That’s my long way of saying we’re doing something “wrong” and Christians are doing something “right”.
“As for why religion should be “fun and exciting”… I grew up with religion being forced down my throat, which is the furthest thing from being fun and exciting. And from personal experience, I can tell you that’s not the way to get people interested and engaged in their faith. When I have children of my own, I certainly don’t want to force Judaism on them; yet, at the same time, I want them to be religious. It’s that secret ingredient that I was searching for during this year.”
“…despite the fact that Jews are so prevalent in Hollywood there is very little “Jewish” paraphernalia in pop culture. I wrote a whole chapter on the myriad Christian toys, board games, Jesus candy, etc. Have you ever seen a VeggieTales cartoon? We have nothing like that. All we have all are just chintzy knock-offs.”
Continue here to read the full article…
